Marriage and Democracy -- what's law got to do with it?

While Professor Julian Rivers was giving evidence to (or, as it looked to me, being interrogated by) the Parliamentary Committee for the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill, he made what seemed to me a rather good point, which was to question why there should be any state involvement in marriage at all.

One of the justifications for the government’s proposed change, which has been deployed by a number of politicians and pundits, is that the Church doesn’t own marriage, and indeed it doesn’t, as you can discover for yourself by reading Edward Schillebeeckx’s excellent Marriage: Human Reality and Saving Mystery (London: Sheed and Ward, 1976). The Church’s involvement in conducting weddings is a comparatively late development, and its role in legally defining the terms of marriage even later.

However, it would be equally true to say that the State doesn’t own marriage either — not if we think of ‘ownership’ in terms of it being the subject of a mass of laws and specialist lawyers, anyway. If Lynn Cohick, author of Women in the World of the Earliest Christians (Grand Rapids Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009) is to be trusted (and I can think of no reason why she shouldn’t be), few couples in the Roman world of the New Testament were actually married in a manner that depended on a formal and recognized legal process.

Similarly, in our own culture we have the myth of the ‘common law marriage’. Now of course such an entity has no legal status — that is to say, the courts will not admit or enforce any rights or claims on the basis of common law marriage. But the myth grew up no doubt in part because in the public mind there could be a recognition that a thing exists de facto even when it does not have any status de jure. Indeed in Australia (where things may also be different legally) a ‘partner’ in such a relationship is known colloquially as one’s ‘de facto’.

What this proves is that, rather like when traffic lights break down, the general public is actually capable of working out who goes with whom and on what basis, and of recognizing ‘marital-type relationships’ even where the law has no remit. Not least, we have seen this in the loose using of the term ‘marriage’ for the contracting of civil partnerships when they were first introduced.

Furthermore, the oft-quoted Marriage Act of 1753 was not about defining or controlling marriage per se but, as the full title says, “for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage”. It is emphatically not the case, as sometimes seems to be implied, that marriage as we know it was somehow ‘invented’ at that point. Rather, the regulations regarding the conducting of weddings were tightened up, basically to prevent escalating property disputes arising out of rights conferred by the law itself on those who were actually married. (The irony is that the precipitating legal case took place in Scotland, but the Act did not apply there.)

Notice, however, it was the law’s involvement in matters of property which precipitated the law’s further interest in marriage. The problem (namely of unrecognized claimants on an inheritance) could presumably have been resolved by doing away with the inheritance right, which given that the government feels entitled to take part of that inheritance to itself anyway, by means of laws in its own favour, is not beyond imagining.

My thoughts on this were further prompted this morning by reading a comment by an Americanjournalist Patrick Pexton on the opposition of ‘religionists’ to same-sex marriage. “ We want to write words, read books, watch movies, listen to music, and have sex and babies,” he wrote, “pretty much when, where and how we choose.”

Now there might be those who want to argue that the freedom to have sex or a baby is not quite the same as the freedom to put on a CD or, indeed, to blog. Nevertheless, his plea has a certain merit. Why should the law regulate with whom I have sex (provided I’m not hurting anyone else and blah, blah, blah) any more than it regulates the music to which I listen?

And that being the case, why should the law regulate with whom I set up home? Specifically, why should the law regulate whether this domestic arrangement is something I want to call ‘marriage’ or something I’d rather keep to ‘shacking up’? The answer, it would seem from the civil partnerships legislation in this country, comes down to a few things like property, pensions and whether my partner can be treated as a ‘relative’ of mine in extremis. In other words, in practical terms it comes down to other areas where the law interferes. (Hence, if I have a baby, for example, the law insists I provide for it — something which society may feel is a better alternative than burdening the tax-payer, but which otherwise would depend on my exercising my freedom.)

Rather than extending the legal definition of marriage, then, why not tell the State and the lawyers it ought to be none of their business whom I marry, and demand that they sort out the law so as to increase, rather than further constrain, my liberty?

All this may seem terribly radical, but as has been observed in this debate, it used to work quite well until the lawyers got involved on matters affected by, but not central to, that which we call ‘marriage’. Deal with issues of property and pensions separately — for example through similar regulations to those governing civil partnerships — and let the people decide whom they wish to marry, and surely one achieves one of the chief goals of democracy, which, let us not forget, has been defined as ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’.

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Forging the chains of our own bondage

Preparing to teach on 'Wisdom' and the wisdom literature yesterday at TEAM in Cambridge, I came across (and subsequently used) this quote from Martin Luther:

This I do know, that no state is governed successfully by means of laws. If the ruler is wise, he will govern better by a natural sense of justice than by laws. If he is not wise, he will foster nothing but evil through legislation, since he will not know what use to make of the laws nor how to adapt them to the case at hand. Therefore, in civil affairs more stress should be laid on putting good and wise men in office than on making laws; for such men will themselves be the very best of laws, and will judge every variety of case with a lively sense of equity. And if there is knowledge of the divine law combined with natural wisdom, then written laws will be entirely superfluous and harmful. Above all, love needs no laws whatever. (The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, LW 36:98)

Luther, I think, understood better than most (certainly far better than most Christians today) the 'oil and water' nature of law and grace. For Luther they were both aspects of God's dealing with humankind, but they were not equal 'goods'. On the contrary, the law, ultimately, was the antithesis of human good, since it addressed us in our sinful state and brought only condemnation.

The gospel, by contrast, was a blessed relief from not just moral or ceremonial law, but law as a principle. And whilst Luther recognized the continuance of two 'kingdoms of God' in this world - one under the law, magistrates and the sword, and the other under the gospel, charity and the word - he was adamant that we must keep the two distinct in our thinking and our practice and that we must esteem the second more than the first.

The New Perspective approach to Paul has, I think, muddied the waters on this as on so many other things. I was struck yesterday, however, by the words of Galatians 3:19: "Why, then, the law? It was added because of transgressions ..."

This word 'transgressions' refers not simply to 'boundary markers' of the community but to the adherence to God's ways and ordinances (cf Dt 17:19-20). The law was not only there to identify 'members of the covenant community' but to identify and limit their sins and sinfulness. And this was as much a moral as a ceremonial matter.

When Paul speaks of the law which most identified his intractable sinfulness he picked on the commandment not to covet - a moral law if ever there was one. This was the law that killed him, and this was the law to which he died in Christ. And so we must see that all law is, in principle, a sign that we are not yet living under grace.

Were Christians to grasp this understanding better, and were they to apply it as radically in their approach to society as Luther did in his, we would perhaps have something more interesting to say, beginning with this: the more society departs from the grace of the gospel, the more it will live under man-made laws which, because of our lack of wisdom (Rom 1:22) will increasingly do more harm than good.

Without either the gospel or a knowledge of the laws of God, we will forge the chains of our own bondage.

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Benefice Suspensions: If you've got a problem with the judgement, complain to the judge!

As readers of this blog may be aware, there is a system in England called parish 'patronage', which means that certain individuals or corporate bodies have the right in law to 'present' clergy to fill the vacancies in particular parishes.

Often the patron is the Diocesan Bishop, but quite often it is not. Historically, therefore, it is one of those 'checks and balances' things, so inherent to the English way, which offsets the power of the bishop with the power of others - frequently the laity.

However, a bishop also has a right, in law, to suspend the right of presentation where he deems this appropriate - usually for the sake of pastoral reorganization. When this happens, he appoints a 'priest in charge', and under the old rules such a priest could be moved on after his or her license expired (though this no longer quite applies under Common Tenure). Hence the established attraction of this proposal for the bishop. But he cannot do this on a whim - the Diocesan Pastoral Committee has to approve the proposal - and he can only do it for a period of five years, after which the suspension has to be renewed.

Nevertheless, many bishops do it, shall we say, quite a lot. In the Diocese of Chelmsford, for example, almost a third of all benefices are currently 'suspended' - and some have been in this situation for a considerable period.

In the light of all this, one of the Chelmsford General Synod reps put down a question on the subject at the last General Synod. The exchange makes interesting reading:

Mrs Mary Durlacher (Chelmsford) asked the Church Commissioners: What are the circumstances in which the right of presentation to a benefice may be suspended by a diocesan bishop?

The Third Church Estates Commissioner: Section 67 of the Pastoral Measure 1983, which includes the bishop’s power to suspend the right of presentation to a benefice, makes no specific provision regarding the circumstances in which it should be used. However, the code of practice to the Measure, to which bishops are expected to have regard, recommends that it should in the main be confined to benefices where pastoral reorganisation is under consideration or in progress and, occasionally, where a change of parsonage house is planned.

Mrs Mary Durlacher: Given the rather vague definition of ‘pastoral reorganization under consideration’, you will not be surprised perhaps by my supplementary question, which is this. What recourse is available to PCCs, patrons and others, who consider that the guidance in the code of practice has not been complied with in the case of a proposed suspension?

The Third Church Estates Commissioner: The Commissioners have no jurisdiction under the Pastoral Measure to adjudicate on a proposal to suspend rights of presentation or to intervene, except where there are existing proposals of the changes to benefices and formal objections have been received; but I am sure that you can make representations to your bishop if you are concerned.

So unless I'm mistaken, if you are concerned that your bishop has not acted according to the code of practice you should make representations to ... er, the bishop!

In Chelmsford, incidentally, another requirement of the code of practice, that figures on suspensions be issued in the Annual Report to the Diocesan Synod, hasn't been followed since about 2003.

Which makes me wonder, when we are repeatedly told that a code of practice will nevertheless be 'as good as' legislation when it comes to women bishops.

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Lord Falconer's misleading remarks about the Johns case on the Today programme

I have just been listening to Lord Falconer on Radio 4 speaking about the John’s fostering case. He seemed to describe the outcome by saying the issue was not decided but that in certain circumstances people might be deemed unsuitable to foster in a particular case of an eleven or twelve year old uncertain about their sexuality.

That is not true, as can be seen if you go and read the ruling, which was nowhere near as specific.

Indeed, such specification was one of the things the Johns’s sought, but were refused:

27 ... The claimants sought the following declarations (as refined following the hearing):

(c) It is unlawful for a Foster Service to ask potential foster carers their views on homosexuality absent the needs of a specific child.

The ruling, however, was to make no order in this (or any other) regard.

Most listeners won’t know this and therefore will have been misled.

Ho hum.

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Should Christians be allowed to keep children?

Update: The full ruling can be read here.


Apparently, according to the High Court, Christians who are not willing to commend homosexual acts ought not to be given other people's children to foster.

If this is what was said, and if it is a valid judgement, is it therefore right that Christians should nevertheless be allowed to keep their own natural children, if they similarly will not commend homosexual acts to them?

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The Cornwall B&B case: a funeral oration for Christian Britain

Back in ad 2000, Callum Brown wrote a book called The Death of Christian Britain. Yesterday, Judge Andrew Rutherford delivered the funeral oration. It begins with these telling, and I think remarkable, words:

In 1882 Her Majesty Queen Victoria opened a new court building. It is in the Strand just at the entrance to the City of London. It was built to house the superior courts of this land with the exception of the House of Lords. No one who enters can fail to be struck by the similarity of the Great Hall with the interior of those gothic cathedrals with which this kingdom is so richly endowed. But if, before entering, you gaze upon the façade of the building you will notice 4 statues.

There you will find King Alfred who made such a notable contribution to Saxon England by codifying the laws of his day. You will find Moses to whom was given the ten commandments and to whom, by tradition, is ascribed authorship of the first 5 books of the Bible in which you will find in great detail the laws governing the children of Israel. Also there on the façade is King Solomon whose wisdom has become a legend and who displayed outstanding qualities as a judge when sitting in the Family Division in the only reported case of which we have details. And the 4th statue is that of Jesus Christ who, I imagine, needs no introduction to those involved in this case.

Why are those statues there? Perhaps there were many reasons for them but I venture to suggest that one was to emphasise the Judaeo-Christian roots from which the common law of England was derived.

A great deal has however happened since King Alfred and his Saxon laws, and even more has changed since Moses, King Solomon and Jesus Christ walked upon this earth. Those Judaeo-Christian principles, standards and beliefs which were accepted as normal in times past are no longer so accepted.

We live in interesting times.

Incidentally, his comment about Solomon and ‘the Family Division’ may be a better joke than he intended, but the fact that he knew the reference, and assumed his readers and hearers might actually ‘get it’, simply shows, as he acknowledges, how much things have changed in his lifetime. I have no doubt that almost no one under the age of fifty would know what he meant without looking it up.

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Stupidity and murder - where's the justice?

I have no embarrassment in declaring myself one of those who thinks that our judicial system exacerbates many of our social problems by being ‘soft’ on criminals. (I seem to remember, incidentally, that CS Lewis once wrote an essay, which must have been about sixty years ago, lamenting the same thing after some boys were apprehended for vandalizing his shed.)

You might think, then, I would be rejoicing that Edward Woollard, the 18-year old student who threw a fire extinguisher off the roof of 30 Millbank during the tuition fees protests last year, had received a jail sentence of two years and eight months.

On the contrary, I think it simply illustrates (and exacerbates) the problem. For in the same edition of the Daily Mail in which we can read about Woollard’s situation, we also see that Learco Chindamo, the man convicted of murdering headteacher Philip Lawrence, may have to serve an extra two years in jail over an alleged mugging he committed shortly after his release.

Now of course Chindamo may be entirely innocent in this instance. That is not the point that concerns me and will doubtless concern others. Rather it is the difficulty many of us outside the system have in making sense of the policy involved in such sentencing.

To begin with, Chindamo, was given what was described as a “life sentence” for a murder which the judge at the time described as “futile and un- provoked”. (Readers may recall that Lawrence stepped in to protect another boy being attacked by Chindamo and others.)

The first difficulty, then, is with this term “life sentence”. This is not simply a false expression, it is disingenuous, for it gives the impression of doing something that is not the case. ‘Life’ for a teenager does not consist of ‘the next fourteen years’ — indeed that doesn’t really begin to apply until you hit your sixties, and yet ‘life’ sentences continue to be given out to people considerably younger than myself.

Indeed, I suspect some research would show that the term “life sentence” is a hangover from the debate about abolishing the death penalty, when it was used as a justifying argument in favour of abolition: those who previously would have been executed would instead receive a “life sentence”. Now we know this is not true, we should surely drop the pretence.

Secondly, however, one cannot help comparing 14 years for murder with almost 3 years for throwing a fire extinguisher off a roof.

And here I would want to come to Mr Woollard’s defence. Of course what he did was wrong — and not just the throwing of the fire extinguisher, but the invasion of the building in the first place. However, it would appear to have been an act of monumental stupidity, not viciousness. Yes, people could have been killed, but they were not. Had they been, it would have been different, but that is surely to the point.

Most importantly of all, however, I would refer to the words of the judge who handed out the sentence:

... the courts have a duty to provide the community with such protection from violence as they can and this means sending out a very clear message to anyone minded to behave in this way that an offence of this seriousness will not be tolerated.

I could not agree more with the first part of this sentence. But I cannot see that a stupid act which might have killed someone equates mathematically to one fifth of the culpability of killing one person in the process of carrying out a gang attack on another — which is roughly the proportionality of the sentences in these two cases.

As a layman in these matters, I nevertheless feel that either Mr Chindamo has been treated too leniently or Mr Woollard too harshly. Either way, my confidence in the judicial system to remedy the problems of our society remains low.

John R Richardson
12 January 2011

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"Any group of congregations ... can become an Anglican province"

Robert Van Der Weyer is, I seem to recall, something of a maverick. Nevertheless, I also remember him as a stimulating speaker at a conference I attended many years ago. Recently he has written a piece for New Directions which is, to say the least, challenging. I cannot, unfortunately, vouch for his understanding or otherwise of Church law, but he has suggested that legally a diocese or province is a voluntary association of parishes, and that therefore any group of Anglicans could set one up pretty much when they want. Here is the beginning of his article, and you can read the rest by following the link.

When the idea of a new province in England for traditionalist Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals emerged a few years ago, it was assumed that only General Synod could institute it by means of legislation. In fact, this is legally incorrect, and contrary to historic precedent. Traditionalists have the right to form their own province without reference to General Synod; and this seems the moment to exercise that right.

English ecclesiastical law contains no definition of either a province or a diocese. But Halsbury’s Laws of England, an authoritative commentary, defines a province as ‘the circuit of an archbishop’s jurisdiction’ [vol. 14, para. 428], and a diocese as ‘the circuit of a bishop’s jurisdiction’ [vol. 14, para. 454]. Thus a diocese is a voluntary association of congregations that choose to put themselves under the oversight of a particular bishop; and a province is an association of one or more dioceses placing themselves under an archbishop.

The voluntary nature

The voluntary nature of dioceses, and by implication provinces, was confirmed in 1841 by the Bishops in Foreign Countries Act (still in force), which gives permission for such ‘Protestant congregations as may be desirous of placing themselves under [a bishop’s] authority’ [s2]. Thus the thirty-six Anglican provinces outside England formed not because the convocations of Canterbury and York passed laws allowing them to do so, but because congregations chose to form them. Once created, a province can devise its own constitution and laws. Read more

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Has one man the right to change the constitution?

I ask the question not because I don't think he has, but because I honestly don't know the answer.

Apparently, according to The Times, in dismissing an appeal by Gary McFarlane, a Christian counsellor working for Relate, against discrimination on religious grounds, Lord Justice Laws has announced that, 'Christianity deserves no protection in law above other faiths [in this country] and to do so would be “irrational”, “divisive, capricious and arbitrary”'.

I find myself wondering whether he has read, or is even aware of, the Coronation Oath taken by Queen Elizabeth II, at her crowning by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1953:

Archbishop: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

Queen. All this I promise to do.

Now I am not saying it is right that the Queen should have taken this oath (though presumably it seemed a good idea at the time). Nor am I saying that Prince Charles, should he ever become King, ought to take the same oath (indeed, I cannot see how he possibly could). Nor, indeed, does it matter one whit whether Mr McFarlane is in the right or the wrong.

What I am saying is that this oath surely 'privileges' Christianity in the constitution of England. And I am therefore asking whether Lord Justice Laws can simply say "This is no longer the case" and it is so, with regard to such a profound issue.

I may well have misunderstood many things in this situation. Perhaps others could clarify?

John Richardson
29 April 2010

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How can I be just? The intellectual incoherence of the West

Following the (non) reaction to my post about the ‘legality’ of the Iraq war, I wanted to return to the question of law and modern society. This is an area where I feel two issues arise. One is that Christians ought, from their unique perspective of the gospel, to have something radical to say. The other is that this issue highlights what I believe to be the increasing incoherence of modern society.

Incoherence
Why do I speak of ‘incoherence’? The reason lies, I believe, in the tension between what I will call moral demand and material narrative.

On the one hand, we see a continuing moral demand for justice and, with it, an expectation that law can be so framed as to produce that justice. Hence, according to some modern commentators, Tony Blair must not merely be condemned but ‘arrested’ for starting the Iraq war because what he did was ‘illegal’.

On the other hand, we have the prevailing material narrative which undergirds our understanding of the nature of existence. That narrative, quite simply, is that human beings are just one amongst many meaningless products of meaningless processes. We are distinct from animals —or rather from the other animals —only in degree, not in kind, and our much-vaunted ‘ethical’ values are nothing more, ultimately, than the product of evolutionary forces written into our genes by natural selection.

What is justice?
Thus, whether we realize it or not, there is a contradiction between what we believe we want and what we believe we are. The ethicist Peter Singer puts it like this:

Justice is not, as often thought, a sacrosanct moral principle imposed on us by a divine being, nor is it somehow engraved into the bedrock of the universe.

His first point is, of course, gladly embraced by most of our leading moral commentators. There is no God, therefore moral principles have no divine sanction.

What is generally missed is his second point: neither do moral principles derive from the fabric of the material world. You may look down through a microscope or up through a telescope, but you will see nothing that tells you what you ought to do when faced with a so-called ‘ethical dilemma’. What, then, is ‘justice’? Singer continues,

Justice is neither more nor less than a set of conceptual tools for making Tit for Tat work in the real world. (Peter Singer, How are we to live? [Oxford: OUP, 1997], 176)

Tit for Tat (or Doing unto others as they have Done unto you) is, quite literally, Singer’s basis for ‘moral’ behaviour, advocated because it ‘works’ in producing what Singer argues is the best outcome for everyone (and is therefore the ‘best’ outcome). In all this, Singer is thoroughly reductionist — the proof of Tit for Tat morality is in game theory and the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’, and when we see it applied in human society we should recognize we are doing nothing basically more than chimpanzees grooming one another for fleas — but on it he wishes to rest the whole edifice of moral living.

Whence justice?
Singer’s particular ‘explanation’ does not appear to have gained wide acceptance. Nevertheless, I suspect that the general principles it entails are becoming almost universal in Western thinking, albeit in a semi-conscious way. The atheist who is also an unthinking materialist would surely find little to contradict in Singer’s view that justice is neither divinely imposed nor a fundamental property of the material universe. It must then, in some sense, be derived from ourselves alone.

The problem is, from whence in ourselves can such a notion of justice derive, and of what value is it once it has been so derived?

The standard ‘evolutionary’ explanation increasingly focuses on ‘altruism’ as the basic source of ethical behaviour — evolutionary altruism being behaviour which appears to be inimical to the survival of the individual but actually favours the survival of the group, and which is therefore increased by natural selection.

On this view, our sending money to help the people of Haiti is an unconsciously driven ‘human survival’ mechanism. And indeed, one can see how such an explanation has a superficial appeal. If our ‘being good’ comes down, ultimately, to prospering the human gene, then clearly appeals for help will tend to succeed, whether they be those of crushed Haitians or drowning swimmers.

But actually that is not how things work, as is shown by the so-called ‘bystander effect’. The truth is, we are not all impelled by instinct to help those we perceive to be in trouble. On the contrary, we turn off the TV, we look the other way, we regard it as ‘none of our business’, even when the personal risk is minimal. Somehow, our ‘altruistic instinct’ turns out to be rather inefficient.

On the other hand, Singer himself is adamant that argument and reason can, and must, be used to induce ethical behaviour. It would appear that our genes are not strong enough —indeed, Singer sees this as taking us beyond “the straight line of evolution” which gave us the capacity to reason in the first place (p 269).

What is ‘I’?
But that being the case, we must ask, “With what are we reasoning and on what is our reasoning working?” The automatic answer is that we are reasoning with our minds. But what is the mind? The contemporary Western material narrative says that the mind is created by physical processes resulting from evolutionary forces. (That may not be what modern research is showing, incidentally, but it is, I believe, what is being accepted as the ‘popular view’.)

The key question, though, is whether we can control those forces. If ‘I’ am the product of material forces, how can ‘I’ turn round and, in an instant, manipulate those same forces which make up ‘me’? It would surely be like a puppet suddenly grabbing its own strings. The material narrative can tell me how ‘I’ experience what I do as a result of electrical processes in the brain. I can even watch them happening. But it leaves me with a problem as to how the brain that produces those phenomena can be told what phenomena to produce.

The modern dilemma
Like many moderns, Singer is an ardent ‘moralist’. That is to say, he is a man for whom human moral issues are a consuming interest. I am sure he would make a very good neighbour (unless you were, perhaps, senile or terminally ill, in which case I am not so sure).

It is similar moralists who want Tony Blair arrested. But what, according to the material narrative, has Blair done wrong? Biologically, he is a product of evolution. Individually, his thoughts and decisions are the product of material processes in the few pounds of jelly contained in his cranium. His is, to use Desmond Morris’s terminology, a ‘naked ape’ — as are we all.

The pure materialist might argue that rather than being arrested, Blair should be put down. Yet that would surely require a judgement which would be independent of the same limitations that the nature of material reality imposed on Mr Blair. And it is difficult to see how, according to the material narrative, that is something any of us has.

Revd John P Richardson
28 January 2010

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(Who says) the Iraq war was illegal?

Just a bit of musing before I go to bed, but I’ve been pondering on the question being addressed by social and political commentators as to whether the Iraq war was ‘illegal’. I was particularly struck by the fact that Guardian journalist George Monbiot not only thinks it was, but is particularly incensed at Tony Blair, to the extent that he has started a website calling for his arrest. Monbiot has also put up £100 ‘bounty’ as a contribution to the person who first arrests Blair.

Considering Monbiot’s clear sense of righteousness and the scale of the crime he alleges Blair has committed, this doesn’t seem to carry much practical conviction. Compare it with the £50,000 offered by Ross McWhirter for the arrest of PIRA bombers, which actually got him killed, and I think you’ll see what I mean. Nevertheless, it raises an interesting question as to what we mean by an ‘illegal’ war.

What is law?
Maybe I am naive, but I thought that, in common parlance, laws were statutes declared and established by competent bodies such as parliaments, monarchs, etc. I have found one definition of ‘law’ as “a rule or body of rules of conduct inherent in human nature and essential to or binding upon human society”, but this is itself arguable as a definition, and in any case there is clearly room for disagreement on what such rules might be.

In China, for example, the death penalty is ‘the law’ in many cases. Yet in the European Union, the death penalty is regarded as abhorrent. Who is right? The death penalty is clearly not ‘essential’ (as in the above definition), but it is equally clearly not antithetical to a stable and economically successful society, as China increasingly proves. (Indeed, it is arguable that the ruthlessness underlying the Chinese attitude to the death penalty has greatly contributed to China’s social and economic development.)

Moreover, there is surely a case for arguing that war is, indeed, inherent in human nature. Social conditioning may successfully persuade us otherwise, but wars and rumours of wars continue to abound.

It seems to me, then, that ‘law’ is more usefully considered as “the collection of rules imposed by authority”.

Under whose law?
Yet this definition immediately poses the question, “Whose authority?” And this raises the further question, “Over whom does this authority extend?”

Readers of the Bible will perhaps be familiar with the notion of the suzerainty treaty. This imposed certain terms and conditions (some welcome, some not so) on two parties, not by common agreement but by the stronger dictating to the weaker. We may feel this was ‘unjust’, but such treaties certainly had the force of law.

Indeed, I know people today who feel our own laws about smoking are also unjust, and are unreasonable. Yet the law is the law, and against their personal judgement those people have given up smoking in their own offices.

With the debatable exception of theocracies, the law, ultimately, is clearly a human invention. It is not determined by our DNA, or by the physical properties of the natural world, but arises out of our own, sometimes mixed and conflicting, understandings of right and wrong and of the necessary means to achieve what is widely (though not necessarily universally) regarded as justice.

It is thus, to an extent, always arbitrary and is limited in scope by the capacity of the lawmakers to enforce it.

Who is under the law?
Those familiar with our Book of Common Prayer may be aware of one particular manifestation of this principle, where it says in one of the prefaces that, “... in these our doings we condemn no other Nations, nor prescribe any thing but to our own people only.” This, it would seem, is another principle of the law: that it applies only to those people over whom the lawmakers, for whatever reason, have authority of some kind.

In this particular instance it meant the people under the authority of the English king (though it should be pointed out that this included not just the English but those in, as Article XXVII put it, “other his dominions” — such as Calais, for example). The point is, however, that just as the authority of the monarch extended to all his realm, the authority of others was excluded from that same realm. Thus, as the same Article says, “the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.”

Now as is well known, this principle no longer applies, in that our Parliament now accepts the authority of European law and lawcourts. Nevertheless, their writ only runs here because we have agreed, through Parliament, to allow it to do so. It is perfectly possible, at least in theory, to overturn that situation, just as the English Reformation began with rejecting the legal authority of the Pope.

UDI
Back in 1965, the then Rhodesian government shocked the world, or the UK at least, with a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, freeing it from British rule. This was, of course, immediately declared illegal —indeed, it probably was against the law —but since it was a declaration (unilaterally) that the law no longer applied it posed certain questions about what ‘the law’ meant.

This was not the first time such a thing had been done, even to Great Britain. The United States of America had come about as the result of a rather more successful enterprise some years earlier.

But the point is this: if a nation, or a community, chooses to do so and has the physical power to carry out its wishes, it can simply leave one legal system and set up another of its own. There is no ‘natural’ law that prevents such a thing happening, nor is their a universally accepted legal framework which renders it illegal.

Back to Blair
And that brings me back to the question of Tony Blair, for we must ask whose law he is supposed to have broken, and why that law should apply to him. And we must also recognize that, if the United Kingdom so chose, it could —even against existing laws —simply act as nations have done in the past, and remove itself from a legal framework to which it takes exception.

In other words, Tony Blair may, by one definition, have ‘broken the law’, but the definition will, in the end, be entirely arbitrary, and could presumably just as easily be reshaped so that he is entirely immune from prosecution.

Comments, please!

Revd John Richardson
26 January 2010

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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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One day, there'll be a knock on the door ...

Reading the Religious Intelligence report on the recent conference in the UK, Faith, Homophobia, Transphobia, & Human Rights - building positive alliances for equality and sexual diversity, I have no doubt that if not for me, then for other Christians soon, the knock will come on the door, and I will need to make sure I've got my toothbrush and some sugar cubes in my pocket. (The last was a hint I remember reading about for people living behind the Iron Curtain who faced arrest.)

These are the words of one Ms. Eagle, the British Government Equalities Minister,

“The circumstances in which religious institutions can practice anything less than full equality are few and far between. While the state would not intervene in narrowly ritual or doctrinal matters within faith groups, these communities cannot claim that everything they run is outside the scope of anti-discrimination law. Members of faith groups have a role in making the argument in their own communities for greater LGBT acceptance, but in the meantime the state has a duty to protect people from unfair treatment.”

And here are Conference Chairs, Maria Exall, Sharon Ferguson, Richard Kirker and Martin Pendergast:

“Principles of faith are being twisted to foster irrational fears of human rights, sexual diversity and social equality, to pit people of faith, including LGBT people, against all who seek the common good,”

Canon Giles Fraser, newly appointed Chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral, said,

“Hateful attitudes towards LGBT people, sometimes aired on football terraces, are no different to those found in supposedly religious settings. We must not allow homophobia to disguise itself as any sort of legitimate religious belief – it isn’t! Homophobia is a sin and its eradication from churches, mosques and synagogues is one of the most urgent challenges for people of faith in the 21st century.”

(Oh, so its not saving people from coming judgement, then?)

Marilyn McCord Adams, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University declaimed,

"Adult believers have a responsibility to weed tradition, to identify systemic evils that are ripe for uprooting, pre-eminently human rights violations, and to go after them with a shovel and trowel."

Whilst Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality & Human Rights Commission, "spoke candidly about his position in the face of the controversies over the appointment of the Rev Joel Edwards, former General Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance, to a Commissioner role for faith issues [and] told the conference that had he known at the time of the appointment what he knew now, how deeply people had been hurt and alienated over this, maybe there would have been a different outcome."

So here's my two-penn'orth. Same sex attraction is a form of sexual disorientation, 'not orientation'. Same sex sex is a sin. The society that condones these things and attempts to rewrite sexuality in blatant disregard of biology has lost its intellectual and moral bearings and is destined for disaster. The Church which says otherwise is under judgement and does not deserve to be called a Church.

Now, where's my toothbrush?

John P Richardson
21 May 2009

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Gene Robinson - a theological 'Rip Van Winkle'?

The latest pronouncements of Bishop Gene Robinson on the Bible and homosexuality suggest to my mind that he is a kind of theological ‘Rip Van Winkle’.

Van Winkle, a character created by Washington Irving, was a lazy American of Dutch descent living near the Catskill mountains, who wandered off one day to get away from his nagging wife. Meeting with the ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew, he drank a magical elixir and fell asleep for twenty years. When he awoke, his wife had died and his children had grown up. More importantly, but unknown to him, the American War of Independence had been and gone, and so Van Winkle got into trouble when he declared himself a loyal subject of King George III.

Van Winkle’s problems stemmed from acting as if history were not history, and from being ignorant of facts of which everyone else was aware.

In the same way, there are those in the Church who act as if an awareness of the tension between Old Testament Law and New Testament gospel were new — indeed, as if the Church had never held the Council at Jerusalem described in Acts 15, or as if Paul had never written Galatians 3:19.

Robinson is thus reported to have observed that the Old Testament forbids eating pork and wearing clothes woven from two kinds of cloth, as well as homosexual acts, as if he is the first to notice it and as if it is a knock-down argument. Nor is this the first time he has done so. When he visited these shores in July last year, he was using the same arguments then.

The trouble is, many of those listening to him are just as much ‘Rip Van Winkles’ as he seems to be, and therefore may easily be impressed. It reminds me of the tragic story of triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards’ loss of faith, which seems to have begun when someone observed that Paul’s Damascus Road experience might have been the result of an epileptic fit. I don’t know where that suggestion first originated, but it has been around long enough to have grown a long white beard of its own. Yet for some people, the novelty of a suggestion seems to increase its veracity.

So there will be those whose response to Bishop Robinson’s pronouncements will be amazement at his wisdom, not bewilderment about where he’s been for the last twenty-plus years.

The fact that the Articles of the Anglican Church, from which Robinson’s TEC sprang, have already dealt with this issue, will be unknown to them. So will be the efforts of Martin Luther in the same direction. Instead, they will be listening to these ‘revelations’ in complete ignorance of the fact that there is nothing new being said.

Yet I can’t help wondering if Robinson is quite as naive as he sounds (or if he is, how he got to be a bishop). Can it be he has never worked out that if a passage says we should not steal, or lie, or deceive others, or mock the disabled, or pervert justice, or seek revenge, and that we should not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material, as Leviticus 19 does, we cannot dismiss the last instruction out of hand without similarly questioning the former? Or does he conceal from his hearers that these same instructions are also in the passages he wants us to ignore?

Whatever the case, Robinson must surely have worked out an approach to this which goes beyond the kind of mockery once disgracefully displayed by a Canon of our church in the Chelmsford Diocesan Synod when addressing the same topic. It was in response to this that I wrote my own What God has made clean — what became known as the ‘gay prawn’ book, now sadly out of print in this country, but still available in Australia (cheaper from Koorong!).

The task of a bishop, in common with the task of all clergy, is to teach what is in accordance with sound doctrine. Even if one believes what the Church has not for 2,000 years, that should surely require something more profound than playing to the ignorance of the audience — unless one has indeed not understood these things oneself.

Revd John P Richardson
1 April 2009

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Hairdressers face jail for offering customers mulled wine

Another wonderful example, it would seem, of the way we live now ...

Hairdressers who offer their customers a festive glass of mulled wine at Christmas have been warned that they face six months in jail and a £20,000 fine.

The threat was made by council chiefs, who even announced that they will send officers into salons under cover in an effort to catch offenders. Hairdressers have criticised the move as "Scrooge-like".

Norwich City Council wrote to all hairdressing businesses in the city ordering them to get a licence if they want to serve alcoholic drinks.

Sent to 104 salons in Norwich, the letter states that the practice of serving complimentary alcoholic drinks is a breach of the law and requires various licences.

It then warns: "To address this issue enforcement action, including the use of undercover officers, may be undertaken in the near future." Read more

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There is a Moral Compass, there's just no North

(Nothing to do with the below, but while you're visiting, look at the petitions on women bishops here and here.)

*************

We must wait until Monday to discover its precise contents, but the apparent title of a report commissioned by the Church of England on modern policy-making in Britain gives some idea of its conclusions: Moral, But no Compass.

A key concern raised in the report is that, by contrast with its interest in ‘minority’ faiths such as Islam, government, both national and local, pays little attention to Christian groups generally and even to the Church of England itself.

This sentence seems to get to the heart of the report’s conclusions:

Based on our interviews with politicians, government officials and people in the faith communities themselves, we can only conclude that the absence of a ‘churches’ evidence base is grounded in a judgement that churches are not worthy to have even a modest role in government schemes.

It would be a grave error to conclude, however, that government policy-making is therefore somehow haphazard or directionless. Indeed, despite the report’s title, the policy-making of the present government is not only intensely moralistic, but is guided by a compass of compelling force.

One of the great shifts in ethos in the last two decades has been from the idea that government exists basically to ensure safety and prosperity for the nation and its citizens, to the idea that it may and should aim to define and produce both the perfect society and the perfect individual.

Thus in our service of Holy Communion this morning, we prayed that God would grant to the Queen’s “whole Council, and to all that are put in authority under her, that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue.”

Over the years, however, this was taken to mean not that it was the government’s job to tell us how to bring up our children or organize our lives. Rather, the government would protect our liberty to decide for ourselves how to do these things.

That, however, has now changed, and the evidence for it is all around. One example is the introduction of the concept of ‘hate crime’. All crime is, of course, hateful, insofar as it is driven by a lack of love for one’s neighbour. But the government now presumes to identify certain attitudes as a ‘hate’ which especially compounds an existing crime and constitutes a further crime in itself.

In reality there is no way that courts, judges or juries can truly assess how much, or little, of these kinds of ‘hates’ are involved in, for example, beating up a gay or racially different person. The important point is that the government has decided that some antipathies of their choice are more important than others (for example, a contempt for the elderly that leads to robbery or rape).

The attempt to make the distinction is bizarre, until one appreciates that behind it is another agenda — not merely to inhibit and punish crimes such as violence or robbery, but to change the way we regard other people. In short, the government is pursuing a positive moral agenda, not simply ensuring a proper level of protection.

This may sound well and good. And certainly it is a step beyond the Book of Common Prayer’s plea that justice should be ministered ‘indifferently’, meaning ‘impartially’, without regard to persons. But in fact it is deeply dangerous.

To borrow a phrase from Jacques Barzun, the book to read is CS Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Written in 1943, this slim volume is essential for anyone who wants to understand modern Britain under our existing legislature.

Lewis’s argument is that trends in popular philosophy would lead inexorably to a time when those with the power to do so (Lewis called them “the Conditioners”) would seek to mould the rest of us into an image of their deciding:

Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men.

And then,

The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. We shall ... be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?

As we contemplate, on the one hand, the redefinition of family and marriage to include same-sex couples with surrogate children, and on the other hand see a government pushing through legislation to allow the cloning of human-animal hybrids, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that although we may not be there yet, making the species what they wish it to be is precisely what some people in significant positions of power and authority in our society aim to achieve.

But as Lewis observes, the ‘moral compass’ directing this ambition turns out to be like the wizard in the Wizard of Oz: a little man, hiding behind a curtain. Lewis wrote,

The Conditioners, then, are to choose what kind of artificial Tao [a term Lewis coined to mean moral motivation] they will for their own good reasons, produce in the Human race. [...] But how are they going to be motivated themselves?

The answer he gave was stark. Having demolished (we might say ‘deconstructed’) all traditional morals and morality,

The Conditioners ... must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure. [...] My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.

Thus we will be moulded in the image not of the Conditioner’s philosophies but, ultimately, of their appetites.

What, you might ask, is the evidence that anything as dreadful (or dreary) as this might happen? The answer I would point to is social policy-makers with multiple partners and illegitimate children (and how old-fashioned, even ‘abusive’, that term now appears!), or lawmakers with fiddled expenses.

Of course, such things have always happened. Kings and lords once kept mistresses as a matter of course, despite what the Church taught or society said. But that was precisely because they thought they were different from the rest of us. The advent of democracy was supposed to mean we were governed by people like ourselves, not those who consider themselves above the ‘mass’ of the people. And despite the fact that expense fiddles have always existed, there was a time when people would have been ashamed to be caught, not merely embarrassed.

The point is that our legislators already display a ‘schizophrenia’ of demanding conformity to the rules from those over whom they hold sway, whilst acting on their own uncontrolled impulses. The result, however, is not a lack of a compass. Rather, it is the lack of a moral pole to which the compass might point.

Revd John P Richardson
8 June 2008

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The Teenage Killers Club

In addition to the 29 teenagers murdered in the UK so far this year, at least 29 teenagers have been convicted of murder. Below are the dates of reporting their convictions on the BBC News website, their ages and their victims' names and ages.

22/5/2008 Lee Cruddas, 19 (Robert Richardson, 33)

22/5/2008 Armel Gnango, 17 (Magda Pniewska, 26)

20/5/2008 Alex Young, 17 (Helen Maughan, 24)

Lewis Hayward, 14

16/05/2008 Darryll Bennett, 18 (Stephen Green, 55)

Richard McNamara, 19

Nicholas Garland, 18

Shane Liddy, 19

9/05/2008 Junior Glasgow, 17 (Nathan Foster, 18)

9/05/2008 Tirrell Davis, 17 (Kodjo Yenga, 16)

Brandon Richmond, 14

28/4/2008 Brendan Harris, 15 (Sophie Lancaster, 20)

Ryan Herbert, 16

21/4/2008 Joshua Cook, 17 (Charlie Johnson, 22months)

18/4/2008 Aaron Aymer, 18 (David Stunell, 22)

18/4/2008 Gerry Cusden, 16 (Mark Witherall, 47)

9/4/2008 Teenager A, ? (Paul Erhahon, 14)

Teenager B,

Teenager C

7/4/2008 Jordan Jobson, 15 (Samantha Madgin, 18)

4/4/2008 Dimple Scaife, 18 (Jake Mackay, 19, partner)

26/2/2008 Teenager D, 13 (Stephen Croft, 34)

15/2/2008 Rikki Johnson, 19 (Lewis Singleton, 18)

13/2/2008 Falco Moludi, 17 (Orlando Thompson, 27)

22/1/2008 Teenager E, 17 (Brent Martin, 23)

18/1/2008 James Kerr, 18 (Mr Nicoll, 72)

16/1/2008 Adam Swellings, 19 (Garry Newlove, 47)

Stephen Sorton, 17

Jordan Cunliffe, 16

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Please, sir, I want less law

The news that Joy Tracey, a resident of Denton in Greater Manchester, was threatened with being fined for putting up posters about a missing cat underlines once again the sense that ours is a society which has lost its moral compass.

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther began a treatise on Holy Communion with these remarkable words:

Experience, all chronicles, and the Holy Scriptures as well, teach us this truth: the less law, the more justice; the fewer commandments, the more good works. No well-regulated community ever existed long, if at all, where there were many laws.

An odd way, you might think, to begin discussing church services. But Luther’s understanding of religion went far beyond what is done inside the four walls of a church. At the heart of his message was a radical divide between what we are and what we ought to be.

What we are is disobedient creatures in rebellion against God and in conflict with our neighbours. Therefore we must have laws, magistrates, police and prisons (and finally, hell itself). What we ought to be is sons and daughters of God, whose pattern is Jesus and whose home is the Kingdom of Heaven where the only law is the law of love. And between these two states of being there is a constant tension.

Thus we must have laws, because without them there would be no control over criminal behaviour, injustice and oppression. But the law can never make us good, and therefore it can never bring about justice. It can punish and limit wrongdoing, but it is always inefficient and ultimately ineffective. And therefore too much law is a bad thing.

The difference between Luther’s society and our own, however, is that in Luther’s day, and down to the mid-twentieth century, there was a general assumption that behind our laws lay a higher demand based on a greater authority. For Luther, this was God. And even when faith in God became diminished or distorted, the sense that laws should embody ‘justice’ remained.

In the Western world in the latter part of the twentieth century, however, the notion of ‘moral absolutes’ underwent a widespread collapse. And along with this, of course, went a collapse in moral standards and moral behaviour.

In its place, has come a deliberate remodelling of society, based on a redefinition of humanity. In Luther’s world, human beings were the pinnacle of a created order made in the image of their creator to serve him and rule their world in relationships based on no other law than self-sacrificing love. Law, in this view, was something that belonged to the unredeemed world of sin, not the sanctified future of salvation.

In our society today, all that is, of course, regarded as twaddle. There is no God, there are no moral absolutes, there is no ‘higher authority’. Hence we are ‘free’ to do as we want.

Ironically, however, the result is not an increase, but a decrease of freedom. And this is for two reasons. First, when there is no shared agreement as to how we should act, there have to be rules. If all believe they can act as they want, then all must be told how to act with regard to other people if we are to avoid chaos and conflict. Laws must increase, and become increasingly detailed, since no-one can be simply relied on to do the ‘right thing’.

Secondly, power lies in the hands of people who are themselves without any ‘higher authority’ but who want to shape society. We are now, therefore, subject to the will of a very small number of individuals whose controlling principle is the same as everyone else’s — to do what they want — but who differ from everyone else in having the power, backed up if necessary by force, to bend others to their will. Yet their own will is shaped only by their ‘appetite’ — by what pleases or displeases them from moment to moment or from time to time.

In this situation, law substitutes for justice because there is no justice above the law to which the law is itself subject. A woman whom the Guardian newspaper described as ‘public spirited’ is therefore threatened with legal action by the local council whose proper role is to engender ‘public spirit’.

For the Christian this creates a real dilemma. We are encouraged to obey the governing authorities, as being instituted by God (Romans 13). But when those authorities are godless they threaten not only our well-being but the well-being of society itself. At very least, we must ensure that when we preach the gospel we do not collude with the godless state. The law, as the Apostle Paul once wrote, is for lawbreakers and the godless (1 Timothy 1:8-11). Or as Charles Dickens put it, “The law is [at least on occasion] a ass.” Or as one of his other characters might have put it, “Please, sir, I want less law.”

Let us not put our hopes in the law, and let us never co-mingle the law with the gospel.

Revd John P Richardson
24 May 2008

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It’s OK - he’s not evil, he’s just mad

The police reaction to the apparent attempt by Nicky Reilly, said to be a convert to Islam, to explode a bomb or bombs in Exeter is clearly meant to calm public fears. “It’s OK,” seems to be the message, “Because this is a man with a ‘history of mental illness.’”

So it was the work of a madman. Nothing to worry about there, then.

Personally, I’m not quite as reassured as I’m clearly meant to be. The real issue here is whether, as the police are suggesting it, ideas were planted in Mr Reilly’s head not by his ‘madness’ but by people who want to bomb family restaurants in cities across the country.

I would further be interested to know the nature of Mr Reilly’s ‘historic’ mental illness. Has he been treated for schizophrenia or depression? Either is very unpleasant, but whereas the former involves a detachment from reality, the latter is more an exaggerated, but normal, reaction to real life — and is, moreover, very common. In other words, Mr Reilly may not be what we would popularly characterize as ‘mad’, but actually completely sane.

The myth that suicide bombers (of any stripe, Muslim, Tamil, Bushido, etc) are ‘mad’ is the way people who don’t understand their motivation try to protect themselves from the unpalatable truth. ‘Madmen’ who want to take over the world are actually far less frightening than entirely sane people who want to do the same (unless wanting to take over the world is seen as definitive of madness).

The bottom line, though, is that when it comes to evil ambition we’re all a bit ‘mad’ that way. I remember vividly a conversation with the Australian artist, George Gittoes, who was actually present with an Australian Defence Forces medical team at the Kibeho camp during the Rwandan massacres. What he saw there, and depicted subsequently in his paintings, would make any ‘sane’ person plead for the God of heaven to come down in wrath and burn up the evildoers.

What I can’t forget, though, is his observation that both those who were massacred and those doing the massacring went to church that morning.

George Gittoes is a remarkable man (and slightly scary), not least because he is a man of faith. (He once painted the Dalai Lama’s portrait, at his request, and said it was very strange trying to hold a conversation on spiritual matters with a religious leader who doesn’t believe in God.) Most remarkable of all, though, is his ability to see goodness in situations where most of us would despair of God’s existence at all: the preacher, bringing comfort to those about to be killed, as he himself undoubtedly was; the badly injured woman who carried the wounded to the first-aid post until she died.

The point is, any one of us could be any one of those people. We could be the person who hid in the camp cess-pit (the ‘shitter’ as George called it), driven literally mad with fear. We could be the army commander who oversaw the massacre but ‘allowed’ the Australian medics (armed only with a few rifles) to treat anyone who wasn’t actually left dead. We could be the men with the machetes. We could be the victims, or the medical team. Press the right (or wrong) buttons, and you get out the most astonishing good, or the purest evil.

I’m not sure where this is taking me, except to reflect once again on how little we care to think about reality. Much better that we should be threatened by madmen than the sane. Let nothing disturb us, so we can sit in front of the TV watching ‘reality TV’ (an oxymoron of the first order), like ‘I’d do anything’, and wondering desperately who will be the next Nancy. At least we’re not hurting anyone else. But then we’re not exactly reflecting the image of God, either, I think.

The other thing, I suppose, is that salvation is not a ‘bonus prize’ awarded to those who aren’t the ‘evil’ people exploiting the poor or using up the world’s oil. Inside each of us is something that we really would rather not see. Salvation is not just to fullness of life, it is from our own sinfulness, which is held in check by our veneer of civilization, but which, given the opportunity, would result in something that would make ‘madness’ the best excuse we could offer.

Revd John P Richardson
23 May 2008

PS George Gittoes allowed me free use of ‘The Preacher’ on the front of my book, Revelation Unwrapped. He has never asked a penny in return and got quite cross when I tried to offer him some!

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Why, then, the law? Christianity in a changing legal environment, Part 1

Ed: Part 2 has now been posted here.

Ever since Dr Rowan Williams made his remarks about Shari’ah law, I have been saying that although the suggestions he made were wrong, the questions he raised were entirely right.

Until quite recently, English law developed and functioned under the influence of an explicitly Christian moral framework. At one stage, our divorce laws, laws against Sunday trading and restrictions on homosexual practice all derived essentially from this standpoint. However, as each of these examples shows, since the 1950s there has been a substantial drawing back from this Christian basis for lawmaking.

At first, this seemed unexceptionable. Whilst many here regarded broadly ‘Christian’ values as unquestionably those of any ‘civilized’ society, there was a recognition that specifically Christian beliefs were not universal. It could be argued that allowing easier divorce, Sunday trading and consenting homosexual acts between two adults in private was an appropriate extension of liberty, based on conscience.

Now, however, we increasingly face a new state of affairs — and one to which Dr Williams might usefully yet give his attention. For the question which must now be asked is whether the law ought to be allowed to impose any moral framework on people.

Recently, Mr Ken Livingstone, an ardent Socialist and the Mayor of London, opined that “To impose on a people an enforced acceptance of ... a Christian code or a Muslim code is fundamentally wrong,” adding, “That is a deeply conservative and authoritarian position and it is one that cannot possibly survive in a world that is becoming as open as ours.” On the contrary, he said, “We need to be able to choose freely” how we wish to live our lives.

Yet there is one condition he himself imposes: “As long as you obey the law you should be free to live your life as you choose.” And of course this condition drastically modifies the proposition that you are free to live life ‘as you choose’, for you are free neither to break the law nor to disregard it’s authority over your life. Furthermore, it raises fundamental questions: Who makes the law? Do they have the right to do this, or simply the power? On what basis will they decide what is permissible and what is not? Who will judge whether this basis is itself right or wrong?

This is where Rowan Williams was entirely right in raising the questions he attempted to address:

There is a position — not at all unfamiliar in contemporary discussion — which says that to be a citizen is essentially and simply to be under the rule of the uniform law of a sovereign state, in such a way that any other relations, commitments or protocols of behaviour belong exclusively to the realm of the private and of individual choice.

This, Dr Williams said, “is a very unsatisfactory account of political reality in modern societies; but it is also a problematic basis for thinking of the legal category of citizenship and the nature of human interdependence.” Yet increasingly it is the problem we face. Indeed, one of the commonest criticisms of Dr Williams’ suggestions, in both secular and religious circles, was that there ought to be one law for all which precisely did not allow religious ‘scruples’ any leeway. And the reasoning behind this was that the law ought to impose a moral framework to which all should be subject.

Thus it appears that we have moved hardly at all in terms of our basic understanding of the function of the law. Or rather it seems that the basic understanding shifted just long enough in the initial forty years following the Second World War to dismantle the old framework in the name of ‘freedom’ before beginning to impose a new one.

For what we have now is a ‘moralism’ just as determined as any which might have putatively existed in Puritan England or Calvin’s Geneva. The difference is in the morality, not in the rigour with which it will be imposed. We find ourselves living not in a new-found freedom but under newly-empowered masters.

And the Christian cannot address this by creating legal ‘enclaves’ for Muslims in the hope that similar ‘enclaves’ will be found for themselves.

On the contrary, we now find ourselves needing to confront the fact that the Christian ethos is essentially in tension with all legal frameworks. And this tension derives entirely from the words and works of Christ himself. On the one hand, he simply disregarded, where he deemed necessary, the law (the ‘Shari’ah’) of his own community. On the other hand, he established that there are legal authorities which must be obeyed, even by such a community, irregardless of their ‘godliness’. His saying, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” not only answered the immediate question about paying taxes, it established a remarkable new framework for the engagement between faith and law.

Thus again, on the one hand, it rendered unnecessary the establishment of a ‘theocracy’. If the godly have a duty to obey Caesar, then the godly can live with Caesar. On the other hand, it established that Caesar’s demands are limited. Potentially, therefore, the godly can, and at times must, disregard or even disobey Caesar. The latter point, of course, was rapidly demonstrated during the long period of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

It only needs to be observed that Caesar is any and every system of human government, and we see why the Christian engagement with contemporary society in the UK cannot be presumed to be straightforward. We have had perhaps 1500 years of things going conveniently our way. From here on, though, there is likely to be increasing conflict.

In a planned Part II, I hope to examine further the tension between gospel and law, and to propose how Christians ought to engage with the questions Rowan Williams raised about faith and society.

Revd John P Richardson
17 February 2008

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