You're not the boss of me now —or are you?

Teaching on the Wisdom literature yesterday, I was struck by how in Proverbs the foundation of the good life is the godly family. The book opens with several chapters addressing the young man (person) in need of wisdom who is urged to listen to his father’s instruction and not forsake his mother’s teaching.

We may note that this itself builds on another ‘foundational’ principle, enshrined in the Ten Commandments: “Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” As St Paul observed (Eph 6:2-3), this commandment has a special quality in that there is a promise attached to it. It has consequences, not just for the individual but for society, and these are spelled out: “you will live long, and it will go well with you in the land.”

Similarly, the Proverbs have social consequences. They are, according to 1:3, “for ... doing what is right and just and fair.” And this is also the basis for God’s blessing of the world through Abraham’s descendants: “I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Gen 18:19).

All this depends, in the first instance, on the parent-to-child communication of God’s ways. Abraham is to direct “his children and his household”. The subject of Proverbs is to “listen to a father’s instruction” (4:1).

The Christian reader of Proverbs, moreover, is in the privileged position of knowing that the human relationship between parent and child is a mirror of the divine relationship between two of the three members of the godhead. The Son is constituted as ‘son’ because, as Jesus is recorded as saying in John 5:19, he does “only what he sees his Father doing.” Obedience is inherent in the son-to-father relationship. What is often overlooked, however, is that the converse to this is trust: “the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father” (5:22-23). Here is not just a lesson about the Trinity but about parenthood: parents may expect children to obey them, but ultimately they must honour this by their absolute trust of their children.

Yet it is part of the lesson of the Wisdom literature (and its fulfilment in Christ as the Wisdom of God, cf 1 Cor 1:24), that this is not universally understood or accepted. That parents may expect obedience from their children, and have the right to direct them as to how they should live, is itself a theological proposition, based on the principle that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom” (Prov 1:7).

Where there is no such ‘fear of the Lord’, however, we may expect Wisdom to be in increasingly short supply. We must thus be ready to question much of the agenda of our society with regard to children and their upbringing.

At the same time, however, we may challenge the assumptions of our society, both collectively and individually, about not merely education but procreation. A question worth asking, it seems to me, is what people think gives them the right to have children in the first place.

Having a child involves bringing another person into existence — yet we do not (indeed, of course, we cannot) ask that person whether or not they want to exist. Most of the people thus caused to exist will experience life as, to a greater or lesser extent, a struggle. They may, of course, have happy times as well as bad, but they will have to come to terms with their own existence, and, perhaps most difficult of all, they will eventually have to face the inevitability of the termination of their life which, in the view of many, means their consequent non-existence. (The book of Ecclesiastes is replete with material which reflects that particular struggle!)

Yet parents —even atheist parents —assume they have the right to do this to someone else: to cause them to exist and therefore to face the angst of existence itself. They do this without question and, moreover, they unquestioningly impose their authority on them, beginning with naming the child. Yet what gives anyone the right to say to another person something as dramatic as, “Everyone will call you ‘Joel’ or ‘Ziggy’,” or whatever takes their parents’ fancy?

I have no doubt that somewhere in the dark recesses of some department of sociology or social policy unit exactly these questions are being asked. And I suspect that the answer is precisely what we would expect in a society where there is no ‘fear of the Lord’: that there is no right to do this —or rather that any rights there may be are to be defined in law and regulated by the State. Once it was thought to be a privilege that schools, colleges and so on could act in loco parentis. Today, one suspects, we are moving to the position where the parents will be allowed only those privileges that the State grants to them.

But that, of course, begs another question: what gives them the right ...?

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, it is also true that the lack of such fear is the beginning of the unravelling of reason.

Revd John P Richardson
27 September 2009

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Hell on wheels: young drivers in rural Britain

Having recently driven past yet another serious accident on the bit of the B1383 that runs through the parish of Ugley, I was not surprised to see my suspicions about road safety in rural areas confirmed by a study produced by researchers at the University of Bristol’s Department of Social Medicine.

What is particularly interesting about this study, imaginatively titled The Grim Reaper’s road map: An atlas of mortality in Britain, is that the results are almost totally ‘counter intuitive’ regarding road safety, whilst at the same time indicating clearly where the greatest problem areas lie.

You would think that road safety became more of an issue the more traffic there was. You would therefore imagine that your chances of becoming a casualty would be greatest in our most dense conurbations. Who would not feel more challenged by the busy streets of London than, say, the open roads of the Pennines?

Actually, the worst place for road deaths in mainland Britain is the north of Scotland. In fact, the Grim Reaper’s map of fatalities is an almost perfect inverse map of urbanization. The more rural the area, the higher the rate of road deaths, whilst some of the safest places to be are almost anywhere inside the M25.

As I have argued previously, the reason for this is simple —within these urban areas, it is very hard to travel fast enough in a car to kill either yourself or anyone else. It can be done, but it is a challenge! By contrast, if you are driving along a typical rural B road at 50mph and cross into the path of someone travelling the other way at the same speed (as someone did recently near the site of the same accident referred to above), you are in serious trouble.

The obvious question this raises is about administrative policy. As anyone who drives in London will tell you, the difficulties of the traffic are elevated to nightmare level by the proliferation of ‘traffic calming’ measures —or as I preferred to call them when I lived there, ‘driver enraging’ measures. Of course, it might be argued that it is precisely these which have created the safer conditions identified by the Bristol study, but for the most part, as a former London driver, I would suggest they had little impact, save on the springs of cars and the patience and backbones of their occupants.

However, the same study also identifies another factor which seems scarcely to be taken into account by public policy, namely that, as Mark Easton from the BBC identifies, “The average age of a road death victim is 36.9, and three-quarters of those who die are men —predominantly in their teens, 20s and 30s” (although the pattern for female road deaths precisely mimics that for males, but at a lower level). It has also been established by studies elsewhere that the chances of a young driver having an accident increase proportionately with the number of passengers.

Yet I know of no official policy or campaign addressing this issue. Safety campaigns and measures address speed and alcohol, and of these, speed is taken the more seriously (you still cannot be stopped and random breath-tested in the UK!)

My own view is that safety campaigns largely miss the point, by addressing legal driving rather than safe driving. The two are not always the same! Moreover, the emphasis is on penalties, not rewards. Thus, for example, the biggest no-claims discounts one can get on motor insurance are typically 60% for five years without a claim. But what if there were a subsidized 90% discount for nine years without a claim, paid for from the road safety budget? Wouldn’t that do something to encourage safer driving, not only by rewarding the individual but by giving safe driving a more public reward?

Equally, couldn’t young drivers (eg under 25) be restricted to carrying only one passenger unless, say, that person is named on their insurance? Thus young people with families could still drive them around, or give a lift to mum and dad, but they wouldn’t be able just to pick up three mates.

Most importantly of all, we need to encourage a culture of good driving, and that is about much more than speed. Above all (dare I say it?), it includes loving other road users as much as you love yourself.

Revd John Richardson
28 July 2009

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Reflections on the UK FCA launch, 6 July 2009

Like numerous other people, I was present at the UK launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans at the Methodist Central Hall, London. These are my personal reflections.

First, what was bad about the day? For a start, there was far too much packed into the programme. I lost count of the number of contributors and contributions, but it must have run into dozens. Inevitably, therefore, the programme slipped behind time, and I must confess to leaving halfway through the concluding communion service. But by this stage it was 5.50pm and I had an evening meeting at 8.30. By the look of it, a considerable number of people had made the same decision, and Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali was left facing a rather emptier auditorium than had been the case first thing in the morning.

Undoubtedly the biggest problem, however, was the domination of the Conservative Evangelical culture over the others FCA is intended to include, in particular the Anglo-Catholics. Most of the presentations (including my own on video) were from this wing, as were most of the platform speakers, and this despite substantial Anglo-Catholic involvement in the event’s organization and presence on the day.

Indeed, one could go further and say it was the Conservative sub-culture which was on display. The one truly working class voice from this group stood out like a sore thumb in the videoed interviews. The rest were nice, middle-class, and a hundred percent white.

The other big problem was the lack of time to ‘mix and mingle’. During the very brief breaks (made even more brief by attempts to catch up on the timing), I saw many faces of people I would have liked to greet and talk with, but it simply wasn’t possible. I also felt very sorry for those who had set up stalls which people did not have enough time to visit.

Above all, this meant there wasn’t the opportunity to reflect on what was happening. Instead, there was a whirlwind of input covering everything from the situation in North America, via the problems for Christians in the Sudan to the inter-denominational ‘Passion for Life’ mission next year.

So what was good about it? At one level, I am tempted to say, ‘All of the above’. There was much about the presentations that was thought provoking and excellent. There was just far too much of it for one day. The attendance should also have come as an encouragement (and indeed a relief) to the organizers. Also, despite my criticisms, there was a genuine attempt at a breadth of churchmanship. And (despite both the expectations of some and the reporting of others) this was not —or at least not just —an exercise in knocking the Church of England.

Of course, quotable quotes were offered from the platform, on which the ladies and gentlemen of the press have duly seized. In each case, however, these were personal views. There is no ‘FCA’ line, as yet. But at the same time, there were disturbing accounts of interference, opposition and manipulation from Anglican officialdom of the kind with which, sadly, most of us are familiar. If peace is to break out within the denomination, it will involve honesty on both sides about past and present wrongs which have created what Richard Coekin called ‘churches on the edge’ —congregations which have arisen within Anglicanism, whose members would happily be ‘Church of England’, but which have been marginalised by officialdom.

One of the real problems in the Church of England at the moment is the difference in perception between those who say there is nothing essentially wrong and those who feel we are in deep crisis, between those who feel the institution is basically ‘getting it right’ and those who feel the institution is in its own ‘Babylonian Captivity’. It is, by definition, impossible for these two sides to agree, but it is surely not too much to ask that they each recognize the existence of the other’s point of view.

The big question after the event, however, is where we go from here.

First, it seems to me we must acknowledge that the situation in England is entirely different from that prevailing in North America, and somewhat different from that in the rest of the United Kingdom. To begin with, England is the home of Anglicanism. But more importantly, things are done differently here than elsewhere, both for better and for worse. In particular, the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine Articles, which, thanks to the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration are central to the FCA ‘platform’, are legally binding on our branch of Anglicanism in a way that (as I understand it) they are not elsewhere. This gives the whole institution an ‘inertia’ —a resistance to movement —which does not exist elsewhere and which protects it from the worst excesses of ecclesiastical mavericks.

The Church of England is thus unlikely to slide into the theological ‘off with the fairies’ land that seems to afflict sections of TEC. Our inner tensions are undoubtedly real, but the frustration with the way things are is mutual to both Traditionalists and Revisionists.

One might be tempted to think that this is a good thing and likely to remain so. This, I believe, is the attitude of many who trust the institution and enjoy the status quo. However, we face problems which are not faced in North America (or at least, not in the USA) and which will, I believe, force the issues for us, whatever part of the Church we belong to. These are: the cultural acceptance of homosexuality, a totalitarian and coercive understanding of government, and the growth of Islam.

Let us take these in reverse order. The future of Islam in the UK is, I believe, likely to be parallel to that of Judaism in the Roman Empire. Then, the Romans discovered that is was not worth trying to coerce the Jews into behaving like everyone else. So, like any sensible authoritarian government, they passed a law to make it legal for Jews to be different. They made Judaism a religio licita, thus keeping control of the situation whilst avoiding the need for constant conflict. This is clearly what is happening with Islam in Britain.

Why, though, should that be a threat to the Church? The answer is because the Church of England, by comparison, has been a pushover. Instead of resisting cultural trends where they conflicted with its faith, the Church of England has sought ways to conform to them. The ‘marshmallow’ character of Anglicanism is legendary. By contrast, Islam, in the face it presents towards the surrounding culture, is firm and unmoveable. Thus the culture will make constant concessions to Muslims, whilst knowing that it can make constant demands of Anglicans.

This is particularly important in the light of my second point, that the prevailing philosophy of government is now, thanks to New Labour, totalitarian and coercive. The view of the governing classes is no longer that they should preserve the privileges and security of the citizenry, but that they may decide to the detail how people should live and legislate to ensure that they do. That they would dearly love to apply this to Muslims is clear from various ‘strategies’ to ‘improve’ the quality of Muslim clergy. That this will fail, however, follows from the nature of Islam. Christians, however, are another matter entirely.

That brings us to my first point, which is the broad acceptance of homosexuality. This would not be such a problem were it not for the fact that the government is determined to legislate that homosexuality should be accepted and, like the playground bully, will zero in on anyone who does not stand up to it. Thus Roman Catholic adoption agencies must be forced (force is the right word) to comply, despite the fact that this is totally unnecessary. And comply they have. Yet could one imagine a Muslim adoption agency doing the same? Perhaps they have, but I am unaware of it, nor do I think it is likely.

The crunch will come in this country, therefore —indeed it has already come —at the point of social opprobrium and legal penalties on the practical issue of same-sex relationships. It will be as Christians are confronted at this point that the Church, collectively, will have to decide whether to stand up and be counted. Jesus’ words, “I was in prison and you visited me,” will be the test of true faithfulness. It is here, also that we face some of the intellectual challenges of which Archbishop Jensen spoke, both with respect to society and to ourselves.

It is over against this situation and these pressures that faithful Anglicans have to decide what they stand for and how they will organize themselves. The question, then, is not how one understands the crisis in the Church but how one sees the Church in relation to the crisis overwhelming our society.

A friend of mine has in his possession a book of the minutes of a local Parish Council (a branch of local government, not to be confused with the Parochial Church Council), kept during the Second World War. What he says is remarkable about them is the sheer energy and attention given to utter trivia, when all the time the great issue was whether German paratroops might be dropping on the village green any day now.

This is somewhat how I think we might imagine the Church of England. There are those who really cannot cope with copes. (Trust me, they are very heavy but they don’t turn you into a Catholic.) There are those who believe that society is ‘just waiting to hear about Jesus’ —it isn’t, or rather it is, provided you don’t mean the man God has appointed to judge the world in righteousness. There are others who believe the collective body doesn’t matter, provided their own bit is working (what might be called, in the light of the above, the ‘Dad’s Army’ approach —provided we can defend Walmington-on-Sea, that’s what matters.)

The trouble is, all of these approaches are understandable and none is adequate. What is really needed is to equip the Church as a Church to address the real problems. We need a Churchill. Sadly, what we have more resembles the 1939 government of France, weak and demoralized in the face of an obvious threat, but simultaneously convinced of their ultimate security.

Will the FCA fill the gap? Frankly, at present, I doubt it. But to complete my analogy, it perhaps represents the current ‘General de Gaulle’ —aware of the problem, yet powerless truly to address it. Still, I would rather go down fighting than be overwhelmed whilst insisting ‘Peace, peace’, where there really is no peace.

Revd John Richardson
7 July 2009

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Scots Psychologist: Government policy means schools will supplant role of family

At about ten to eight on this morning’s Today programme, there was an item which at first seemed to be about what was to me a rather abstract aspect of modern education. One of the things it particularly focused on was so-called SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) programmes, which I admit to knowing nothing about, and until this point, caring even less.

The two people being interviewed by James Naughtie were Carol Craig, the chief executive of the Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing who made the claim, and Ian Morris, head of philosophy and well-being at Wellington College. Craig argued that SEAL programmes would present real problems, whilst Morris was rather in favour.

If you follow this link, you can listen to the interview. Then move the slider to about 5' 30" in and you’ll get this revealing comment from Carol Craig, followed by Naughtie’s question to Ian Morris and his answer, which should have us all sitting up and taking notice:

CC: You see the SEAL thing isn’t really necessarily about self-esteem, although there is an ‘all about me’ strand to SEAL, which I think is one of the worrying things, because that is exactly the kind of thing that breeds far too much of a ‘self’ focus. But the point is we have to decide as a society do we think that schools should really about — be about emotional issues and well-being. This is what the government wants it to become. It’s almost like supplanting the role of the family. There’s a big, big change afoot that I think people are not aware of, that the Department of Education and Skills is now called the Department for Children, Schools and Family and its beginning to supplant the family as the provider of socialization and well-being, and I think this is a very worrying development that I think schools should be resisting. They shouldn’t be accepting this role, its not one that they will be able to fulfil.

JN: Are you going to resist it, Ian Morris?

IM: Absolutely not, I think it’s a great move, I think it is very, very important and as long as we’ve got a very clear definition of what well-being is, I think schools are very much the right place to address well-being and I think it should be the primary focus of all educational establishments to promote well-being.

You can read more about the Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing here, and download their longer critique of SEAL here (112 pages!). You can read about Wellington College's 'happiness lessons' here.

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Our own 'Brazil' moment

“As soon as a negro comes to England he is free; one may be a villein in England, but not a slave.” (attrib. Chief Justice Holt, 1702)

Well, it’s finally happened. My wife and I are now experiencing our first ‘Brazil’ moment (Brazil being the film by Terry Gilliam in which, to quote Wikipedia, the hero “is not so much beset by malicious characters as he is by a vast, impersonal, and indifferent social structure that is both hypocritical and pedantic for its own sake.”)

Since moving to live in Elsenham, my wife has applied for a job with a home nursing agency. The work is not everyone’s cup of tea. Indeed she described one of her earliest jobs as “involving a lot of poo”. But where Alison is particularly good at this sort of work is that she actually likes the clients — she doesn’t just do it for the money, she enjoys the people despite their Alzheimer’s and their disabilities.

Imagine her concern, then, to be advised at the beginning of the week not to turn up for her ‘shadowing’ jobs, but to call in to the agency later. When she arrived, she was met by two of the managerial staff who told her that they couldn’t employ her because they had received an e-mail saying that her POVA (Protection Of Vulnerable Adults) report had shown something on her record.

Naturally she asked for a copy of the e-mail, only to be told this couldn’t be provided.

When she arrived home, therefore, she phoned the Government’s CRB helpline, where an interesting conversation ensued — a conversation to which I listened on the other phone, so I would know exactly what was said and be able to act as a witness should the need arise.

The long and the short of it is that this has nothing to do with ‘Child Protection’ (as she had assumed), nor, directly, with the CRB as they haven’t yet processed her application. Instead, she was told, it is a police matter since they deal with the POVA process.

To quote from the POVA website, the scheme “will act as a workforce ban on those professionals who have harmed vulnerable adults in their care.” In other words, Alison is under suspicion of harming someone.

Or maybe not, because the nice lady on the CRB helpline then added that this sometimes happens when someone has a ‘common name’. So if you don’t happen to be called Stanislowski, apparently you may be a bit vulnerable yourself. As the lady went on to say, “You’re not the only Alison Richardson in the country.” However, I can vouch she is the only Alison Richardson at this address who was born on her particular birthday — information which she had to divulge before the lady would begin to discuss her case and which they were obviously able to verify with a few mouse-clicks at the other end of the phone.

The good news, then, is that this may be a false alarm. Apparently such e-mails are sent out as a precautionary measure, just in case. Once the police get round to looking at it properly, all may well be resolved.

“How long will that take?” asked my wife.

“Up to four weeks,” came the reply.

“Can they do it any quicker?”

“No, the police don’t have a fast-track facility.”

And there the conversation pretty much ended.

So, having had a seriously distressing morning, my wife can’t work for this agency, or any similar body, for perhaps a month, during which, of course, she won’t receive the income she was expecting.

The most worrying point in all this, however, is not that my wife is innocent of all wrongdoing. It may be that, unknown to me, she has harmed a vulnerable adult in the past. (Though I seriously doubt it, especially since this would have to be 'on the record' somewhere.) However, she does not know what has been alleged, having received no communication about this herself and having been refused sight of the e-mail to her employer, and meanwhile she can’t work and can’t do anything to clear her name. Moreover, there is the distress of having an allegation stand against her. Even the most innocent person will ask, “What have I done?” And even the most generous friends may wonder, “Is there something behind all this?”

My own thought is that this surely goes against the principle of habeus corpus, even if not the letter of the law. According to the Wikipedia article, the basic concept behind this is that, “The King is at all times entitled to have an account, why the liberty of any of his subjects is restrained, wherever that restraint may be inflicted.” In short, you can’t just lock someone up without demonstrable and lawful reason.

Restraint is usually taken to mean ‘imprisonment’. Hence the principle is of enormous social importance and has only been suspended in the most serious of circumstances. However, there is such a thing as ‘restraint of trade’, which Alison is surely undergoing. The important point, as far as I am concerned, is that she can’t find out what is behind this. The phone call to the CRB elicited no further information, and she wasn’t given anyone else to contact. Apparently, she must just sit and wait.

It doesn’t really matter, in the long run, whether one individual is innocent or not. The point is that according to her employers, who won't show her the relevant document, the police may not actually know if a British citizen has done anything wrong, but have acted to stop her working and done so without informing her of the fact or the reasons, and the relevant government agency has said this is perfectly normal and that it is powerless to clear this up. And whilst there may be other things this citizen could do, or ways in which her case has been mishandled, no one she has spoken to has advised her otherwise.

So this is what is comes down to. The ‘free air’ of England, frankly, stinks of bureaucracy, and we all have to roll over.

To add insult to injury, all the parishes in the Diocese of Chelmsford are being asked to ‘buy into’ the POVA process for everyone in our churches, including volunteers, working with adults who might be deemed ‘vulnerable’. Let’s hope they’re not called Smith.

Revd John Richardson

22 October 2008

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