Why are UK teenage killings down?

Having been aware of the issue for some time, I was intrigued to see a report yesterday on the BBC website that the murder rate amongst teenagers has shown a sudden and dramatic drop. The report begins as follows:

The number of teenagers killed violently in the UK has fallen by 30% in one year, BBC research has found.

The BBC teen homicide database, which records murder and manslaughter cases, shows 51 10 to 19-year olds lost their lives in 2009 compared with 72 in 2008.

Most 2009 victims were male and half of all those killed were stabbed. Twelve were beaten and two were shot.

Police say anti-knife crime tactics explain the drop, but critics argue it is too early to make such conclusions.

Back in June I blogged about a possible increase in the number of teenagers committing murder. This article was the result of a hunch, based initially (as it happens) on reports from the BBC news website. Later in the year, however, I was able to obtain proper figures which showed a definite increase in the rate of teenagers convicted of murder, going back to some time in the mid 1990s. In many cases, the victims of these teenage murderers are also themselves teenagers. Hence the decline in teenage murders will probably also indicate a decline in teenage murderers.

Again based on the absence of news reports, I had begun to suspect that the number of murders involving teenagers had indeed declined this year, so this story is no great surprise. Indeed, it must be welcomed. As it indicates, however, there are a number of unanswered questions.

One is whether or not the decline will be sustained. The chart I produced from the figures supplied shows occasional dips as well as a gradual rise in the number of teenagers convicted of murder. However, it must be pointed out that murders by teenagers sometimes involve multiple perpetrators —ie they are instances of gang attacks —and so it might only take one or two fewer killings to produce a significant drop in the number of killers. Both the dips and the rises on this chart may be affected by this factor. By contrast, a large drop in the number of murders would, on the face of it, seem more significant, since single incidents rarely involve more than one victim.

The second question, posed in the BBC article itself, is what might have caused a decline. The police and Home Office point (unsurprisingly) to their own initiatives. Others suggest the informal counselling done by staff in hospital A and E departments.

For my own part, I wonder if the decline has been caused, actually, by teenagers. Young people have always had their own, informal but powerful, sub-culture, created by the things in which they take an interest —games, fashions, TV programmes, the internet and so on. People of my age well remember the seaside clashes of Mods and Rockers back in the ’60s. Then came the ‘Hippy’ movement and Flower Power. The fashions came and went, shaped by the trend-makers, but dependent, ultimately, on the young people themselves.

It would be no surprise to me if the teenage community simply decided it had had enough of violence —at least at the level sufficient to result in someone’s death. Maybe all those ‘shrines’ on Facebook and Myspace have had an effect. There is nothing quite as capable of bringing an end to a trend amongst young people as negative peer pressure. Certainly it would be worth investigating wether this might be so. I am much less easily convinced that it has been the result of anything said or done by adult ‘officialdom’!

Then there is the third, related, question, which is what caused (or, maybe, is still causing) the nevertheless high rate of these killings, for behind the apparent decrease is certainly a previous increase, as the figures show. Was this, too, a ‘fashion’, and if so, what drove it? Just as importantly, could it have been ‘nipped in the bud’ at an early stage?

Any decline in violence must be welcomed, but we should remember that there is still a subculture out there which, I suspect, would horrify most of us from more sheltered backgrounds.

John Richardson
24 December 2009

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Would Darwin give a monkey’s about global warming?

So the Copenhagen summit has come and gone, “and we have not brought salvation to the earth” (Is 26:18).

Doubtless, the global warming saga will run for some time, as will the question about the extent to which mankind is responsible for causing it and capable of curing it.

As I looked at the televised pictures of delegates to the summit, however, I found myself wondering, “Does it really matter?” Or rather, “What reason, given the presuppositions held by most of these delegates, would they or anyone else with the same viewpoint give for arguing that it mattered?”

Let us take the ‘worst case but one’ scenario. (The worst-case scenario is, I would argue, runaway and irreversible global warming leading the planet to hot up like Venus and become utterly uninhabitable. I’m not sure if this is possible, but I just thought I’d touch base with that one.)

The second-worst case, I guess, is something like this: the planet warms up by several degrees celsius. The seas rise by a number of metres, inundating much of the existing land. There is a major refugee crisis, and at the same time a catastrophic decline in our ability to produced food. Wars, riots and starvation become rampant. Billions die. At the same time, tens of thousands of species of plant and animal become extinct. The global ecosystem wobbles on the point of collapse. More and more life forms are threatened with extinction including, possibly, the entire human race.

My question to the Copenhagen delegates is, “So what?”

As far as I am aware, our planet has suffered several what are called ‘extinction events’ —including the Cretaceous–Tertiary, the Triassic–Jurassic, the Permian–Triassic, the Late Devonian and the Ordovician–Silurian. And that’s just the big ones. Apparently there are a number of other, lesser, extinction events which can be added to the mix.

According to Wikipedia (and why should I doubt it?), 97% of all species that have ever existed are extinct. Yet, every time, the ecosystem got over it. From a purely evolutionary perspective —and I am sure that is the perspective not only of most Copenhagen delegates but of their scientific advisers —an extinction event is a mere ‘blip’. Indeed, it is arguably an opportunity rather than a catastrophe. After all, the death of the dinosaurs led to the rise of the mammals, including ourselves. Who knows to what the AGW extinction event, should it happen, might give rise?

Of course, one of the worries is that a lot of people will die. But whilst accepting this with equanimity is not a vote-winner, it is surely an acceptable attitude in the biological long-term. Let us not forget, everyone alive now will probably be dead in a hundred and fifty years. What does it matter if some of them die sooner, rather than later?

Some might appeal to the suffering that global warming would cause as a reason for concern. But the more people global warming kills, the less actual human suffering there will be in the long-term. For it is not just that existing people will die, and therefore not suffer any longer, there will be fewer people born to suffer in future, because there will be a smaller human population.

Moreover, if the people who blame global warming on human influence are right, the fewer people there are, the more rapidly the problem of global warming will be corrected. Some years ago, when I was more interested such things, I had a book called The Optimum Population for Britain, which reckoned the figure was 35 million. Given that we are currently at 70 million and rising, a population collapse would be beneficial, and especially so if there is widespread loss of low-lying land to the rising sea.

Certainly the human race cannot go on increasing at its present prodigious rate. The effects of global warming on the human population are thus, from a planetary point of view, likely to be nothing but beneficial, especially if, as some are arguing, we are the chief cause of the phenomenon in the first place.

Others will point to the loss of bio-diversity, but as already been observed, we know that this is not a real problem following previous extinctions. Bio-diversity is not a constant, but goes in cycles. Nor is a dramatic loss of such diversity a problem. It seems likely that at least some extinction events occurred virtually overnight in terms of planetary history. Yet the ecosystem recovered every time.

Equally, the time taken for such a recovery is not an issue. No-one is actually waiting for this recovery! No one is inconvenienced if it should take a few million extra years. All we need to know is that, willy-nilly, it does seem to occur.

So yes, global warming is a threat to our survival. But then we are a threat to the survival of other species, from the late Dodo to the soon-to-be late polio virus. It is only a form of speciesism which laments the demise of the former over the latter, or ourselves over either or both.

Would Darwin, or should Darwinists (which is most of our political and scientific establishment), give a monkey’s* about global warming? If they are right, then at worst, it would reset the evolutionary clock. But we have every reason to believe the planet would recover. And it might even get rid of the chief planetary trouble makers, namely ourselves.

And if that should happen, would anyone care?

Revd John Richardson
21 December 2009

* To give a monkey’s is an English phrase meaning ‘to care’.

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Is the Bible anti-gay?

This article originally appeared on the Guardian's religious comment and analysis site, Comment is free: belief. It formed part of a series of responses including contributions from Theo Hobson and Davis Mac-Iyalla.

Update: Judith Maltby has contributed here. 

Is the Bible anti-gay? The short answer has to be "Yes". Despite Theo Hobson's commendable efforts to argue that it is not talking about us, and Davis Mac-Iyalla's desire to summarise Jesus' message as a quote from the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18), the modern enquirer, who has posed this most modern of questions, will surely find any other answer evasive.

Yet that answer does not at all mean what the enquirer will take it to be saying. It is like the lawyer who asked of Jesus, "What shall I do to be saved?"and was told to keep the great commandments. The answer was true enough, but the fullness of truth lay outside the form of the question. The subsequent parable of the Good Samaritan is not a truism about altruism, but a challenge to the questioner's world-view.

So with the Bible's standpoint on sex. In Genesis 1:27 we read that God "created man in his own image ... male and female he created them". God and human gender combine in the same sentence. Our interpretation of this, however, depends first on whether we regard the Bible as a coherent whole or as a series of quite unrelated "musings" on the divine. If the latter, then this is a standalone enigma. The Christian who can speak of "the Bible's view" on anything, however, will find here the beginnings of a theme which is developed and clarified as the revelation of scripture unfolds.

Too often in the Bible, human marriage and sexuality are depicted at their worst —the examples are legion. Yet throughout, God's relationship with his people is also depicted in marital terms. Thus the Bible ends with a marriage between Christ and the church: "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband" (Rev 21:2). God is the great bridegroom.

This is not, however, because God's love is, in some sense, "like" a bridegroom's. Rather, marriage derives from our relationship with God. It is itself an "image", just as we are also God's image. Far from being seen as a challenge to true spirituality, sexuality thus provides an insight into salvation, with the Song of Songs as the outstanding biblical depiction of what this means in human experience. It is this which explains why the Bible takes sex so seriously.

However, as Davis Mac-Iyalla rightly recognises, Jesus provides the interpretive centre of the Bible and, in one of his hardest sayings, makes it clear that the divine "model" for marriage is one man, with one woman, in a lifelong covenant.

All expressions of sexuality outside this framework are, to a greater or lesser extent, declensions from the ideal which aims to reflect the very character of God. Some were allowed, Jesus said, because of people's lack of faith. Others were vehemently prohibited. Ultimately, however, the Bible's position on sexuality cannot be defined by listing those things to which it is notionally "opposed". Rather, we need to see it arises from an overarching understanding of the nature of God and his relationship with his creation.

Revd John P Richardson
17 December 2009

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Draconian, as in 'pertaining to Draco'

A number of people have responded on this blog and elsewhere to my post of yesterday on the assumption that I support the legislation on homosexuality currently being proposed in the Ugandan legislature.

Indeed, one post on another blog is headed, “CHURCH OF ENGLAND VICAR BACKS UGANDAN ANTI-GAY LAWS”.

The problem with this thesis is that my very first sentence refers to “the Ugandans, who are currently considering draconian legislation regarding homosexuality”. The important word here is ‘draconian’, referring to the seventh century BC Greek lawmaker, Draco, whose penal code imposed the death penalty for numerous minor offences.

The dictionary definition of ‘draconian’ is thus an “adjective (of laws) harsh and excessive”, and that was precisely my meaning. The proposed legislation is, in my view, “excessively harsh”.

Some have gone on to suggest that I must, nevertheless, somehow be in agreement with it, so let me quote what I posted on the Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream blog (which I also maintain) at the end of October:

My immediate personal reaction —since someone is bound to ask —is that it is clearly extreme in places, most obviously in suggesting the death penalty for homosexual acts with an under-18 year old. Why not, I find myself asking, a similar death penalty for adulterers or fornicators?

I also cannot help wondering why this is felt necessary in Ugandan society, when there is already legislation in place. My personal inclination is that in any humanly-ordered society*, criminal punishment is inappropriate for sexual impropriety. That which is immoral should not always be illegal.

Perhaps this was not strongly worded enough. Perhaps it was also a mistake only to post it on the CAM site, not here. However, I had hoped that calling something ‘draconian’ was an obvious enough indication of what I thought.

To be absolutely clear, I do not support the proposed Ugandan anti-gay laws. Where I have said that the Ugandans might have a point, is in the fear that their own society might go the same way as they see Western society has gone. Given my own discomfort both with where we are and where we might yet wind up, that is a viewpoint with which I do indeed sympathize.

Revd John P Richardson
16 December 2009

* Ie not a theocracy

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Homosexuality and the Law: Uganda might look to Britain

The news that Lillian Ladele, a Christian registrar who refused to register civil partnerships as a matter of religious conscience, has lost her appeal against dismissal suggests to me that the Ugandans, who are currently considering draconian (see here) legislation regarding homosexuality, might actually have a point.

The outcome of this case, as it stands, means that traditionalist Christians could soon be excluded from all public office and employment. All that is needed is for applicants for any post to be asked their views on homosexuality —whether or not they accept it on an equal footing with heterosexuality. If the answer is ‘No’ (as it must be for the traditionalist Christian), then that may be deemed sufficient grounds for them to be unsuitable for such employment or to hold such an office.

Alarmist? Let us consider a little bit of history.

In 1967, the Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalized homosexual acts in England and Wales by allowing such acts between ‘consenting adults (defined as those over 21) in private’. In our present context, it is important to be aware both of the motivation and the scope of this act. The motivation was compassion and consideration for those who were subject to legal sanction and social opprobrium for what was seen as a ‘victimless’ action.

The scope of the act was simply to take a specific area of human sexual behaviour out of the realm of criminal law. Thus, the Wikipedia site [mis]quotes a passage from the Wolfenden Report of 1957, whose conclusions provided much of the framework for subsequent debate and legislation:

... unless a deliberate attempt be made by society through the agency of the law to equate the sphere of crime with that of sin, there must remain a realm of private [morality and immorality which is, in brief and crude terms], not the law’s business ... (Wolfenden Report, 1957)

Significantly, however, the Wolfenden Report went on,

To say this is not to condone or encourage private immorality ...

In other words, the Wolfenden Report was produced, and the subsequent debate was conducted, on the assumption that there was such a thing as private immorality, into which category homosexual acts might well fall. Nevertheless, given the social acceptance of other private acts of immorality (which in those days would, for most people, have included sex before marriage or adultery within it) it was appropriate to rule that this ought no longer, in certain circumstances, to be ‘the law’s business’.

This itself was to recognize a long-standing trend to distinguish, in a society which generally regarded itself as ‘Christian’, between the ‘unlawful’ and the ‘sinful’, and was arguably itself an outcome of a Christian doctrine of sin. (Notably, a number of Christian theologians contributed to the Wolfenden Report and —something which would be unimaginable today —the Committee included the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and the Minister of St Columba’s Church, London.)

The Christian doctrine of sin sets a standard which no law could possibly address. When Jesus said that anyone who looks lustfully at a woman has committed adultery in his heart, he made it thereby impossible for the law to regulate any and every sin. Though English law had, in some ways, reflected an ‘Old Testament’ background (for example in defining the ‘prohibited degrees’ of marriage), it had never seriously tried to use the Sermon on the Mount as a model for what should be ruled illegal. Indeed, a major point of that Sermon is that this could never be done.

At the same time, however, there were clearly other pressures at work, challenging traditional, ‘Christian’, morality. The austere fifties gave way to the ‘swinging’ sixties, and quite rightly there was talk of a ‘sexual revolution’, helped on its way by the advent of the contraceptive pill.

Even so, there was clearly no outwardly declared intention in the passing of the Sexual Offences Act to effect a radical transformation of society, such that what was formerly regarded by most as ‘sinful’ would become to be regarded as one amongst many and various ‘norms’.

More than that, had anyone sought to argue, in the debate surrounding the Act, that less than half a century later it would possible for a Christian registrar to be sacked for refusing to ‘marry’ homosexuals, the person making such an allegation would surely have been dismissed as not merely alarmist but as slightly insane.

Yet here we are, experiencing yet another instance of the principle of ‘unintended consequences’, for the legalisation of homosexual acts has been followed by the normalization of homosexuality, which has now been followed by the criminalization of opposition to homosexuality. (Interestingly, the legalization of contraception was itself another example. In debates at the Lambeth Conference over a number of decades, bishops warned that the widespread availability of contraception would lead to a breakdown in social morality. Eventually, however, the ‘compassionate’ argument for ‘family planning’ won the day —and the doubters were also proved right.)

The question which must now be asked, frankly, is whether social normalization of homosexuality can co-exist with Christian morality. Currently, the answer would appear to be that it cannot, for despite all the talk of religious ‘rights’, it is quite clear that they are trumped (in Spades) by the acceptance of society’s sexual norms. At very least, this suggests that the Ugandans might look to our experience before making any decisions regarding their own situation, for the exercise of godly compassion in our case has clearly not resulted in a more godly society.

Revd John P Richardson
15 December 2009

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The Justification of God in the Book of Joshua (notes from a sermon on Joshua 7)

On Sunday night I tackled what I think is one of the most difficult issues in contemporary reading of the Bible, namely the 'holy war' of Joshua. Here are the notes for that sermon (and oddly timely it would seem).

Introduction

The events of Joshua 7 clearly represent a setback for Israel’s conquest of the land. Yet at one level they also seem simple to understand —Israel sinned, as a result, Israel’s enemies triumphed against them, God judged Israel and, as we will see next week, Israel’s fortunes were restored.

Yet at another level the events are quite complex. And they touch on one of the most difficult issues in the book of Joshua itself, namely the picture it gives us of the character of God.

We have already seen some of this in chapter 6 with the conquest of Jericho. In v 21, we read,

They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

It is, quite literally, a massacre, with the exception of the extended family of Rahab. And it raises serious problems —not least in evangelism, where people who are familiar with this will dismiss the God of the Bible as barbaric.

What are we to make of it?

Accusing Israel

There are, I think, a number of wrong ways to respond to this problem. One is to accuse Israel. What people say is, “God is not really like that. What actually happened was that Israel justified these massacres by claiming that God ordered them, but he didn’t really.”

This gets God off the hook, but it undermines the trustworthiness of the Bible, which says quite explicitly this was God’s doing. In any case, it simply doesn’t work to suggest that this is what Israel wanted to do, as the incidents of chapter 7 show.

Until recently, war was generally regarded as an opportunity for a bit of profit. Sailors in Nelson’s navy got a share of the ‘prize money’ from captured enemy ships. And in the ancient world, the booty from warfare was regarded as a bonus for the winning side.

So the instruction to destroy everything, went against both common practice and common sense. No one would invent a divine command ordering such a thing. As an explanation it just doesn’t work.

Another wrong response is to suggest that Israel misunderstood God — that they thought this was what God wanted, but he didn’t really.

This is a very attractive solution, but again chapter 7 of Joshua makes no sense at all on this reading. The Bible is quite clear —this total destruction is what God ordered.

Accusing God

So the other option is to accuse God, which a lot of atheists do. On the basis of these passages, some of them get terribly angry about God and call God all sorts of things —hateful, vengeful, evil, etc.

The trouble is, of course, if you’re a real atheist, you can’t call God anything. In fact, if you don’t believe in God, but you do believe these actions were hateful and evil, there’s only one thing you can blame —what is that? The human race.

Ironically, the atheist who says that if God is like this, then God must be very evil is actually saying the human race is very evil, whereas a lot of them actually want to claim that, at least compared with God, the human race is very good.

But still, it is hard not to read these accounts and feel there is a problem. Can we accept that God commanded this?

The true God

I have given this a lot of thought over the past few weeks, and I would say the one thing we must not do with this issue is try to get God off the hook. We must not try to say, “God didn’t order this,” or “Israel didn’t understand God.”

And the reason is because our motivation is that we feel uncomfortable about this picture of God. But if we try to adjust the picture of God to suit our feelings, we are actually idolaters —we are making God in our own image, a God with whom we feel comfortable.

Whatever else we do, we have to accept the picture it gives of God even if it confronts, even if it contradicts, the picture we would like to have.

Like Abraham, when God told him to sacrifice his son, we have to accept that God might actually turn out to be not like we imagined, or not like we would want. We have to let God be God. Otherwise we will fall into terrible error.

So with that in mind, let’s turn to tonight’s passage.

An unfaithful act

The opening verse sets the scene, but more than that, it explains the problem. The word used for what has happened is ‘unfaithfulness’ — it is the breach of a relationship. But notice also that although it is the sin of one man, it is attributed to the whole people:

But the Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things ...

Again, we are told that“the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.”

The hint is that what Achan did, anyone could have done. And that is born out by what happened next.

 A devastating defeat

As readers we know something Israel at this stage didn’t. The text intends us to know this —it therefore intends us to read these events and form our own judgement: to see everything in the light of what is actually wrong.

After the conquest of Jericho, Ai was seen as an easy target —only a few people defended it, and it could be taken by a handful of soldiers. But, contrary to expectations, the Israelites were routed and a number of them —about three dozen —killed.

The casualties are really quite light, but the effect on the Israelites was devastating, as we read at the end of v 5,

At this the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

Now the important thing is to compare this with 5:1and 2:9. In 2:9, Rahab told the spies,

“I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.

And again in 5:1,

Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

In other words, Israel has become like their enemies. And what does this mean? It means there is no faith —not even a recollection of the things God had done for them that caused their enemies’ hearts to melt!

A panic reaction

And we see this in the reaction not just of the elders but of Joshua himself. They all fell on their faces before the ark, praying and throwing dust on their heads, which you might think is a good thing, but look at Joshua’s prayer in vv 7-9.

This is not a prayer for help, or wisdom, or guidance, or courage. It is a prayer of panic and it is wrong in almost every respect.

First, in v7, God’s motives are questioned:

Ah, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?

It reminds us of the serpent’s words in Genesis 2, where the serpent attributed false motives to God. But ask yourself, have you ever done the same —have you ever doubted God’s goodness?

And then, in the same verse, Israel’s failure is put down to being over-ambitious:

If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

This is ridiculous! They were on this side of the Jordan because of God’s miraculous work. How could this be the result of overconfidence? They’re not even asking the right question.

Then in vv8-9, the failure is compounded by expecting things to get worse:

O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? ⁹ The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth.

But we do the same —we look at our circumstances and assume it’s going to be downhill all the way.

And then, last of all, in v9 it is assumed that God himself will be the final loser.

What then will you do for your own great name?

God here is the ultimate victim —unable to rescue even himself! And as informed readers we are supposed to spot this —we are supposed to be saying, “No, you’re wrong, that’s not it!” But look at our own attitudes, and our own prayers, and we realize we are not much better.

God’s response

And then look at God’s response:

The Lord said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?”

The good news is that there is no need to panic. But there is very bad news to follow, which the Hebrew brings out by a series of repeated ‘also’s:

Israel has sinned; they have also violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have also taken some of the devoted things; they have also stolen, they have also lied, they have also put them with their own possessions.

Israel has sinned, and the nature of the sin is made clear down to the specific details: they have violated the covenant, they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.

And so v 12 tells us what we, the readers, already know,

That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies ...

But what we don’t know, which the text now tells us, is the terrible nature of the consequences:

... they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction.

Israel is now exposed to exactly the same fate as the other inhabitants of the land.

The God of Judgement

You see, we know from earlier in the Bible why these nations were to be destroyed. In Genesis 15:16 God said to Abraham, “in the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

It wasn’t until these nations were ready for judgement that the Israelites would be allowed into the land, as we red in Deuteronomy 9:4, where Moses said to the Israelites

... it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you.

We can easily point to this as one of the reasons for the ruthless nature of Israel’s warfare —it was an enactment of God’s judgement. But it is only as we read the story of Achan that realize what this means.

Israel’s destruction of these nations is not a matter of race —this is not, despite what people say, a case of ethnic cleansing. Ethnicity has nothing to do with it, as 7:12 shows. Israel itself is now liable to exactly the same destruction, and there is only one solution:

I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

A disgraceful thing

This is why God spoke as we read in v13:

Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow ...

The Israelites are to make themselves holy — and this takes us to the heart of the problem which is in v13:

That which is devoted is among you, O Israel.

It is the accursed thing which is in Israel’s midst. But what ought to be in Israel’s midst? The Holy God is in the midst of Israel, doing great things for her, but instead, there is a ‘devoted thing’. Yet it is not the thing itself which is the problem. The problem is what has brought this situation about. In v15 we read,

He who is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done a disgraceful thing in Israel!

What has been done is a disgraceful thing —the very opposite of holiness and keeping the covenant.

“I coveted”

And so we read how Achan was discovered, probably through the drawing of lots. And yet even this reminds us it could have been anyone!

But the words of Achan in v 20-21 reveal something else:

It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: ²¹ When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.

Quite simply, despite everything, Achan had coveted what he saw. And so we see in v 24, that Achan suffered the same fate as the nations had done:

Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor.

A snare to Israel

There is a message her, but to understand it we need to go back to Deuteronomy 7 and read God’s words there to Israel. In vv 24-25, we read this about the nations Israel was now fighting:

... the Lord your God ... will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. ²⁵ The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. ²⁶ Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

Look again at 25,

Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it

Or look at 12:29-30,

The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, ³⁰ and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.”

What is the weak link in all this? It is Israel’s inability to withstand temptation. And this is exactly what we have seen in the case of Achan. Why did he take the forbidden things? In his own words, “I coveted them and I took them.”

The Judgement of Israel

And why is this a problem? Because it is not just a matter of material greed, but spiritual failure. We have already seen in this chapter Israel’s collapse from bottom to top —from Achan who took the goods to Joshua who panicked.

Why must these nations be eliminated? Why must Israel show no mercy? Because of Israel’s weakness. Israel is constantly a whisker away from betraying everything —the covenant and God himself.

And remember, the salvation of the world depends on Israel. Our salvation depends on their being an Israel, into which Jesus would be born.

The destruction of the nations is not just a judgement on them, it is a judgement on Israel, because Israel could not be trusted to withstand the temptations they would present.

It is a fearful lesson, not just about God and judgement, but about us and sin. And it is a sobering thought that God took the only way possible by commanding that these nations be shown no mercy, because Israel must be preserved so that the world might be saved.

This is nothing to do with ethnic cleansing, but it is everything to do with sin cleansing. And so we read Achan’s fate, and the fate of his entire family in vv 25-26:

Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today. Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. ²⁶ Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since.

There really is no alternative. Otherwise, Israel would fall.

But there is finally an alternative. There is another one on whom God’s wrath can fall. There is another one the Lord can bring trouble upon. Salvation is not achieved by our goodness. Rather, another bears our wickedness. And because he has died we can be spared.

But through his death we have a message of transformation for all people. We can show mercy not only because God’s mercy has been shown to us, but because we have a gospel of transformation and forgiveness.

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Challenging our Culture: What you need is hope

Time running out, time running out
For the fool still asking what his life is about
Time running out time running out.  (Jackson Browne, Black and White)

Sitting in a quaint tea-shop in the village of Clare the other day and musing on the problems of rural ministry, I found myself looking around at the other diners and asking myself, “What, really, has Christianity got to offer these people which they might possibly recognize that they need?” That is surely a question we need to answer before we can think about reversing the decline that affects so much of the church in this country.

At one table were a couple of women in their twenties gleefully discussing a recent trip to Paris. What could belief in God give them that they didn’t already have? At another were an older woman and someone who was probably her daughter. They looked well-off and comfortable. What did the ‘God-shaped gap’ in their lives look like?

And then there was my wife and I. What would make the other diners want to swap their lives with ours?

What I think we can’t say is, “Come to Jesus and your life will be happier and more fulfilled.” Frankly, I get very irritated by the stories in UK Focus along the lines of “My life used to be an utter mess but then I did an Alpha course and now I’m married and it’s all brilliant.”

Maybe it’s just envy on my part (it may be!), but life can be an utter mess after you become a Christian. Indeed, it can go downhill from that point. Certainly I don’t feel that I could personally offer such a ‘package’ with any integrity.

So what can we offer, if not that? Certainly one thing is the experience of God. Indeed, I would go so far as to say this is the key to Alpha’s success. I once had a very long one-to-one conversation with Nicky Gumbel, who insisted this was integral to the Alpha ‘model’ —that they wanted to give people an experience of God, not just a message about him. This is why the ‘Holy Spirit weekend’ is meant to be a non-negotiable part of the Alpha package. It is the point at which ‘theory’ translates into ‘practice’.

And although I can’t endorse the Alpha model, I certainly wouldn’t deny the importance of the experience of God in my own life. The great difference that becoming a Christian made to me was the sense that now I knew that I knew God —that, and an otherwise hard-to-explain enjoyment of things I’d previously avoided, like Bible study, Christian Union Meetings and church.

This, however, is hardly a ‘unique selling point’. Or rather, it is unique, but is it a selling point to happy twenty-somethings and contented fifty-somethings? “Come to Jesus and you’ll start enjoying church” —hmmm.

There is, however, something which is very much part of the Christian message which intersects precisely with people’s experience of daily life and present need, without making unjustifiable promises. And whilst it relates to our subjective experience it stems from an objective fact.

We are all of us, young and old, rich and poor, happy and sad, black, white, brown and yellow, running out of time. That is a hard, objective, fact; an undeniable reality. Indeed, it is not just we who are running out of time —the world is itself running out of time, and I am not talking about global warming. On present models, the universe came into existence about 15 billion years ago. Our solar system has existed for about 5 billion years. In far less than another 5 billion years, this whole planet will be gone. We will never ‘save the whale’, much less ‘save the earth’. All we can do is stave off the inevitable demise of everything we know for less time than it has taken it to get here.

But, some will say, we could migrate elsewhere, to other planets. And even if we couldn’t there must be life on other worlds —the story will go on. Well, for a while, perhaps, though why that story should matter is hard to define. However, (again on present models) the universe itself has a finite capacity for existence. Due to the increase of entropy, eventually every single atom and molecule will simply stop vibrating. When this point is reached nothing else can happen.

I read somewhere once that this ‘end point’ for the universe would be reached in 10¹⁰⁰ years. That is an astonishing length of time. To put it in perspective, it hasn’t yet been around for 10¹¹ years. But it is not an unimaginable length of time. On the contrary, yu just have to imagine ‘lots of the same’ and you’re there. In fact, it doesn’t require much imagination at all

Our human lives, meanwhile, are less than the blink of an eye. Moreover —and here’s the unwelcome bit —we occasionally become conscious that they evaporate just as surely as the energy of the entire universe is evaporating. I can still remember the morning I woke up at the beginning of the school summer holiday in 1957 with the awful realization that one day, inevitably, the holiday which was just beginning would be over, and it would be back to school. It was a difficult moment for a seven year-old!

Now, as I approach sixty, I am even more conscious that the same is true for life itself. One day —perhaps one day soon —I will wake up one last time.

And this knowledge has a very immediate impact. In fact, it has more impact as each year flashes by. (It is not yet Christmas and already we are planning the Easter outreach for our churches.) For it directly affects my hope about the future. When I was seven, life was full of hopes, stretching off into the infinity of the twentieth century. And there are still hopes for this life at the present time —but realistically they must be limited by the fact that there is so little of it left.

Now these may sound like the ramblings of a born pessimist, but I would respond they are the uncomfortable awarenesses of a realist. They are precisely the truths of which we should all be aware, and in the light of which we should all live our lives. The reason most people don’t think along these lines is that they are in a state of deliberate denial or blind ignorance —and in this category I would put most of our current crop of militant atheists. (If you want to read an atheist who’s got it right, try Charlie Brooker who writes for the Guardian and occasionally manages brilliant streams of invective prompted by just this awareness.)

I am reminded of the Alpha Mummy blogger who wrote how, given her “otherwise-strident aethism”, nevertheless when her children asked about death, “I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO TELL THEM THEY ROT, OK?” But yet in the same week, she wrote,

... I had a revealation [sic]. I interviewed Eddie Izzard — pretty much the most urgent and driven man in the world; which he all puts down to his mother dying when he was five —and realised that so much of what screws up this world comes down to not having a sense of urgency: of time passing, and, eventually, completely running out.

Quite so. And perhaps losing my own mother in that year of 1957 explains my own acute awareness of this reality. But shouldn’t everyone be made aware of this, as soon as possible? Shouldn’t we give little children a ‘memento mori’ — a reminder of death — as did those funeral clubs that Sunday Schools used to run for their own members? That particular Alpha Mummy’s column is revealing in the disingenuousness of its own conclusion:

Next time they ask about death, I’m going to say, very gently, “The amazing thing is kids, we’re alive! We can do anything we want now, if we put our minds to it. We can think and talk and feel and move, and make our lives pretty much however we want. So that when we die, we don't regret anything. We die with our diaries full.”

Recently, I have started taking Communion to a parishioner who knows she has only months —perhaps weeks —to live. Contrast Alpha Mummy’s message to her children with the words of the Collect we heard together for the first Sunday in Advent:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Which would you rather teach your children? Keep your diaries full of busy-ness, or keep your mind full of hope? At least if the collect for Advent Sunday reflects the truth about this world, then it offers a true hope. The words of Alpha Mummy, and all such ‘consolations’, are self-consciously untrue, even in the hope they pretend to offer.

The picture of a life remains
And the high ideals and the promise
You once dressed the future in
Are dancing in the embers with the wind.

Time running out, time running out ...  (Jackson Browne, Black and White)

John Richardson
9 December 2009

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Rural churches need ministers, too

This morning I was chairing a meeting of our Deanery ‘Growth Task Group’, set up to look at ways of increasing Sunday church-attendance across the deanery of Saffron Walden.

As readers of this blog may recall, this is the same deanery which has just been told that whilst its contribution to diocesan central funding this year will be £640k, its provision of full-time stipendiary ministers will soon be cut from 8.7 to 7.7.

Much of our conversation therefore consisted of how patterns of ministry need to adapt to these new circumstances. Like it or not (and some clearly don’t) clergy are going to have to allow the laity a much greater role, and not just in ‘behind the scenes’ work.

It needs to be said loudly and clearly, however, that there is no reason why this should be the special prerogative of rural ministry. Sometimes one gets the impression that ‘rich’ rural areas are expected to provide finance for ‘gritty’ urban ministry, whilst surviving on a minimum of ‘professional’ ministry-input.

By contrast, my firm conviction is that rural churches need just as many ministers as do urban churches, provided one understands the dynamics of ministry.

A few years ago, I did an informal review, based on our diocesan directory, of the relationship between the sizes of urban (as distinct from rural or inner-city) parish populations, church electoral rolls and the numbers of stipendiary ministers per parish.

This suggested that there was actually a correlation between electoral roll size and parish population —but only until the parish population reached about 4,000. Below this number, a smaller parish population correlated with a smaller electoral roll. Once the electoral roll reached (on average) 110, however, an increase in parish population saw no corresponding increase in the electoral roll. Parishes of 7,000 and parishes of 17,000 still tended to have churches with electoral rolls of around 110.

Now I would immediately want to emphasise that these findings were based on very rough figures. I would note, also, that the 110 ‘average’ was somewhat bigger than the more ‘typical’ figure, due to the presence of three or four exceptionally large electoral rolls (in excess of 200). However, the survey included over 75 churches and all were from the same Episcopal Area. With the exception of the few very large roll figures, the pattern was sustained from the smallest parishes (below 2,500) to the largest (above 19,000).

The point I want to make from this is that, above quite a low ‘ceiling’ in urban areas, parish population is a very bad guide indeed to ministerial ‘need’ or ‘reach’. To put it bluntly, you do not minister to more people just because there are more people to be ministered to.

This becomes especially so when we consider the ministry in terms of word and sacrament, which is both the special calling and the special preserve of the clergy. Congregations, gathered around the ministry of word and sacrament, seem to reach a similar size irregardless of parish population, once this exceeds 4,000 in an urban area. At this point, you are reaching the typical number of people who are be ministered to by the normal Church of England patterns of ministry.

Furthermore, whilst it is not to be doubted that some clergy and congregations, with energy and imagination, will be reaching a greater number of people than are represented by the electoral roll, there are good grounds to presume that the same principle will apply and that, beyond a certain parish population, this extra ‘reach’ will not be increased by increasing the size of the parish.

Where this matters for rural ministry is that we need to clear from our minds any notion that, beyond a relatively low ceiling, ‘bigger population’ equals ‘more ministry’. Rather, beyond this ceiling, the size of a congregation that demands a certain level of ministerial input will be the same, irregardless of population size. Heavily populated urban areas and sparsely populated rural areas are thus in essentially the same boat when it comes to ministry need —what matters is not population density but congregational size.

Of course, this also means that both urban and rural areas have the same need in expanding ministry. Once the size of a congregation which can be maintained by one pattern of ministry has been reached, you either need another minister or a new pattern of ministry. But this is as true of an urban area as it is of a rural area. An urban church with a congregation of 200 would be regarded as a ‘success’, numerically speaking, whereas a rural church with a congregation of 25 might be regarded as ‘struggling’. Again, the urban congregation might be regarded as ‘deserving’ a full-time minister, whereas the rural congregation might be regarded as scarcely needing, let alone being able to afford, one.

Yet if the urban congregation is set in a parish of 8,000, it is reaching just 2.5% of the population, whereas if the rural congregation is in a parish of 450, it is reaching over 5% —twice the percentage. The urban church’s apparent ‘success’ in terms of congregation size is actually masking a failure to reach thousands of others, whereas if the ‘reach’ of the rural church were repeated in the urban area, the congregation would be over 400.

And this, not untypical, scenario indicates another reason why rural churches actually need as much ministry as urban churches, which is that in rural areas the level of church attendance is generally higher. Paradoxically, however, it sometimes seems this is taken as a reason actually to reduce staffing levels —‘If you can get the same ‘results’ with less effort, why waste the manpower?’, seems to be the outlook.

In reality, however, those people need just as much ministry as urban dwellers, and the clergy attempting to provide that ministry will reach ‘full stretch’ at the same level as their urban counterparts. The result is that opportunities for outreach, and indeed revival, are going begging in rural areas where the ministry is being run down, since the ministers are already coping with a full workload of individual needs, combined with the demands of running an excess of meetings, PCCs, services, etc.

This is not, I would emphasise, a demand to ‘privilege’ rural areas above our urban areas. Rather, it is a challenge to the view that urban ministry demands high staffing levels whilst rural ministry does not.

The apparent policy of running down rural ministry is, I believe, based on a misconception not only about rural ministry but about its urban counterpart. Big urban parishes do not provide great opportunities just because of their size. And by the same token, ‘small’ rural parishes do not need less ministry because fewer people live within their boundaries. A church is a church, whatever its setting. Ministry is ministry, whoever the people. And a limit is a limit, however many other opportunities there may be around.

There is, I believe, real potential for ‘revival’ in our rural areas, which would benefit not only those areas but the church nationally as more funding might thereby become available for other ministries. Without proper support, however, such funding as already exists will disappear as the generation of rural Christians diminishes.

John Richardson
8 December 2009

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Mary Glasspool: Charlie Brown's Football (Redux Edition)

The announcement that TEC has elected Mary Glasspool as a suffragan bishop in Los Angeles ought to be greeted with the same surprise as accompanies the familiar cry at this time of year in the UK, "Gosh, it's cold outside."

Below I have copied one of the first posts that ever appeared on this blog, back in February 2007. What is surprising is not that this was essentially right but that it all seems so long ago, when the Covenant Process was seen as the way to keep everyone on board.

Who could possibly believe that now?*

John Richardson
6 December 2009

*Update Sunday evening, the answer to this question is the Bishop of Sherborne. Personally, I feel his  covenant process of 'glacial gravity' is melting in the global warming of TEC following what it firmly believes is the leading of God the Holy Spirit - and how could it not?

Interestingly, Bishop Graham Kings is finding remarkably little support so far on the Fulcrum blog.

Charlie Brown's football: why the Covenant is an irrelevance

Remember those Peanuts cartoons where Lucy holds the ball for Charlie Brown to kick it? Every time Charlie Brown runs up, Lucy whips it away at the last minute, and every time Charlie Brown finishes up flat on his back.

The joke, of course, is not that Lucy always behaves the same way, but in the fact that Charlie Brown does. Lucy always acts according to character, but against all experience, Charlie Brown always acts as if she won’t.

Welcome, then, to the world of the Anglican Covenant. Doubtless over the next weeks and months there will be much time and energy spent analysing it, wondering if it will do the job for which it is designed, namely to provide a framework of discipline for the Anglican Communion.

In the same way, we might examine Charlie Brown’s football. Is it the regulation size and shape? Is it inflated to the right pressure? Are the stitches secure? And what about Lucy’s grip. Is her finger holding the ball upright? Will she be in the way of Charlie Brown’s kick?

We might examine all these things, and deliver the same verdict as does Charlie Brown himself. It all looks good enough. But it makes not a jot of difference. What matters is that Lucy is going to pull the ball away. How do we know? Because that is what she does.

And so the content of the Anglican Covenant is, to all intents and purposes, an irrelevance. What matters is what will be done with it by the constituent Churches of the Communion. And we already know what that is.

Let us ask ourselves this: was Lambeth Resolution 1.10 clear? Was the Windsor Report sufficiently specific? Was the Dromantine Communique properly worded? The answer to these questions is surely yes, certainly, of course.

And did the Episcopal Church in America heed the call to discipline which they expressed? The answer is that even the generous report presented to the Primates in Tanzania only gave them two out of three on compliance with the Windsor Report. Yet has it been made clear by the Primates that this is not good enough? The answer to these questions is no, and of course not.

Charlie Brown’s problem lies not with the ball but with his own attitude towards Lucy. He refuses to face the fact that she is deceitful and he is gullible. And in the same way, a discussion of the Anglican Covenant per se, without addressing the events that brought the Primates to Tanzania in the first place, will be a refusal to face the institutional dishonesty that runs through the Anglican Church like ‘Brighton’ through a stick of rock.

By all means, let us discuss the Covenant’s first draft. Let us dissect it, tweak it and refine it. It will bolster the spirits of the optimistic. It will keep the bureaucrats happy. It will keep us all at the table talking. And no doubt, what we will see in a few months time is a very fine Covenant.

And while we’re about it, let’s buy Charlie Brown a new football.

Revd John P Richardson

19 February 2007

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Thought for the Day

Rather appropriate, from the BCP Gospel for the Second Sunday in Advent:

“On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world ...” (The Holy Bible : New International Version. Lk 21:25-26)

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‘Anglican Decline’: the views from the top and the bottom

The article I posted last Sunday about decline in the Church of England generated quite a lot of interest from readers. As I was on holiday (hooray!) I was avoiding posting any replies to comments, but now that I’m back (are you supposed to boo on returning to the joys of parish life?) I want to pick up some of the issues raised.

As with man-made climate change, the Church of England seems to divide into ‘believers’ and ‘deniers’ regarding whether or not we are facing a staffing crisis and what exactly is its cause.

The believers point to cases like the one in Littlebourne, highlighted by Ruth Gledhill, where a benefice which raises more than necessary to pay a full-time minister was nevertheless told it wouldn’t get one “even if you raise £1million”. The future for such churches and their congregations seems to be more amalgamations into bigger groups of parishes served by fewer full-time clergy, whilst simultaneously facing unchanging, indeed increasing, demands for cash.

The deniers, which seems to be almost everyone in top management down to the level of archdeacon, claim this is due to the lack of people getting ordained, whilst simultaneously pointing to the ‘good news’ of the increasing numbers of clergy, albeit many of them part-time, and the narrowing gap between quota demands and quota payment which indicate an unfailing willingness of people in the pews to pay what is asked of them, even in our current reduced circumstances, which suggest that the old pattern of one-vicar-one-parish won’t be much missed anyway.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is precisely the difference in perspective between the managers and the managed (it would be unfair to say ‘the workers’) in the Church of England itself. From the top, there is undoubtedly some grasp of the overall picture and some sense of a plan which can, to some extent, be thought to be working. At ‘ground level’, things look very different.

Whilst on holiday, I visited a number of churches where, in addition to the ‘features’, I looked around for evidence as to how things were going. One such was an enormous and beautiful building, set in a modest-sized village with a congregation, I was told, of about a hundred —though mostly elderly—on a Sunday morning. The parish magazine, however, told a familiar story.

The existing vacancy was to continue longer than had been anticipated by the congregation when it began: “we shall not have a new Rector until June at the earliest.” But then came this ‘bad news, good news’ assessment:

In the meantime the state of our finances has deteriorated to the point where it is now doubtful whether [parishes X and Y] could afford their own Rector. The realistic position is that there are very few Clergy and not many villages who can afford them anyway. Collaboration with the surrounding villages is going to be the way ahead; this will mean fewer Clergy to pay and therefore less ‘quota’ to pay.

— to which one can only respond with a pantomime shout of “Oh no it doesn’t!”

What this illustrates is the difficulty many congregations have in grasping the real situation, even after, in this case, a face-to-face conversation with the local bishop. They can understand the message that there are fewer clergy to go around, and they are all-too-aware of their own financial difficulties. But they still believe that somehow they are ‘paying for their clergy’, and that therefore if the provision of clergy is reduced (as they have grasped it will be), then the financial demands on them will ease (which they almost certainly will not).

It is a natural assumption in life that you ‘get what you pay for’. Of course, ‘giving to charity’ falls outside this framework —that is why it is considered morally different. But congregations do not automatically see giving to their diocese for the provision of parochial ministry precisely in terms of ‘giving to charity’ —in other words, they do not understand it as an area where they should give irregardless of what they get. And when they do grasp that this is what is being required of them, they do not automatically rise to the challenge.

And this is particularly true where the sums raised are disproportionate to the ministry received. I mentioned before that our own deanery will soon be paying close to three-quarters of a million pounds for fewer then eight full-time clergy. That figure, it should be noted, does not include any ‘parish costs’, nor does it include upkeep of buildings, which I estimate at £10-12,000 per church per annum.

If both trends continue in their present directions —the demands for money going up and the provision of ministry going down —the system must eventually collapse. At that point, the ‘goose which lays the golden egg’ will expire and the knock-on effect will be felt throughout the diocese.

The point is, the present system —by which I mean the subsidising of substantial areas of ministry by churches with very little ministry provision of their own —is unsustainable.

The first aim of a coherent ministry-funding strategy must be to make as many ministries as possible effectively ‘self-funding’.

The second aim should be to make the connection between the supporters of ministry and those who are supported as direct and personal as possible. This is because generosity is linked to a perceived value and effectiveness in the work being supported.

When people give to charities, it is because they have a personal interest in the charity concerned —the work it is doing resonates with their own concerns, and they are happy to give because they value what is being done with their money. At the same time, their giving is appreciated by the charity itself, which provides feedback in the form of newsletters and so on.

Contrast this with the picture in most dioceses! Our own Diocese of Chelmsford now operates a ranking system for the payment of ‘Parish Share’, listing parishes as Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze. The last group are those who have paid less than 96% of their ‘Share’ but have made some effort to rectify the situation. Then we get this gem in the official presentation:

A parish that did not meet the Bronze classification (by 2010) would be considered a ‘Won’t Pay’ parish.

A ‘Won’t Pay’ parish would:

1. Be ineligible for diocesan loans.
2. Be ineligible for Mission Opportunity funding.
3. Be brought to the attention of the London Over the Border Fund with a request that the classification be taken into consideration.
4. Not be eligible to receive a curate.
5. Not be considered for any improvements to a clergy house (not including normal maintenance/repairs).
6. Have this taken into account at the next vacancy and consideration given to the viability of the parish and potential pastoral reorganisation.

Quite apart from the misleading suggestion that if you pay you quota you might actually become eligible for a curate, it takes some kind of leadership ‘anti-genius’ to come up with this sort of scheme!

The problem in so many diocesan funding schemes is that the people from whom they make their demands are regarded as potentially the ‘enemy’. Yes, they can be incentivized to pay. And provided they pay what we want, when we want, how we want, we’re happy (we’ll even give them Wizard-of-Oz style ‘award’ —meaningless, but it’ll make them feel warm). But woe betide the late payers! They will see what an organized diocesan response really looks like —visits from the archdeacon and the financial ‘crash-team’ will follow, until they get their act together, when we can go back to ignoring them like we usually do.

Do I sound a tad jaded?

Once again, it comes back to the division between the managers and the managed. No doubt, on the Bishop’s Council this particular idea looked good. But at ground level, where you’ve just been told you’ll be getting one less clergy-person —but by the way, we need another few thousand pounds —it is a different matter.

More to follow!

Revd John P Richardson
5 December 2009

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