And now for something a bit different, and which I admit I'm not really qualified to write about, but US presidential election-fever is affecting me as much as anybody. The recent adoption of "Joe the plumber" to stand as a symbol of the typical American working man interested me. It reminded me of the American novels I studied for GCSE, particularly John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. The two central characters in this story dream "the American Dream" of owning their own piece of land and being independent of others, bettering themselves and owing nothing to anybody. It's a dream that links in to the US's history- the birth of the nation in resentment at having to pay taxes to a distant government; the bold independence of the settlers as they pushed out West. America, Land of the Free- except for those who were the wrong colour, or gender, or the poor.
So Joe the plumber, a man who's dream was to own his own business, was used to typify a nation where independence is seen as a virtue; a man who is concerned about the state interfering in his life and taking his money, chimes with a nation that shares the same concerns.*
The British (well, English really) version of the American smallholder would be the yeoman farmer from several centuries ago, the man (inevitably) who owned his own farm (or a very least was a secure, long-term tenant), was self-sufficient in providing for his needs, and was free from interference from the local lords or anyone else below the king. That's a very loose description, but I'm sure you get the picture. The English yeoman was regarded in popular culture and literature as the epitome of Englishness, and the backbone of the country. Yet as a historian I can't help thinking that this was all largely a myth. While there were independent farmers, from what I know they were in a minority in a countryside dominated by tenant farmers and big estates. Most agricultural workers scraped a living working for other men who rented the land from big landowners. The countryside, far from being the idyllic, unspoilt place of pristine beauty presented to us by the Romantic poets, was in truth a place where life was hard and disaster, for most of the population, not far off.
I seem to have strayed from the point. That's the trouble when I start talking about history! The point I was trying to make was that both these dreams, American and English, reflect what today we might describe as middle-class values- self reliance, independence, a desire to be beholden to no one. It's a set of values that I associate (however wrong you may consider me) with politics of the right, with (for example) Thatcherism and the 'death of society'. Personally, I don't think it's a very good set of values- it encourages you to see your needs and desires as more important than other people's and to put yourself first rather than considering the needs of other people. That leads to the massive gap in wealth we have between the very, very rich and those who just scrape by.
So is this dream of 'going it alone' really a good one to aim for? I think we need to be careful. I admire some of the ideas of independence, but as John Donne said, "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." We can't ignore the fact that others are poor, or disabled, or unable to look after themselves for some other reason. Perhaps it's just my Christian upbringing and values, but the idea of a community, where everyone is linked together and cares for one another, where people need not be afraid to confess their needs and failings, and where they can find help and help others is much more attractive to me than a world where everbody lives in their hermetically sealed box, freed from the responsibility to care for others but also from the joys of relationship and the comfort of knowing there is someone there to help them when things get tough. That sounds like a very lonely life. It's not one I want.
*Although later revelations suggest that Joe isn't all he seems...
Thursday 30 October 2008
Wednesday 29 October 2008
Another word on creationists...
Just seen this on a friend's blog, and thought I'd share it with those of you who read my earlier post on science and Christianity. Very interesting, though not surprising, I thought.
Friday 24 October 2008
More thoughts on the (allegedly) deadly buses
The bus campaign which I posted about the other day has drawn a fair bit of comment from my friends. One of them has drawn my attention to the original source of the campaign (thanks Chris). So here's some more thoughts (a bit higgledy-piggledy I'm afraid):
I've never before heard of the group that maintain the website the writer quotes. On the other hand, I'm all too familiar with the message they're giving out. This, I'm afraid, is where I'm likely to offend some of you, quite possibly those on both sides of the debate.
Whatever their views on the truth or otherwise of Christianity, I suspect that one thing most people would agree on is that the way the website quoted presents the Christian message is not exactly attractive (not to mention that if they can afford bus adverts I'd hope they could spend a little more on web design!). The "repent or go to hell!" style of evangelism just doesn't work in the twenty-first century (if it ever did). If anything, it's counter-productive, and contributes to the popular negative image of Christianity presented by American creationists and other extremists.
In the past, more people grew up within the church, attended sunday school and would, I think, have accepted a moral code that today we aren't so familiar with. As a result, they would have understood the concept of 'sin' and have been more able to accept being called 'sinners' and told they were in need of forgiveness in a way people today don't. Today the prevailing moral code is much freer, things which our grandparents would have condemned we accept without question. We don't like someone else telling us we've done something wrong, judging our actions. But sometimes we need to be told. But as behavioural specialists tell us, simply shouting at a child that's done something wrong isn't much good. You have to explain to them why it's wrong and why they shouldn't do it. In a way, I think evangelisation is similar. You can't just tell people they're bad, they'll laugh at you or condemn you as bigoted and stuck in the past. You have to make the case for what you're saying, convince people of its credibility with words and deeds.
The Christian message is known as the 'gospel.' That means 'good news.' But I imagine that most people reading that website, like the comment author, would struggle to see where the good is in what they're being told. Like so many people, I think the website authors have got things the wrong way round. Jesus didn't wander around the Galilean countryside shouting "You're going to hell!" If you read the gospels you find he went around helping, healing and treating the underclass of Jewish society with a radical respect and love. And the people responded to that love. They could see he lived by what he said, so when he warned them, using stories and imagery, about the dangers of not giving God priority in their lives they were more willing to listen and accept what he said.
So. The part of the website the writer obviously found most offensive is the claim that people who aren't Christians will go to hell. That is an offensive claim. But I believe in a God of love who is also a God of justice. Recently I was reading a book by C. S. Lewis and was at first surprised when he said that people who go to hell want to be there. But thinking about it, it makes sense. If you reject God's love, you're effectively asking him to leave you alone. And though it saddens him, that's what he does. When Jesus talked about lakes of fire he was using the symbolism and apocalyptic language common at the time rather than (I think) describing literal realities. I don't pretend to know what either heaven or hell is like, but one thing I'm fairly sure about is that hell involves the absence of God. If that's what you want, that's what you'll get. Whether you still want it when you realise what that means is another matter.
Offending people isn't going to make them inclined to believe what you say. There's a balance to be struck between proclaiming what you believe to be the truth and what it's appropriate to say. At least the original posters didn't directly proclaim judgement, even if the website did.
(In her follow-up post she mentions the Alpha advertising campaign I referred to before. I'd be interested to know if she has been on or investigated going on the course, since she obviously doesn't like it. Having been involved in running these courses for the last year I'd have said she's worrying needlessly- the idea is to give people the opportunity to find out about Christianity, discuss it, ask questions, and judge for themselves. No one wants to put anyone under pressure.)
Oh, and while looking for something I'd written in the past I came across this, written by a friend. It's not directly relevant, but this quote interested me:
"Secularism is a faith — it is not the absence of faith. It’s very much connected to atheism, which is not the absence of belief in a God — it’s the firm belief in the absence of any God — big difference. Devout atheists hold the creed “There is no God”. Devout secularists hold the creed “There is no God, and no Religion that thinks he does exist has any place in our society”."
I've never before heard of the group that maintain the website the writer quotes. On the other hand, I'm all too familiar with the message they're giving out. This, I'm afraid, is where I'm likely to offend some of you, quite possibly those on both sides of the debate.
Whatever their views on the truth or otherwise of Christianity, I suspect that one thing most people would agree on is that the way the website quoted presents the Christian message is not exactly attractive (not to mention that if they can afford bus adverts I'd hope they could spend a little more on web design!). The "repent or go to hell!" style of evangelism just doesn't work in the twenty-first century (if it ever did). If anything, it's counter-productive, and contributes to the popular negative image of Christianity presented by American creationists and other extremists.
In the past, more people grew up within the church, attended sunday school and would, I think, have accepted a moral code that today we aren't so familiar with. As a result, they would have understood the concept of 'sin' and have been more able to accept being called 'sinners' and told they were in need of forgiveness in a way people today don't. Today the prevailing moral code is much freer, things which our grandparents would have condemned we accept without question. We don't like someone else telling us we've done something wrong, judging our actions. But sometimes we need to be told. But as behavioural specialists tell us, simply shouting at a child that's done something wrong isn't much good. You have to explain to them why it's wrong and why they shouldn't do it. In a way, I think evangelisation is similar. You can't just tell people they're bad, they'll laugh at you or condemn you as bigoted and stuck in the past. You have to make the case for what you're saying, convince people of its credibility with words and deeds.
The Christian message is known as the 'gospel.' That means 'good news.' But I imagine that most people reading that website, like the comment author, would struggle to see where the good is in what they're being told. Like so many people, I think the website authors have got things the wrong way round. Jesus didn't wander around the Galilean countryside shouting "You're going to hell!" If you read the gospels you find he went around helping, healing and treating the underclass of Jewish society with a radical respect and love. And the people responded to that love. They could see he lived by what he said, so when he warned them, using stories and imagery, about the dangers of not giving God priority in their lives they were more willing to listen and accept what he said.
So. The part of the website the writer obviously found most offensive is the claim that people who aren't Christians will go to hell. That is an offensive claim. But I believe in a God of love who is also a God of justice. Recently I was reading a book by C. S. Lewis and was at first surprised when he said that people who go to hell want to be there. But thinking about it, it makes sense. If you reject God's love, you're effectively asking him to leave you alone. And though it saddens him, that's what he does. When Jesus talked about lakes of fire he was using the symbolism and apocalyptic language common at the time rather than (I think) describing literal realities. I don't pretend to know what either heaven or hell is like, but one thing I'm fairly sure about is that hell involves the absence of God. If that's what you want, that's what you'll get. Whether you still want it when you realise what that means is another matter.
Offending people isn't going to make them inclined to believe what you say. There's a balance to be struck between proclaiming what you believe to be the truth and what it's appropriate to say. At least the original posters didn't directly proclaim judgement, even if the website did.
(In her follow-up post she mentions the Alpha advertising campaign I referred to before. I'd be interested to know if she has been on or investigated going on the course, since she obviously doesn't like it. Having been involved in running these courses for the last year I'd have said she's worrying needlessly- the idea is to give people the opportunity to find out about Christianity, discuss it, ask questions, and judge for themselves. No one wants to put anyone under pressure.)
Oh, and while looking for something I'd written in the past I came across this, written by a friend. It's not directly relevant, but this quote interested me:
"Secularism is a faith — it is not the absence of faith. It’s very much connected to atheism, which is not the absence of belief in a God — it’s the firm belief in the absence of any God — big difference. Devout atheists hold the creed “There is no God”. Devout secularists hold the creed “There is no God, and no Religion that thinks he does exist has any place in our society”."
Tuesday 21 October 2008
Is Jesus a zombie?
According to the BBC website, an atheist group is going to be putting posters on London's buses which will read: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
I have to say my first response to this was to giggle. On reading further and seeing that Richard Dawkins, arch-critic of Christianity (or at least of what he likes to think of as Christianity) was involved, my smile broadened. "This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion," the BBC quotes Dawkins as saying. Really? Strangely enough, as a Christian I'd be delighted if the posters made people think. And I don't think the atheists would always get the response they're hoping for.
"Stop worrying and enjoy your life." If only it were that simple. The fact that this is happening so soon after the national Alpha advertising campaign suggests it's a direct response to their posters, based around the question, "If there was a God, what question would you ask?" Looking at the Alpha website here are some of the questions people are asking:
Why do we have diseases?
Why is there suffering?
Why did you create us to be capable of so much evil?
Is our free will worth all the suffering in the world?
Can I get out of this mess?
Are you on facebook?
Why doesn't God come back to earth from the moon?
Apart from the last two (yes, they're real questions, see for yourself) these are obviously questions written by people who have real concerns and are thinking very hard about them, whatever Dawkins may say about thinking being anathema to religion. I don't think that they would find "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" a satisfactory answer to their problems. Enjoy your life, when so many people are starving, dying of cancer, being made redundant, suffering as a result of the financial collapse? It seems to me that it's the not the Christians (at least, not those I respect) who are discouraging thinking, but this group of atheists who seem to want people to ignore their questions about the point of life and be content with superficial happiness.
I'd also like to know what the poster designers mean by "probably." How do you gauge the probability of there being a God or not? Any ideas? Of course, God's existence is not something you can scientifically prove. That's not what science is for (see here). It's a matter for faith.
So I don't see these posters as anything to worry about. The response of 'Christian pressure group' (why does that title set warning bells ringing in my head?) "Christian Voice" (I'm not sure I'd want them speaking for me) did amuse me though: "Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large."
The Methodist church had a much more sensible response. It 'thanked Professor Dawkins for encouraging a "continued interest in God".' I bet he loved that.
Oh, and in case you hadn't guessed, the title of this post is another question from the Alpha website. From a heart that's crying out to its creator for answers, don't you think?
I have to say my first response to this was to giggle. On reading further and seeing that Richard Dawkins, arch-critic of Christianity (or at least of what he likes to think of as Christianity) was involved, my smile broadened. "This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion," the BBC quotes Dawkins as saying. Really? Strangely enough, as a Christian I'd be delighted if the posters made people think. And I don't think the atheists would always get the response they're hoping for.
"Stop worrying and enjoy your life." If only it were that simple. The fact that this is happening so soon after the national Alpha advertising campaign suggests it's a direct response to their posters, based around the question, "If there was a God, what question would you ask?" Looking at the Alpha website here are some of the questions people are asking:
Why do we have diseases?
Why is there suffering?
Why did you create us to be capable of so much evil?
Is our free will worth all the suffering in the world?
Can I get out of this mess?
Are you on facebook?
Why doesn't God come back to earth from the moon?
Apart from the last two (yes, they're real questions, see for yourself) these are obviously questions written by people who have real concerns and are thinking very hard about them, whatever Dawkins may say about thinking being anathema to religion. I don't think that they would find "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" a satisfactory answer to their problems. Enjoy your life, when so many people are starving, dying of cancer, being made redundant, suffering as a result of the financial collapse? It seems to me that it's the not the Christians (at least, not those I respect) who are discouraging thinking, but this group of atheists who seem to want people to ignore their questions about the point of life and be content with superficial happiness.
I'd also like to know what the poster designers mean by "probably." How do you gauge the probability of there being a God or not? Any ideas? Of course, God's existence is not something you can scientifically prove. That's not what science is for (see here). It's a matter for faith.
So I don't see these posters as anything to worry about. The response of 'Christian pressure group' (why does that title set warning bells ringing in my head?) "Christian Voice" (I'm not sure I'd want them speaking for me) did amuse me though: "Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large."
The Methodist church had a much more sensible response. It 'thanked Professor Dawkins for encouraging a "continued interest in God".' I bet he loved that.
Oh, and in case you hadn't guessed, the title of this post is another question from the Alpha website. From a heart that's crying out to its creator for answers, don't you think?
Thursday 16 October 2008
Family? What's that?
My recent rant on the subject of family reminded me of a Scripture Union Council weekend some years ago where we spent a long time trying to define what ministry to "families" might be, and even longer trying to define what a "family" actually was. Some time later I did a course on "The Family" in history as part of my degree where we began with a similar discussion but came no closer to a definition. Even after completing the course and studying families in early modern Japan, medieval England, Renaissance Italy, the Caribbean during slavery, the Russian pesantry and North American Indians (among other contexts) we were still no closer to a definition, if anything we were further from one. There is just so much variety! Every definition has problems with it. In the end I think my conclusion is this: family are those people who we consider our selves related to. We know what we mean when we talk of "our family" but everyone's opinion is likely to be slightly different. I'm not pretending this definition is any better than anyone else's, and it certainly has plenty of problems with it.
Recently I was reading the section at the end of Colossians chapter 3/ beginning of chapter 4 that in my Bible is entitled "Rules for Christian households." It talks of three relationships within the household: husband to wife (and vice versa), parent to child (and vice versa), and slave to master (and vice versa, today this might be at least partly covered by saying employee to employer).
I wondered how these applied to modern households. Many people, of course, still live in households which contain one or two of the relationships described (I hope no one in this country has slaves in their household, although for the well off live-in nannies or other servants are still part of their employer's household). For those who do live in "traditional" households, the commands to husbands to love and respect their wives or parents not to embitter their children still sound like good advice to me. (I'm not advocating unconditional female submission to male authority here, just in case you were wondering. There's a lot more in the passage than that and I very much doubt it was what Paul meant anyhow. But that's for another time.)
But as I said yesterday, I live in a shared house where none of us (I imagine) would say we were a family or related to each other except as friends. And this style of household which was unknown in the first century AD is not uncommon in the twenty-first. So how could these rules apply to us, and households like us?
I think the key may be in something Jackie Cray said in commenting on this passage on the WordLive site. (if you don't know it, take a look. It's great!)
"Whatever role we find ourselves in, we are to live for the Lord, serving and living peacefully (in harmony) with others."
And that certainly applies to housemates- helping each other, not getting cross when the washing up starts to accumulate or someone's playing their music too loud, trying to reach amicable compromises when things really do go wrong, cutting people a bit of slack when they've had a bad day...the list goes on. It's the attitude that Paul's trying to get across here, not the specific relationship. It all goes back to Jesus' command: "Love your neighbour as yourself." Or again "Love one another as I have loved you." Do that and I don't think you can go far wrong, whether it's your mother or father, son or daughter, husband or wife, employer or employee or housemate or friend or that bloke at the office that you really can't stand that you're loving.
Recently I was reading the section at the end of Colossians chapter 3/ beginning of chapter 4 that in my Bible is entitled "Rules for Christian households." It talks of three relationships within the household: husband to wife (and vice versa), parent to child (and vice versa), and slave to master (and vice versa, today this might be at least partly covered by saying employee to employer).
I wondered how these applied to modern households. Many people, of course, still live in households which contain one or two of the relationships described (I hope no one in this country has slaves in their household, although for the well off live-in nannies or other servants are still part of their employer's household). For those who do live in "traditional" households, the commands to husbands to love and respect their wives or parents not to embitter their children still sound like good advice to me. (I'm not advocating unconditional female submission to male authority here, just in case you were wondering. There's a lot more in the passage than that and I very much doubt it was what Paul meant anyhow. But that's for another time.)
But as I said yesterday, I live in a shared house where none of us (I imagine) would say we were a family or related to each other except as friends. And this style of household which was unknown in the first century AD is not uncommon in the twenty-first. So how could these rules apply to us, and households like us?
I think the key may be in something Jackie Cray said in commenting on this passage on the WordLive site. (if you don't know it, take a look. It's great!)
"Whatever role we find ourselves in, we are to live for the Lord, serving and living peacefully (in harmony) with others."
And that certainly applies to housemates- helping each other, not getting cross when the washing up starts to accumulate or someone's playing their music too loud, trying to reach amicable compromises when things really do go wrong, cutting people a bit of slack when they've had a bad day...the list goes on. It's the attitude that Paul's trying to get across here, not the specific relationship. It all goes back to Jesus' command: "Love your neighbour as yourself." Or again "Love one another as I have loved you." Do that and I don't think you can go far wrong, whether it's your mother or father, son or daughter, husband or wife, employer or employee or housemate or friend or that bloke at the office that you really can't stand that you're loving.
Tuesday 14 October 2008
Life outside the family
With so much in the media about the credit crunch and financial collapse, one question keeps coming back to me, and it doesn't seem to be one the politicians are interested in. It's that you only ever hear about families being hit hard by financial difficulties.
Now, I happen to like families. In an ideal world, it would be nice if evey child could grow up with parents who loved and cared for him or her. It would be great if men and women fell in love, got married, and lived happily together ever after. And undoubtedly, if you've got children to think about it adds a whole new level of anxiety to financial pressures. But my point is that not everyone lives in a family, but everyone is being hit by higher prices and bills, and not everyone is getting help. There are some good reasons why person A should get help and person B shouldn't, but to me a lot of it seems quite arbitrary.
Unfortunatly we don't live in an ideal world, but in this world, where families break up and many people live on their own, are single parents, or live in shared houses. Not just students, but young working people share a house with one or more other people. It's cheaper, it's probably more environmentally friendly and it provides some of the support of a family while still preserving the independence of individuals. I live in a shared, rented house. Out of the four of us, two are currently employed (one part time, one full time, neither of us earning huge amounts), one is unemployed and the fourth a student.
Because we live in a good sized house, we pay the same amount of council tax as a family, but because we're young and not a family we're not eligible for the same help (eg tax credits) we would get if we were. Because two out of the four of us are working, we don't qualify for other forms of help because council tax is based on the model family of two adults living in each and every house in the country (in other words, based on something that is largely a myth). The system is too inflexible to cope with our "unusual" household- or even to issue us accurate bills, it seems. We pay the same for heating and fuel bills as we would if we owned our home, but are not able to take advantage of the schemes to help with insulation and double glazing, thus reducing fuel bills, as we would if we owned it. Maybe we could pressure our landlords to do so, but what incentive do they have? It doesn't directly affect them.
Because we're young and unmarried (and don't have kids) it's assumed that we can look after ourselves without any other help. The thing that annoys me the most is perhaps the difference in the minimum wage- why should you be allowed to pay a 21 year old less than a 22 year old, if both are doing the same work and both are living independently? Why is someone who's over 25 able to claim tax credits, but not someone under 25?
This has turned into a bit of a rant, and I don't think it'll be the last on this topic. Last night (just as I got home from work) somebody from the Office of National Statistics turned up to ask lots of questions about who lives in the house, what jobs do they do, etc etc. It took several minutes to explain that this was a shared house, where none of us were related or in a relationship with each other, but not a student house. It took even longer for his computer system to get to grips with this. And as for the fact that two of the people who'd been there last year had moved out while two more moved in and two stayed the same...it was complicated, to say the least. It even asked if I was a baby less than three months old...sometimes I wish I was. Life would be a lot simpler!
Now, I happen to like families. In an ideal world, it would be nice if evey child could grow up with parents who loved and cared for him or her. It would be great if men and women fell in love, got married, and lived happily together ever after. And undoubtedly, if you've got children to think about it adds a whole new level of anxiety to financial pressures. But my point is that not everyone lives in a family, but everyone is being hit by higher prices and bills, and not everyone is getting help. There are some good reasons why person A should get help and person B shouldn't, but to me a lot of it seems quite arbitrary.
Unfortunatly we don't live in an ideal world, but in this world, where families break up and many people live on their own, are single parents, or live in shared houses. Not just students, but young working people share a house with one or more other people. It's cheaper, it's probably more environmentally friendly and it provides some of the support of a family while still preserving the independence of individuals. I live in a shared, rented house. Out of the four of us, two are currently employed (one part time, one full time, neither of us earning huge amounts), one is unemployed and the fourth a student.
Because we live in a good sized house, we pay the same amount of council tax as a family, but because we're young and not a family we're not eligible for the same help (eg tax credits) we would get if we were. Because two out of the four of us are working, we don't qualify for other forms of help because council tax is based on the model family of two adults living in each and every house in the country (in other words, based on something that is largely a myth). The system is too inflexible to cope with our "unusual" household- or even to issue us accurate bills, it seems. We pay the same for heating and fuel bills as we would if we owned our home, but are not able to take advantage of the schemes to help with insulation and double glazing, thus reducing fuel bills, as we would if we owned it. Maybe we could pressure our landlords to do so, but what incentive do they have? It doesn't directly affect them.
Because we're young and unmarried (and don't have kids) it's assumed that we can look after ourselves without any other help. The thing that annoys me the most is perhaps the difference in the minimum wage- why should you be allowed to pay a 21 year old less than a 22 year old, if both are doing the same work and both are living independently? Why is someone who's over 25 able to claim tax credits, but not someone under 25?
This has turned into a bit of a rant, and I don't think it'll be the last on this topic. Last night (just as I got home from work) somebody from the Office of National Statistics turned up to ask lots of questions about who lives in the house, what jobs do they do, etc etc. It took several minutes to explain that this was a shared house, where none of us were related or in a relationship with each other, but not a student house. It took even longer for his computer system to get to grips with this. And as for the fact that two of the people who'd been there last year had moved out while two more moved in and two stayed the same...it was complicated, to say the least. It even asked if I was a baby less than three months old...sometimes I wish I was. Life would be a lot simpler!
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