Christians and Culture: Lessons for Americans and Anglicans

Some time ago, for reasons I’ve now forgotten, I made a note to read James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). A couple of weeks ago, I finally got round to finishing it, and in view of recent election results in the United States and the Church of England, I’m very glad that I did. However, I think that Christians in both regions are going to find his lessons hard to accept and apply.

Hunter writes as an American addressing the American religious scene. Nevertheless, his conclusions can, I think, be generalized to non-American, and even non-religious, settings.

His core thesis is that the American religious right, religious left and religious radicals are all making the same basic error, and taking the same fundamental approach to changing the world, by buying into the political system.

Yet immediately we must pause for the British audience. ‘What’s this,’ they will be asking, ‘About the “religious left”? Surely there is hardly any such thing, and if there is, it must be a tiny minority.’

But that is the problem with gathering all your information from the British media, who generally loathe right-wing politics and Christian religion with comparable vehemence and are therefore more than happy to lump the two together.

Of course there is an American religious right, but there is also, Hunter points out, a religious left. And in fact the history of the involvement of the religious left in American politics is actually older than that of the religious right. It is only comparatively recently that conservative churches have taken up the political cudgels. And whilst they have had some success, that is now being offset by a resurgence on the left.

One feature of this, incidentally, is the way that the Democratic Party has now realized it can no longer afford to ignore religion — something which apparently it tended to do in the post-war years. Thus President Obama has to have religious credentials, in order to capitalize on the support of the religious left-wing.

Similarly unknown to most British observers, however, is the American religious radical wing — what Hunter calls the neo-Anabaptists. The movement will nevertheless be known to some through theologians such a John H Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas.

Each of these three groupings is very different from the others. Yet in Hunter’s view they are actually variations on a theme — and a wrong one, to boot. Added to this is the irony that each believes itself to be the ‘authentic’ Christian voice not only in its own right, but over against at least one, if not both of the other two ‘false’ voices.

Moreover, each relies on a view of reality which differs from the others and, naturally, reinforces its own ‘narrative’. And yet each has actually bought into a narrative driven by forces and assumptions which have little to do with the faith in question.

Thus the right sees America as threatened by secularism, the left sees it as threatened by capitalism and the radical wing sees political powers themselves as the real enemy. So the right joins forces with right-wing politicians against the left and the left joins forces with left-wing politicians against the right. Meanwhile, the radicals simultaneously condemn politicians but present an agenda based on the ‘politics’ of Jesus — whilst saying some truly remarkably unpleasant things about other Christians.

And while all this is going on, Hunter observes that what really forms the ‘culture’ itself is largely unrecognized and ignored.

Thus at the beginning of the book, Hunter addresses the popular myth of many Christian cultural warriors, that if we can only get enough people converted and get enough people involved in the political system, we can change the culture. But as he points out, the level of religious belief amongst Americans is already high (staggeringly so by European standards). Faith in God is everywhere as is scepticism about ‘secular’ understandings of the universe. If sheer numbers were all that were necessary, the Christian cultural agenda would have succeeded long ago.

But as Hunter goes on to show, that is not how cultures are formed. What forms the culture is not the views of the majority but those moving the levers of power — those people, organizations and institutions whose own opinions shape the opinions of others.

This, I would observe, is why celebrity support for Obama was so important. A moment’s thought will show that a film star or pop singer knows as much, or as little, as the next person when it comes to economic policy. But in a ‘celebrity culture’, what celebrities support shapes what others feel comfortable with. They quite literally become the culture.

Similarly, as others have pointed out, what Fox news has to say may be true, but Fox is so tarred with the right-wing brush that even when its reports are accurate they do not count for anything like as much as some of the ‘liberal’ outlets. Fox is important, but it is not a culture-maker.

If they want to change the culture, therefore, Hunter argues that Christians first need to understand and engage with how the culture is formed. At the same time he asserts that by buying into the political system as the basis for cultural change, Christians of all persuasions both compromise their message and, unwittingly, accept that the final arbiter in human affairs is the ‘will to power’, since all political decisions ultimately rely on the use of power — even the threat of sanction and violence — for their enforcement.

Thus what Hunter offers instead is a programme which begins both by relinquishing the political approach and by engaging with the things that really shape the culture — a policy of what he calls ‘faithful presence’, which seeks to excel in those things and those areas which are truly the expression of our humanity transformed in Christ.

And this is where the Anglican bit comes in, for there are many in the Church who believe that essentially political processes are not only the right way but the best way to bring about desirable change. Yet the current debate over women bishops is surely revealing the inadequacy of that approach.

Some will argue, for example, that the General Synod will soon express ‘the mind of the Church’ by introducing women bishops, but how can that be so when there are many who clearly oppose the move? Is the ‘mind’ dependent on ten or twenty votes? And if the decision is forced on others, is this not just the ‘will to power’ in action?

Over against this, I have been more than willing to argue for political involvement by traditionalists and conservatives. But this must not be a case of simply attempting to use power in the same way as others — just to different ends. The political process is necessary — the polis is the community, of which we are all a part. But there needs to be a much clearer understanding that the culture of the Church does not rely on politics.

A bishop once observed in my hearing, for example, that despite the growth of evangelicalism, in the ‘corridors of power’ the prevailing ethos was still ‘liberal catholic’. That is what I mean by ‘culture’. If Oak Hill college, for example, is producing excellent ministers (and it is), that may not affect the culture of the Church if Oak Hill is regarded as the theological equivalent of Fox News (and in many circles it is).

What we are left with, then, is a challenge — in the Church and in the world — to understand how things not only work in fact but how they should work when we apply Christian thinking. For Christians in America and for Anglicans in England, the challenge is immense. But I believe that unless we understand the things Hunter observes, many well-intentioned efforts here and there will be wasted.

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Obama’s Afghan surrender will follow us home

It took thirty years for the British army and security forces to bring the situation in Northern Ireland to the point where terrorists were willing to give up fighting before becoming part of mainstream politics.

During that time there were many calls to abandon the province, the ‘Troops Out’ movement being just one voice amongst many. Even in the general public on the mainland, there was widespread disillusionment about the worthwhileness of the military commitment and the cost in money and lives.

Fortunately, not just for those on the mainland but for the people of Ireland, there was just enough determination to see the worst of the conflict through to a solution.

There were many misunderstandings and mistakes on the way. English politicians, in particular, never really ‘got it’ regarding Ulster Protestantism, and there was no Canon Andrew White around to spell out the real importance of religion in the situation. Had this been appreciated, I personally believe the conflict could have been resolved ten or fifteen years sooner.

In the end, however, sheer stubbornness and the growing skills of the security forces, combined with a communal weariness over tit-for-tat killings, all combined to make the conflict something everyone wanted to bring to an end. That, and the fact that we didn’t have Wootton Bassett.

The efforts of the people of Wootton Bassett to honour the returning war dead from Afghanistan are entirely commendable. Unfortunately, in the post-Diana era, they have created an emotional flash-point which simply cannot coexist with the kind of determination necessary to bring such a conflict to a satisfactory conclusion.

It is the job of soldiers to kill and, as they remind themselves with typical humour, Afghanistan is a ‘two way range’. The enemy shoot back and sometimes they kill in return. An acceptance of this and the willingness to tolerate the consequences is part of what is known as ‘morale’, and morale is an essential element in victory. It is not guarantee of success, but its absence is a sure guarantee of failure.

And in both Iraq and Afghanistan, morale has generally been good. The modern soldier is much less like those who fought in Vietnam. There are no demonstrators in the colleges chanting, ‘Hell, no, we won’t go!’, for example. Indeed, the modern soldier is unlike any in this country since the introduction of conscription in the First World War and the ending of National Service in the 1960s. For the equivalent, you would have to go back to the professional armies of the nineteenth century. And a professional army accepts risk in a way that a conscript, however brave, does not.

Thus it is not the soldiers who are asking to be brought home (read the British Army blog linked from this blog). Rather, it is the politician, who is sensitive to public pressure.

That is why President Obama’s announcement of a dramatic pull-out from Afghanistan has to be seen as tantamount to surrender. There is still the rhetoric of reaching a successful conclusion, but it is a clear signal of the absence of will. Imagine if, in 1984, following the Brighton bombing, Margaret Thatcher had announced the intention that all troops would be withdrawn from Northern Ireland by 1990? Now you can imagine how the Taliban must be feeling today — ‘it is only a matter of time’.

And the reality of the situation can be gauged by responses in the media here — not just the actual articles, but the comments, most of which seem to be along the lines of ‘about time too, we were stupid to get involved in the first place’. Above all, the perception of many seems to be that this will finally bring the conflict to an end.

Nothing could be further from the truth. This is not a conflict from which we can walk away, because it is already present in our own Western communities. Rather what it will do is embolden globally those who are committed to armed jihad.

The place to look, I think, will not be the comments sections of the Guardian, the Independent or even the Telegraph and Times, but the jihadi chat rooms. There, I suspect, the doom and gloom following the death of Osama bin Laden is being replaced by a new optimism. Just when it looked like America indeed had the will and the determination to pursue its enemies to the ends of the earth, light has appeared at the end of the Afghan tunnel.

But remember, those chat room participants do not, by and large, live in Afghanistan. They are not even confined to Pakistan, or the Middle East. They live in Bolton, in London, in New York and in Sydney. And their view will be, ‘We almost beat you in Iraq, and we’ll beat you in Afghanistan. Next we’re going to beat you on your home territory as well.’

As one writer put it yesterday, “America is no longer capable of being the policeman of the world, and may retreat to its historic isolation. Across the Channel, the debt crisis is wrecking the European dream. History is moving faster than ever, and taking us into a new and formless world.”

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“Right becomes wrong and left become right”

I am still immensely enjoying Clive James’s Cultural Amnesia, as I blogged about last week. As I continue to read, however, I am struck by a recurring theme regarding the makers of Western culture about whom James writes.

Many of them have been victims of one, or sometimes even both, of the two secular ideologies which dominated so much of the last century — to the right, Nazism, and to the left, Marxism. Almost inevitably, these individuals come across as tragic, and indeed are often heroic.

Yet at the same time there are others, for the most part no less talented or dedicated to their particular field, who have actually lent their support precisely to these ideologies. And this surely raises some interesting questions about the whole ‘cultural’ enterprise.

Here we have people who can rightly be regarded as cultured intellectuals. Indeed, they are themselves culturally creative. Yet sometimes they are entirely blind to movements and forces inimical to human, and therefore cultural, flourishing.

It has to be said, moreover, that this is particularly noticeable regarding attitudes on the ‘left’. Here, it seems, people of considerable intellect have, nevertheless, been constantly willing to justify self-evident wrongs and to deny every allegation of moral deviance, in a manner that seems entirely at variance with their own evident capacity for understanding and analysis in other respects.

Thus people who really should have known better have supported, at various times, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong and even Pol Pot.

To go beyond James’s own examples, many of us remember Jane Fonda’s visit to, and endorsement of, North Vietnam in the 1960s. And what of the World Council of Churches’ support for violent ‘liberation’ movements in the Third World?

Part of the picture is, of course, that the political left tends to align itself with causes that appeal to the best of human instincts — the desire to help the physically poor and the socially oppressed.

The problem is that organizations and individuals who have been able to talk the right talk in this regard have often walked a very different walk. There may even, as seems to be the case with Mao Zedong, be a transition from a good start to a truly disastrous finish.

Nevertheless, it is a lesson of history that intellectual and cultural brilliance is by no means a guarantee that the individual will possess an accurate moral compass, or pay any attention to it even if they do.

It should also, however, be an encouragement to the rest of us, who do not possess such brilliance, not to be intimidated into silence. Sometimes it is possible to wonder whether, given the mental abilities of those who lend their support to one dubious-looking cause or another, the Emperor for whom they are cheering really is wearing the fantastic outfit they describe, rather than being as stark-naked as the objective evidence suggests.

Reading through the ‘broadsheet’ media today, the Western intellectual opponents of the West, for example, seem to be overwhelming both in their numbers and in their evident learning. “Surely,” we find ourselves thinking, “they must be onto something.” And so we go on listening to the argument that the real threat to human flourishing today comes not from the radicalization of Muslims or the growing brute economic power of China, but from America, or from our own history.

It is said by clever people, and it is said well — so who are you, or who am I, to contradict it?

At times like this it is good to remember that clever, erudite people have been notoriously wrong about such things in the past. They really have done the same for mass murderers and political sociopaths. And sometimes what we need is common sense, not intellectual brilliance.

The title for this post comes from the Dire Straits song, Ride Across the River. There is another Dire Straits line I am fond of quoting as an antidote to the modern mindset, which comes from Industrial Disease: “Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.”

Of course, it is possible that they are both wrong, but certainly during the 1990s it became possible to scandalize quite intelligent people with the first suggestion: “Who are we to say who is wrong?” became the typical response, even when it was self-evidently true that someone was.

But it is this same moral certainty about the uncertainty of our moral judgement that allows perfectly sane commentators and journalists to condemn ‘Islamophobia’, for example, without ever coming down hard against Islam, or to judge the West by ‘Western’ standards whilst excusing the otherwise unpardonable when it is part of a non-Western ‘culture’.

There is, however, a third Dire Straits line, again from Industrial Disease, that comes to mind at this point: “Philosophy is useless, theology is worse.” When the intellect fails us practically, then only the truly practical person can help us. The wise person in such circumstances may well not be the clever one. They will just be the one who can accurately see and declare what is going on.

John Richardson

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Is there a Christian view on Alternative Voting?

On May 5^th this year, the country will be voting on the biggest change in our electoral system since — well, you pick your own comparison, but I would guess something like the introduction of votes for women.

I am referring, of course, to the Alternative Vote system, which will replace the present X on the ballot paper with a numbered preference. The instructions you’ll see on your ballot paper, in the event of the system being introduced, will be as follows:

Remember — use 1, 2, 3 etc at this election — this is an election using the alternative vote system. Put the number 1 next to the name of the candidate who is your first choice (or your only choice, if you want to vote for only one candidate). You can also put the number 2 next to your second choice, 3 next to your third choice, and so on. You can mark as few or as many choices (up to the number of candidates) as you wish. Do not use the same number more than once. Put no other mark on the ballot paper, or your vote may not be counted.

Now to me that seems pretty straightforward. Also, as one who is used to the STV system used in General Synod elections, it also seems both familiar and reasonable. The maths are rather different for those counting the votes (STV seems to involve either a big brain or a small computer), but there is nothing too complicated for the voter to grasp, and that is surely all that matters in this regard.

Above all, the AV system seems to me to be more fair. I am frankly tired, after innumerable elections throughout my lifetime, of putting casting a vote that I know will count for nothing or next-to-nothing, either because my candidate is a dead-cert or because they have no chance on the first-past-the-post system.

The fact that the Church of England has already adopted something very similar for its own elections suggests to me that Anglicans ought to support AV.

But of course I may be missing something. When a couple of dozen leading historians describe AV as a threat to our whole democratic way of life, you have to allow that they may be right (though of course you’d then have to ask whether the elections to General Synod ought to be regarded as ‘proper’).

Personally, I’m going to support AV unless someone can talk me out of it. But I’m surprised at the overall silence on this whole topic.

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Christian foster carers - still cause for concern

[UPDATE 4th March: this has now been posted on Ruth Gledhill's 'Articles of Faith' blog where it is available free.]

 Following widespread misreporting that a Christian couple had been ‘banned’ from becoming foster carers (provoking an inevitably mistaken outcry), we now have an opposite (and equally mistaken) reaction from those who are saying there is really nothing here to get excited about.

The couple concerned, Owen and Eunice Johns, had gone to court over the unwillingness of Derby City Council to grant them approval as foster carers — a rôle they had previously undertaken during the 1990s — due to their own views on homosexuality and a change in the Council’s formal standards reflecting new legislation on sexual equality.

The Johns’ views are explicitly based in their Christian beliefs. Even so, the first clarification they sought from the court carefully avoided mentioning their specific faith, referring instead to “Persons who adhere to a traditional code of sexual ethics”. It was any and all of these, they argued, who “should not be considered unsuitable to be foster carers for this reason alone.”

They also sought assurances that foster carers could be regular churchgoers (another question raised by the City Council) and that the particular views of foster carers on homosexuality ought only to be considered in the case of a specific child, rather than more generally.

Derby City Council, meanwhile, counter-claimed that, “A fostering service provider may be [originally they stated “would be”, but changed this in the course of the action] acting lawfully if it decides not [sic, to] approve a prospective foster carer who evinces antipathy, objection to, or disapproval of, homosexuality and same-sex relationships and an inability to respect, value and demonstrate positive attitudes towards homosexuality and same-sex relationships.”

These were the issues on which both sides agreed to seek “declaratory relief” — (in layman’s terms, ‘a court ruling that one or the other was basically right’).

In the event, the judges refused to do this, which means it is now up to the Council to consider the Johns’ case further and come to a decision. However, they also refused to grant the Johns’ permission to apply for a judicial review and in doing so, clearly took the side of the Council over the issue of the criteria they could apply to foster carers.

Moreover, in reaching this decision, they laid great emphasis on the cases of Islington London Borough Council v Ladele and McFarlane v Relate Avon Limited. It was the latter case in which Lord Justice Laws was so dismissive of the interventions of Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Laws’s words are extensively quoted in the present ruling.

Thus it is quite clear that a legal precedent in these matters has been established, and is now being followed by the courts, which comes down to this: if a body acts against a Christian in a way that it could lawfully act against anyone else, this is not a case of direct religious discrimination.

Now at first blush this might seem reasonable. The legal criteria would be the outward behaviour common to all, not the inward motivation specific to the individual. Indeed, the ruling (rather ostentatiously, given the context) denied “seeking to open windows into people’s souls”, emphasizing,

The local authority is entitled to explore the extent to which prospective foster carers’ beliefs may affect their behaviour, their treatment of a child being fostered by them.

But then, as we have seen, the Johns themselves did not seek to make this first matter an exclusively religious issue, which might seem to support the judges’ ruling in this respect.

The problem is, as the Council’s counter claim demonstrates, the only position that will be legally tolerated in this particular instance is one which expresses no “objection to”, but only “positive attitudes” towards, homosexuality and same-sex relationships. The range of behaviour and treatment that will be tolerated is thus apparently strictly limited.

This, therefore, is rather like the individual whose ‘balanced personality’ consists of having a chip on both shoulders. The equality of application is not necessarily a justification for the outcome. However, as the law currently stands, it would seem that the first anxiety expressed by the Johns is justified.

In a recent article in The Times, Emma Satyamurti identifies as a key question whether the Johns had a right to manifest their beliefs in the context of fostering a child. The initial answer would appear to be ‘no’. Adhering to the view that sexual union outside lifelong heterosexual marriage is morally undesirable is (because of its negative connotations regarding homosexuality) indeed sufficient grounds for the Council to discriminate against an application to become a foster carer.

Nevertheless, there was an interesting claim put forward by the Council that they had approved other foster carers who were, in their words, “very committed Christians who hold to orthodox beliefs and devout Muslims who are similarly committed to their religion”, yet who were apparently “able to value diversity notwithstanding their strongly held religious beliefs.”

No evidence was actually offered in court as to what this entailed, but one might wonder whether they offered the approaches of these couples to the Johns as ‘worked examples’ of how they might be able to comply with the Council’s standards.

Is it acceptable, for example, for these couples, if asked, to express their own “orthodox beliefs” to the children in their care? In that case, what the Council means by ‘evincing antipathy’ is not necessarily what might be assumed.

On the other hand, of course, if such carers are actually required to operate a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, then we are indeed in a position where only one view may legitimately be expressed in this context, which for the Johns and those like them comes to the same thing as discrimination.

However, this only deals with direct discrimination. The ruling also touched on the question of indirect discrimination. If one’s faith required one to adopt and express the views held by the Johns, is not this an example of indirect religious discrimination and therefore contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights?

Here, the quoted words of Lord Justice Laws are decisive:

... in various contexts the law allows indirect discrimination where, in a carefully controlled legislative setting, it can be shown to have justifiable effects. (Para 53)

In the present case, the judges ruled that there was not even indirect discrimination. Nevertheless, they added this caveat:

However, on the assumption that such a requirement or requirements [of the Council] are indirectly discriminatory, it is clear ... that compliance with anti-discrimination legislation ... will amount to justification ... [of indirect discrimination].

The problem is that what Article 9 of the European Convention gives with one hand (paragraph 1), it takes away with the other (paragraph 2), declaring firmly that it is for the state to decided what is,

... in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

And as we are seeing, issues of ‘personal rights’ legally trump issues of ‘public morals’.

Any suggestion that there is, after all, nothing for Christians to worry about here, is thus misplaced. Satyamurti, for example, is technically correct when she says that “was no direct discrimination against [the Johns] on the basis of religious belief”, but that is only because the same discrimination would have applied to everyone holding their views on traditional morality. Whether one is hung for stealing a lamb rather than a sheep because one prefers one’s meat tender, the actual hanging comes to the same thing.

But for exactly the same reason that justified the universal direct discrimination, indirect discrimination would in any case be allowed, even on the grounds of religious belief. Thus the ruling states that

... Article 9 only provides a “qualified” right to manifest religious belief and ... interferences in the sphere of employment and analogous spheres are readily found to be justified [...]. (102)

Somewhat controversially, the ruling adds that,

This will be particularly so where a person in whose care a child is placed wishes to manifest a belief that is inimical to the interests of children [...].

At least on the face of it, this would seem to imply that strict adherence to traditional sexual morality might be just such a belief!

Thus the claim by the Christian blogger, Peter Ould, that ‘Christians with Traditional Moral Views can still be Foster Parents’ is, unfortunately, somewhat premature. Strictly speaking, the issue has yet to be decided. Derby City Council was reduced to saying that they may be acting lawfully in discriminating against people expressing anything other than positive views on homosexuality and same-sex relationships, and that may still be challenged.

As it stands, however, the law would certainly uphold any ‘ban’ they did impose on the grounds to which they have appealed, provided it applied equally to all, and would certainly not allow a claimed exception on the basis of religious belief.

In what ought to be doom and gloom for orthodox Christians, however, there is one chink of light. In their own deliberations, Derby City Council had generously acknowledged that this was not just a matter of Christian beliefs since, “there are homophobic people that are non-Christian” (para 11). Taking a different view, however, the Johns had sought a ruling that it should actually be unlawful for a public authority to use this description of people like themselves.

Oddly enough it is Lord Justice Laws who comes to the rescue, for in his response to Lord Carey, he also stated the following:

The judges have never, so far as I know, sought to equate the condemnation by some Christians of homosexuality on religious grounds with homophobia, or to regard that position as disreputable, nor have they likened Christians to bigots. (53)

This would seem to suggest that, at least in this regard, the Johns’ claim ought to have been upheld. According to Laws, the Christian condemnation of homosexuality ought not to be called ‘homophobic’, neither is the position disreputable, nor are its adherents bigots. Perhaps Derby Council (and others!) could take note of this, at least.

John P Richardson
3 March 2011

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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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Alcohol and social policy: "But when I'm with you I can't control myself"

Few people in our society are alcoholics, but many drink too much, as is evidenced in our town centres at weekends. And this is taking an undoubted toll on both drinkers and society. Indeed, according to reports in today’s news media, we face something of a crisis: “deaths from all alcohol-related causes — including cancers and road accidents — could claim the lives of 250,000 people in England and Wales over the coming two decades.”

And the costs involved include not only premature deaths and medical treatment of the sick, but clogged A& E units, damage to families, injuries to police and ambulance crews, lost working hours, and so on.

Clearly we have a problem. So what is to be done?

The answer being proposed by those raising the alarm is that the government should intervene. In particular, prices of alcohol should be raised. Thus the BBC reports a Department of Health spokeswoman saying,

The government has wasted no time in taking tough action to tackle problem drinking, including plans to stop supermarkets selling below-cost alcohol and working to introduce a tougher licensing regime.

And she adds that the government was taking “a bold new approach” to public health.

Frankly, in the area of politics nothing fills me with greater alarm than the news that any government is taking ‘bold new approaches’ on anything. The phrase ‘Fools rush in’ is usually the one that springs to mind.

However, it seems to me there is a deeper issue here, which is the assumption that this is basically a problem for the government to tackle through legislation.

Frankly, this is treating people like idiots, or like children.

Now of course people can behave like idiots, especially when they’ve been drinking. There is an old saying attributed to the Irish: “One drink, fine. Two drinks, plenty. Three drinks, nowhere near enough.” But it is perfectly possible for most people — alcoholics excepted — to identify the transition between that second and third drink and decide to stop.

In my student days I was rather fond of a tipple at weekends, which often left me with a hangover on Sunday mornings. One such morning, I remember walking across the student canteen with my lunch on my tray and feeling very queasy, when I thought to myself, “This is stupid. I don’t like feeling like this. I’m going to stop.” So I did. It wasn’t a great moral decision — just a realization that there were better things in life than spending a lot of money to feel ill the next day.

Here is Martin Luther making a similar point in a sermon:

God does not forbid you to drink, as do the Turks [Muslims]; he permits you to drink wine and beer: he does not make a law of it. But do not make a pig of yourself; remain a human being. If you are a human being, then keep your human self-control. (LW 51:296)

Luther’s appeal is not to the law (whether of God or Islam) but to human dignity. And to make such an appeal is itself to treat people in a dignified way.

The society that says, “There must be a law” at this (or similar) points, is already treating people as basically incapable — whether they are incapable through sin or through lack of self-control.

It says a lot for us, that in these early years of the twenty-first century, this is what some of our brightest and best assume must be the case when it comes to alcohol.

John Richardson

BTW, for those who may have missed it, the headline is a reference to The Troggs 1960s hit, "I can't control myself" (lyrics here, but watch out for pop-up ad). The wonderful thing about this particular single is that it refers to a time when self-control might have been thought necessary in a boy-girl relationship.

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How we got same-sex marriage without a proper debate

What the Cornwall B & B case, and the judge’s remarks in his decision, seem to show is that the Civil Partnership Bill effectively gave us ‘same-sex’ marriage without a proper debate in the legislature. As Judge Rutherford put it, “There is no material difference (for the purpose of this regulation) between marriage and a civil partnership.”

Yet the words of the Bishop of Chelmsford from the debate on the Civil Partnership Bill in the House of Lord’s, 17^th November 2004 would suggest this was not supposed to happen and that the government was giving the impression that there was no danger of it happening:

The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: Perhaps I may say to the Minister that it would be good to have on record that the public understanding of marriage held in the law of this country is not affected by this Bill.

The later words of the Bishop of Chester, however, now seem prescient:

The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, perhaps I may briefly make another penultimate speech in your Lordships’ House. I am grateful for the assurances of my right reverend friend the Bishop of Chelmsford that the Bill before us does not introduce same-sex marriage. I am grateful for the assurances of the Government at earlier stages. But the difficulty is that the details of the Bill as it stands so closely parallel the arrangements for marriage that there is a real danger of a de facto introduction of same-sex marriage by that process.

The history of social legislation in this country is often that the consequences are not quite those that are stated as intended. One sees that in all sorts of areas, including divorce and abortion in family law. In some ways, that makes it difficult to accept the amendment before us. The range of relationships that ought to be dealt with under a Bill, as has been stated so eloquently, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, is very persuasive.

However, if the Bill is left standing alone, without any other measures being introduced at some point, paralleling so closely the provisions for marriage, de facto we will have a perception of same-sex marriage.

How mistaken was the Bishop of Chelmsford, and how far-sighted was the Bishop of Chester?

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"I want it all, and I want it now" - cultural decline and the demand for gratfication

A couple of days ago, I posted a piece on the differences one woman identified between Chinese and ‘Western’ approaches to parenting. I didn’t realize at the time that the woman concerned had just written a book on the entire subject, nor did I know that there is a phenomenon called the Tiger Mother.

“How did I miss this?” you may ask. The answer is that the original article caught my eye because of a number of other concerns.

The first, and most pressing, is a conviction that the hegemony of the West is over. Europe and North America, in particular, have had their day and by the end of this century will simply be ‘bit players’ on a very different global stage.

That, I think, is an unremarkable suggestion, but the reason for it I myself would advance is that the ‘NATO’ culture is exhausted. The book to read is Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence, where one can see how the astonishingly vibrant culture of medieval Europe finally gave way to dullness and indifference somewhere in the second half of the twentieth century. We have reached almost the end of a long trail, and are witnessing the passing of the old culture and the advent of the new.

That is life — cultures come and cultures go. But my second concern lies with the influences on, and from, this exhaustion. What human qualities are fed by, and feed into, our present Western culture? And that is where parenting comes into the picture.

One of the great challenges of being human is the delay of gratification. That is to say, we set aside an immediate pleasure (whether it be of doing one thing or stopping doing another) for the sake of a future pleasure, either of enjoying the same thing later or of enjoying something else even more.

Indeed, I would suggest that a conscious delay of gratification is one of the defining qualities of being human. Experiments with animals show that the greater the reward, the more strongly reinforced tends to be the behaviour that elicits that reward. (Combine this with frequent but irregular supply of the reward and the behaviour can become compulsive.)

Because we have an animal nature, the same is also broadly true of us. Why else does sex have such a powerful effect on the way we behave, especially when we are younger? However, human beings can also, by nature, step back from the action-gratification cycle. We can reflect on it, and rationalize about it, and therefore we can actually make choices as to how and, importantly, when we are gratified.

Thus an adult may choose not to eat sweets (delaying the gratifying experience) in order to achieve, later on, the pleasure of weight-loss. Or they may choose not to buy something they would quite like now in order to save up for something else they really want in the future.

Such observations are commonplace, but the underlying attitude depends on two fundamental considerations. The first is a conviction that there will be a future point at which such delayed gratification can finally be enjoyed. The second is that the future gratification will be, in some way, greater than the immediately available gratification.

To the extent to which these considerations are weakened, however, delayed gratification will tend to give way to immediate gratification. If I knew that I would die tomorrow, I would certainly not be abstaining from chocolate today.

This is the presumption behind the ‘Bucket List’ phenomenon. There are things to do ‘before you die’ precisely because you are going to die and then you will not be able to do them. The same, however, can be applied within our individual lifespan. There are things you can do when you are young which you will not be able to do when you are old, and so on.

Of course there is a balance to be struck between delay and gratification. Without eventual gratification, there would be nothing to provide motivation for the delay. On the other hand, if the possibility of gratification seems too remote, or if the immediate gratification seems too desirable, then again delay will lose its attraction.

The point, though, is that the interplay between gratification and delay is both influenced by, and has influence on, a given cultural group, whether that be, to give just a few examples, a family, a tribe, a community, a team or a nation.

Thus Amy Chua’s ‘Tiger Mother’ approaches the question of music practice or homework on the principle, first of all, that not doing these things is itself a ‘gratification’ which must be delayed. Why she thinks this doubtless has much to do with her own enculturation — how she was brought up and what she learned about motherhood — but the effect is obvious: her children now excel at these things which required so much effort and, indeed, caused so many tears.

The contrast with a family where the immediate gratification of not doing homework or music practice takes priority will be obvious. The children will, doubtless, be happy with their immediate lot, but in general they will not advance academically or artistically as far as the children of the ‘Tiger Mother’ household.

Which, then, is better? The answer depends on your views on a number of issues. The most obvious would be parental discipline, the application of which is itself a form of delayed gratification. Who wants to spend hours making children do their homework when we could all sit and watch the TV?

Another obvious issue would be one’s view of later attainment in life. If you want academic or artistic success, the foundations are best laid in childhood. But is this worth the actual price at the time? Who really cares whether you get good piano grades? What does it matter in the final analysis?

But there is also the basic question of what it means to be human. Is, for example, the person who enjoys — who indeed can play — Mozart a better human being than one who cannot share that enjoyment, someone whose musical development goes no further than, say, the ‘top twenty’? If the answer is ‘yes’, then delayed gratification is not just a means to material ends but a key to human development.

And if we find these examples from academia or the arts too culturally biased in themselves, consider the area of sport, where again great achievement demands great sacrifice. This is masked, of course, by the fact that sport, especially in its early stages, involves ‘play’. Nevertheless, to progress is intensely demanding.

Indeed, it is worth asking, again, whether a culture which emphasizes practice and discipline at an early stage will not produce more able athletes than one which relies on self-motivation and the emergence of the odd ‘genius’.

There is no doubt in my mind that a culture of delayed gratification is not only conducive towards, but essential for, developing both greatness in our achievements and fullness in our humanity.*

What has happened in the West, however, is the shrinking of our perspective regarding the extent to which gratification can and should be delayed. Not least, of course, this is affected by the decline of religious faith. In one sense delayed gratification is of the essence of faith — especially (though not exclusively) the Christian faith. Thus the believer is willing to delay gratification even of sexual desires if this is seen as conducive to a greater gratification that lies beyond this world.

But there are other ‘horizons’ which have contracted, whilst the immediate ‘moment’ has extended its demands.

To give one example, I remember reading the complaint of a football coach that the skills of young players were defective because the emphasis on Saturday mornings in the park was all on winning. What he pointed out was that to be able to improve some skills you had to try something you couldn’t do. Thus you had to accept ‘suffering’ your own incompetence at kicking with your weak foot if you were to emerge on the other side as a different kind of player. The ethos of the football-playing culture, however, meant that neither coaches nor players were prepared to live with short-term deprivation of success and admiration for the sake of the long-term future of either the player or the game.

Above all, there is the overarching question of what a culture as a whole sees as its collective ‘rationale’. And here is a key question for the West: “Why are we here? What is our purpose in handing on the gift of life itself from one generation to another, and how should we encourage our children to live in the short-term in order to achieve these longer-term goals?”

These are surely fundamental questions. And I am not saying that the ‘Tiger Mother’ has a good answer. On the contrary, I have no doubt that many such parents living in the West are simply running on the momentum of their cultural inheritance, without yet realizing the tank is dry. But we who are more embedded in Western culture are confronted with the questions more starkly precisely because we are no longer able to maintain the trajectory generated by that faith in the future or sense of duty towards family and country which motivated our grandparents.

If, in the end, there is really nothing much for the individual to look forward to, then the delay of gratification will become increasingly pointless. The result will be an unwillingness to struggle or strive in the present. Instead, carpe diem will come to mean ‘seize the pleasures of the day’. As Queen put it, “I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.” Or as it says in the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures, “Let us eat and drink ... for tomorrow we die.”

John P Richardson
13 January 2011

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* "Carol Dweck from Stanford University in the US, has demonstrated that students who understand intelligence is malleable rather than fixed are much more intellectually ambitious and successful.

The same dynamic applies to talent. This explains why today's top runners, swimmers, bicyclists, chess players, violinists and on and on, are so much more skilful than in previous generations.

All of these abilities are dependent on a slow, incremental process which various micro-cultures have figured out how to improve." See here.

Another day, another reason to dislike WikiLeaks

Listening to Radio 4’s Sunday programme this morning, there was an interview with Andrew Brown from the Guardian in which he said something like this: that the reason the WikiLeaks cables were so useful was that, unlike journalists, they could disclose their sources, because those who sent them assumed that they were speaking confidentially — “But of course, they were not.”

Now this was interesting, coming as it did from a journalist. I don’t think Andrew was saying he wished he could be as frank about his sources. Rather, the point seemed to be, isn’t it great when we can do what judges and politicians often wish they could do, namely find out who is behind a story or comment.

The sense of unease was further increased when the word ‘gossip’ was used — whether by Andrew or the interviewer I can’t right now recall. In effect, the point was made, we are listening to gossip.

So, broken confidences and gossip are the essence of the journalistic use of WikiLeaks material.

Though I listened on to find out how the interview ended — and also because, with church coming up, I didn’t want to fall back to sleep — I once again felt uncomfortable about how we are all being drawn in to something which has a worrying agenda and operates on a principle which ought to require a high level of moral justification.

Earlier in the week, I read an online article in the Sydney Morning Herald describing a meeting between the journalist Philip Dorling and Julian Assange himself. You can read the article here, but Dorling describes how it took,

Six months of emails, clandestine meetings and confidential exchanges ... before arrangements for a visit to Britain were locked in.

And, ironically, he adds,

WikiLeaks takes security very seriously, and it is right to do so.

So, is it WikiLeaks conspiracy ‘good’, government conspiracy ‘bad’?

This is a serious question, given the apparent basis of WikiLeaks in the principle that good governance can only come about through degrading the ability of governments to  ‘conspire’ through secure communications.

I have no doubt that bad conspiracies happen in governments. But that has always been true of all governments. There are bad conspiracies amongst political activists of all kinds. (Indeed, a useful debate for the future might be ‘Is politics a force for good in the world?’ I’d like to hear Christopher Hitchens on that one.)

The fact is, WikiLeaks is a ‘conspiracy’ in its own terms, at the head of which is a ‘man with a mission’. And we have all become players in the game.

Unless, of course, we choose to turn off the radio.

John Richardson
12 December 2010

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The WikiLeaks Conspiracy - another journalist 'gets it'

Yesterday I posted a link to an Australian article which I think understands (from Julian Assange's own writings) just exactly what WikiLeaks is aiming to, which is not what most Western media commentators evidently think it is trying to do.

Given the power the kind of people who actively support WikiLeaks not only possess but are evidently prepared to use to interfere with the internet, and therefore with all of our lives, it is surely vital that we become aware of what exactly are the issues here, so that a proper engagement can take place.

Here is an extract from another journalist, this time in Canada, who 'gets it' about WikiLeaks:

[...] WikiLeaks is a worldwide network of individuals who share a common ethic and a common cause -- a conspiracy, if you will. As Northwestern University philosophy professor Peter Ludlow argues, WikiLeaks "is the product of decades of collaborative work by people engaged in applying computer hacking to political causes."

This means that "were Assange to be eliminated today, WikiLeaks would doubtless continue." Indeed, as Assange's own discussion highlights, a conspiracy will survive even if a high value target like Assange is eliminated. And further, "even if WikiLeaks were somehow to be eliminated, new sites would emerge to replace it."

This suggests that, just as the attention paid to individual leaks is misplaced, so too is the attention paid to Assange.

WikiLeaks isn't about one man any more than it's about one leak. And trying to neutralize WikiLeaks by neutralizing one man, or one leak, is like trying to cripple a centipede by breaking one of its legs. Read more

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Christianity and the 'values of the left'

George Monbiot is not usually a writer I enjoy, but a phrase in the headline to his latest contribution to The Guardian caught my eye: “the left has to start asserting its own values.” Always curious to know what values there are on the left (and where, exactly does ‘left’ start?), I found myself reading an article with which I felt a great deal of agreement.

Monbiot is clearly frustrated by what he sees as the passive acceptance, not only by left-wing activists but those whom they support, of policies which undermine their aims. We are seeing the “punishment of the poor for the errors of the rich, the abandonment of universalism, the dismantling of the shelter the state provides” and yet “apart from a few small protests, none of this has yet brought us out fighting.”

What can be the cause, he wonders? And the answer is found in an aspect of human psychology identified in a paper written for the World Wildlife Fund by Tom Crompton. Apparently, he problem lies in “progressives” (Monbiot is prone to such polarizations of humankind) holding to what Crompton calls an enlightenment model of human behaviour, according to which people build their lives around rational decisions based on facts.

In reality, however, people actually live on the basis of a social identity and its accompanying values. Presenting people with ‘facts’ intended to produce change may actually have the opposite effect.

The key to addressing this, then, is to understand the difference between ‘extrinsic’ and ‘intrinsic’ values. Monbiot summarizes thus:

Extrinsic values concern status and self-advancement. People with a strong set of extrinsic values fixate on how others see them. They cherish financial success, image and fame. Intrinsic values concern relationships with friends, family and community, and self-acceptance. Those who have a strong set of intrinsic values are not dependent on praise or rewards from other people. They have beliefs that transcend their self-interest.

Unsurprisingly, given that this is an article about the values of ‘the left’, it turns out that left-wing people are more ‘intrinsic’, with a strong sense of self-acceptance, and hence “have more empathy and greater concern for human rights, social justice and the environment.”

Right-wing, ‘extrinsic’, people, on the other hand, “strongly value financial success ... have less empathy, stronger manipulative tendencies, a stronger attraction to hierarchy and inequality, stronger prejudices towards strangers and less concern about human rights and the environment.”

However, people are not ‘intrinsically’ intrinsic or extrinsic:

We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the social environment. By changing our perception of what is normal and acceptable, politics alters our minds as much as our circumstances.

And what is true for politics is true also for social policy, advertising and the media. The latter have a particular impact:

Their fascination with power politics, their rich lists, their catalogues of the 100 most powerful, influential, intelligent or beautiful people, their obsessive promotion of celebrity, fashion, fast cars, expensive holidays: all inculcate extrinsic values.

Apparently though, according to Crompton’s paper, the answer is simple. The left should,

... stop seeking to bury our values and instead explain and champion them. Progressive campaigners, it suggests, should help to foster an understanding of the psychology that informs political change and show how it has been manipulated. They should also come together to challenge forces – particularly the advertising industry – that make us insecure and selfish.

Enter (stage left) Ed Miliband. Monbiot quotes him as telling the Labour conference that he “‘wants to change our society so that it values community and family, not just work’ and ‘wants to change our foreign policy so that it’s always based on values, not just alliances’”. Above all, “‘We must shed old thinking and stand up for those who believe there is more to life than the bottom line’”.

But there’s a problem. Politicians, Monbiot notes, must be driven by ambition. Hence:

Those who succeed in politics are, by definition, people who prioritise extrinsic values.

As a result, Monbiot concludes, change must be driven from elsewhere:

People with strong intrinsic values must cease to be embarrassed by them. We should argue for the policies we want not on the grounds of expediency but on the grounds that they are empathetic and kind; and against others on the grounds that they are selfish and cruel.

“In asserting our values,” Monbiot concludes, “we become the change we want to see.”

Now it would be easy — very easy — to mock, beginning with the notion that the secret to the human future has been revealed in a paper written for an environmentalist group. It would also be easy to take issue with Monbiot’s division of the world into ‘left-good, right-bad’ people, or indeed morality into ‘intrinsic-good, extrinsic-bad’ values. It is a curiously black and white world that Monbiot inhabits, despite his recognition that “Few people are all-extrinsic or all-intrinsic.”

There is, moreover, the question of whether Monbiot is really taking on board his own recognition that people are driven by a mixture of rational and non-rational impulses. Surely if the enlightenment assumption has failed, the way to save both our race and our plaent is not by explaining things to people but (as Monbiot asserts the ‘right’ have been doing with increasing success) by manipulating them at the level of their irrationality.

Yet there is a point at which Christians would entirely agree with much of what Monbiot says. Leaving aside his left-right, intrinsic-extrinsic polarizations, for example, we would surely recognize the presence of good and bad impulses in human nature. We would also recognize the tension between our natural desire for outward blessings and the importance of inward contentment.

And though we would take issue with the idea that the more ‘inward focussed’ someone is, the better a person they will become, we would also acknowledge the need to be free from a desire for wealth, fame, possessions and so on.

Again, Christians would endorse the values of concern for others, especially the most needy.

Moreover, there is surely something to applaud in critiquing a political message that, in the end, is mere materialism, whether dressed up as free-market economics or state-provided comforts for all.

Monbiot’s ‘polarizing’ glasses may prevent him seeing this, but in the end politicians of both left and right tend to offer the same thing. Christians would agree with Miliband when he says there is “more to life than the bottom line”. But there is also more to to life than the free-market benefits of the right or the state-provided benefits of the left.

Above all, we would agree with Monbiot that real social change can come from those who hold true values being unembarrassed by them and arguing openly for them in the public forum, promoting the good and opposing the evil.

In fact, Monbiot’s programme for change is exactly what Christians have, in the best of times, also pursued. And we could surely argue that sauce for the secularist goose is sauce for the Christian gander — in other words, that we should be just a free, and willing, to push and promote our values as anyone else.

The real difference between Monbiot’s agenda and the Christian agenda, of course, comes down what is to be valued and why. The Christian would again agree with Monbiot’s suspicion of the enlightenment approach. But it is this approach which, increasingly unfettered by other considerations, has done most to devalue humanity, even whilst advocating what many would call ‘humanism’.

We cannot really know what human beings ought to think, or how they ought to behave, much less what they ought to sacrifice their own lives for, until we know what human beings are. In the end, Monbiot and the most right wing of extrinsic secularists will agree at this point: that we are chance conglomerations of atoms, aware, for a brief moment, of our own existence before disappearing into nothingness.

It is that faith which is now predominant in Western cultures. What Monbiot sees as an increasing triumph of the ‘right’ is arguable simply the triumph of a common sense response to that viewpoint: “Let us eat and drink,” you say, “for tomorrow we die!” (Isa 22:13).

Tell people why that should not be so, and you may give them another way to live.

John Richardson
12 October 2010

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Could we have an English National Party?

Isn't it interesting how 'wrong' that question feels? Yet in the wake of the defeat of the BNP in Barking - Nick Griffin failing to secure a seat and all the BNP Councillors losing theirs - it is a question I think worth asking, especially as many Christians seem to hate the BNP with a vengeance (and there's an issue worth debating as well).

Those same Christians seem to have no problem in principle with the Scottish, Welsh or Irish nationalist parties (respectively SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein), but I suspect it is not just the nature of the BNP's policies, but something about our whole psyche as a nation which makes an ENP a 'no go area' even before we've considered the policy. Is this simply a national sense of guilt - and if it is, why do we have it in such huge doses when other nations don't? Or is there something inherently wrong about nationalism which we allow the other nationalist parties to get away with because they aren't English?

So my question is really two-fold. Could an English National Party be so constructed as to be a good thing? And are the other UK nationalist parties really as innocent as we suppose?

As a PS, the BNP actually got more votes than any of the other nationalist parties!

As a PPS, I am a great fan of the Union, and for that reason not a fan at all of the nationalist parties, but if that's the way we're going ...

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A very Anglican prayer for election day

Adapted from the BCP Communion service:

We beseech thee, Almighty God, to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors; and specially thy Servant ELIZABETH our Queen; that under her we may be godly and quietly governed: And grant unto her whole Council, and to all that are put in authority under her, that they may truly and impartially administer justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue. Amen

And while you're about it, say one for Lord Justice Laws.

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Ban on the burka reveals our fear of Islam

For what it is worth, I think Belgium's decision to ban the burka, and France's consideration of the same says very little about a European concern for women's liberation and an awful lot about our fear of Islam.

At the same time, I don't think this is, as Amnesty International have apparently argued, an issue to be resolved by an appeal to human rights or religious freedom (though essentially I'm personally committed to both).

Why do I think it is a move based on fear? Well, imagine a situation where a slightly loopy man decided not to go out in public except wearing a Zorro mask. We would think him sad, he would probably be jeered at by children, and he might cause some alarm in banks. But we would not expect to see the police arrest him, or want Parliament to be bothered with legislation to prevent his eccentricity.

Now our modern advocates of secularism are all for reminding us that religious people are all 'fruit loops' who believe in a 'magical friend' or something similar, and that our outlook is laughable and our influence is waning prior to our inevitable and much-to-be welcomed demise.

But surely what is sauce for the Christian goose (because that is where most of these remarks are directed) is equally sauce for the Muslim gander, the Jewish duck and so on?

In other words, Muslim women in burkas are just a gaggle of equally fruit-loopy people, who are just as much to be pitied as our hypothetical Zorro-mask wearer. And although we should perhaps, in the interests of public order, protect them from the jeers of children, we will have to work jolly hard (if we are secularists) not to despise them just a little bit for the folly of their own practices and the iniquity of them passing their empty notions onto their children.

But given that their ideas are stupid, their practices eccentric and their beliefs doomed to die out, what's Parliament got to do with it? A few more years, a bit more education and the burka will go the way of the Vestal Virgin's distinctive outfit.

That, at least, is what a confident secular society ought to think.

So why the need for a ban?

It is, I suggest, not because we feel sympathy for the women under the burkas. It is because we feel fear. And that is something worth a bit of self-examination.

John Richardson
1 May 2010


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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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Religion, ideology and the problem of evil

I've just been reading Johann Hari's online article The Pope, the Prophet, and the religious support for evil, and wondered at the juxtaposition of two somewhat contradictory attitudes. First, he poses his opening question:

What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon [...] ? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion.

So it is religion - specifically Islam in the case of the cartoons - which makes people behave badly. Moreover, he continues, Muslims have a thing or two to learn from Europeans, who have been mocking religion for centuries and now enjoy all the benefits. In fact, he suggests,

It will be a shining day for Muslims when they can do the same.

So three cheers for the Danish cartoons about the prophet! Well, actually no, just two cheers, because,

Some of the cartoons were witty. Some were stupid. One seemed to suggest Muslims are inherently violent – an obnoxious and false idea.

So, according to Hari, Muslims - that is to say, those who, as a result of the unreasonability of Islam, want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon and should instead take the European rationalist 'chill pill' - are not 'inherently' violent, just violent in their "tens of millions" when it comes to their religion.

Hari's target is respect for religions - respect which he feels should be accorded to no idea or institution:

Nobody says I should "respect" conservatism or communism and keep my opposition to them to myself – but that's exactly what is routinely said about Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. What's the difference?

Now Hari is right about the fact that terrible things are done in the name of religion, but I have two questions. The first is why the exemption of Muslims from the very thing that you are writing an article to critique, namely the power of religion to motivate people to do bad things? Hari says Muslims are not 'inherently' violent. What exactly does he mean by 'inherently'?

If he means 'as human beings, rather than as Muslims', then he is stating either a truism: "the human material from which Muslims are drawn is no worse than that for the rest of us," or, on the face of it, a falsehood: "human beings are not inherently violent".

If, however, he means by not 'inherently' that Islam does not, as a religious belief, incline people to violence, then surely he is stating a conscious falsehood (compare his opening paragraph) and, moreover, he is doing this out of 'respect' for Islam.

The other question is this: if all religion is false (which he clearly believes it is), then what would he blame for human violence?

In many cases, of course, it is the role of an ideology to move us to violence, but it is the human material which is surely the underlying problem. One may take, for example, the violence in Northern Ireland, carried out by 'Catholics' and 'Protestants', many of whom clearly had only the most tenuous adherence to Christianity (in evidence of which, note that the levels of churchgoing in Northern Ireland, whilst higher than in the rest of the UK, were never staggering during the recent 'Troubles'). Indeed, in some cases it was the more openly 'secularized' (but ideologically highly motivated) personalities who were at the forefront of the 'struggle'.

You can, it seems, take a number of different - and even contradictory - ideological positions and evoke  the same violence in human beings. Animal liberationists, Green activists, hunt saboteurs, environmentalists are all, it would seem, capable of being people who are happy to create a spot of 'bovver' in the name of a 'good cause', despite the popular image of wearing sandals and living on tofu.

One thing is sure. When we have eliminated religion, we will not have eliminated the human factor, and the the truly inherent violence it entails. Indeed, since religion is, according to people like Hari, just a projection of the human imagination, it is we who have caused even all the violence done in the name of religion.

John Richardson
20 March 2010

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Just exactly what is it you do again?

As it happens, despite the fact that we have provisionally made an appointment to the post of vicar of our benefice, I am not looking for a new job. Nevertheless, my eye was caught this morning by an advert in the Times online:

Head of Democratic and Partnership Services, Calderdale Council

What, I wondered, could that possibly entail? Indeed, what are ‘democratic services’? Well, here is the advert in full:

Calderdale has achieved a tremendous amount over the last few years. We have clear priorities and an ambitious change agenda, ‘Vision to Reality’, which aims to make Calderdale a place where we recognise that ‘everyone is different’ and where ‘everyone matters’.

This is a fantastic time to join Calderdale as we strike out in an ambitious, modern direction. Major change programmes are already rolling-out across the Council and our partner organisations and we are expecting all of our senior officers to play a key role in the delivery of our ambitious plans. We are confident that with the right team in place we will achieve our vision, delivering on what matters to local people.

As a member of the Council’s Extended Management Team, our new Head of Democratic and Partnership Services will be at the centre of this change, ensuring that the Council and its partners meet the requirements of the new Comprehensive Area Assessment regime. Specific challenges will include leading on the development of the external strategic partnerships of the Local Strategic Partnership, influencing cross-council partnership working and overseeing the development and support to Members through the modernisation of Member Support, Democratic Services and Scrutiny. As well as managing Democratic and Partnership services, the post-holder will also be the Council’s statutory Monitoring Officer.

The questions mount up. What is it about Calderdale that is in such desperate need of “an ambitious change agenda”? Would nuking it help (it would certainly make a change)? Apparently, until now, it had been assumed that everyone in Calderdale is the same (rather than “different”), and yet, paradoxically, this apparently meant that some people in Calderdale mattered more than others (rather than it being a place where “everyone matters”).

And what exactly is a “modern” direction? How will this deliver “what matters to local people”? Indeed, what does matter to local people? (It occurs to me that it might include knowing how their Council Tax is being spent.)

And in heaven’s name, what does the Comprehensive (as opposed, presumably, to Partial) Area Assessment regime actually require? Presumably someone, somewhere, on Calderdale Council knows.

Still, we may be relieved to see that at last there is recognition of the challenge facing the council in modernising Scrutiny (read the penultimate sentence again).

Yet for all this, the successful applicant will also have to find time to be the statutory Monitoring Officer. It may come as no surprise to readers, therefore, to discover that the salary for such a diverse and demanding post is £82,000 per year.

Bemused? I was, so I followed the handy link at the end of the advert for those who wanted to find out more. And this is what I read (the best phrase is the one I’ve highlighted in bold):

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to visit this website to find out more about this new opportunity for shaping the future of Calderdale.

This is a great time to join Calderdale. You will be a part of a new and fresh management team and will work closely with colleagues and Elected Members to drive forward and meet the ambitions of local people. We have a range of challenges and these include meeting head on the impact of the recession through to ensuring that we provide the best value for money services both within the Council and across our Partners.

You may think that you have heard this kind of rhetoric before but as an indication that this may be more than just another local authority job, have a look at our Council website and visit the section which highlights the budget proposals that Members are currently consulting on at this moment in time.

If you are not fazed by having to grasp nettles and want to grow your career in an environment which will support you and encourage you to make our vision of “Everyone Different, Everyone Matters” a reality, we want to see you.

Please take the time to explore this site further where you will find detailed information about the region and the authority as well as the role.

If you want to join us and make a real difference in Calderdale, then I look forward to hearing from you.

Owen Williams,
Chief Executive

If you’re still not sure what is involved, however, this pdf chart shows you where you and your highly-paid post will fit in. So now you know.

Revd John Richardson
2 February 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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