Tuesday 11 December 2012

Crisis in Humanitarian Aid

There was a great duet of programmes on BBC 4 on Sunday - the first entitled, "The Trouble with Aid", was followed by a debate around the issues raised by the documentary. The debate was chaired by Ed Stourton of Radio 4's Today before he left it in 2009.
The double edged nature of crisis aid relief is an underlying sore in the work of the big aid agencies. The programme illustrated this well using a number of celebrated case histories. Aid can often be used by one side or another to bolster its own campaign, feed its fighters, and pay for its weapons. Malnutrition, carefully and intentionally nurtured can be used as a powerful tool to attract aid.
The Aid Agencies are faced with enormous difficulties. How much do they tell the public about the problem of getting the aid to the right people? If they tell the whole truth about the percentage of aid hitting the target, then giving will dip, and less good overall can be done. The counter argument goes like this: in some cases we need to do less good, perhaps withdraw altogether, as this will result in far less harm ultimately, and may save more lives in the long run. There was another thought which ran through the documentary and rippled the following debate a little too, which is that the Aid Agencies are now businesses which need to be self perpetuating. They have a big staff to support, ongoing costs to pay for, and so on. They need us to keep their coffers full, and not just for the purpose of supplying aid.
I was very impressed with Medecins sans Frontiers, both from the documentary's perspective and also in the debate which followed. They seem to stand head and shoulders above many, with a keen sense of the need to remain independent, and to act with integrity in each crisis.
Hopefully the insights won't stop those who give thoughtfully from giving, but there were some nice touches of realism from the Medicins sans Frontiers Director. He said that if we the donors thought we were trying to save the world and make it a better place, don't write the cheque. "All we are trying to do," he said, "is trying to stop someone from dying."

St George's Tron Part 2

Sunday - an article on the Scottish edition of BBC News, focussing on the eviction of a congregation from their building in Glasgow. Yes, St George's Tron had hit the news. The Church of Scotland really does not need this kind of publicity at the moment. But not only were we told that the congregation were being evicted, but that the Minister was being evicted from his manse, and bailiffs had served notice on him. For those of us who know our church history, this brought to mind scenes from the Disruption of the Kirk in 1843. The media did not mention the fact that the congregation were leaving because they opposed the move to open the ministry of the Church of Scotland to gay clergy, which might have cast the Church of Scotland in a slightly less malevolent mold in the mind of the general public. But that was in a way, neither here nor there. 

The Church of Scotland had this one coming. Churches in general are stuck in a place where they cannot make gracious and magnanimous gestures, because they are ruled by committees, assemblies and courts. This state of affairs which limits the exercise of grace, is a far more serious and damaging thing, and far more erosive of the Church's reputation, than any of the high profile issues which dog the churches at the moment. Women Bishops, gay clergy; these are not the issues which ultimately will bring us down and reduce us to a whimpering impotent stump of toothless Christianity. What will do for us, if we let it, is our dereliction of duty in the face of our theological imperative to show unremitting, unhesitating grace in every situation of conflict and disagreement. A move by the Church of Scotland to allow a congregation showing substantial dissatisfaction with the Church and severe discontinuity with her evolving liberal theology to remain in their building would have been a coup d'etat of grace. It was never going to happen. This is church after all. 

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Church and the generation gaps

I was reacquainted with an old smouldering anger last night, as I listened to a talk being given about the generation gaps as they relate to Church. I belong to the Baby Boomer generation (people in this country roughly between 48 and 65. The generation below mine is referred to as Generation X and the one above, as the Builder Generation. Below Gen X we have Gen Y. These differences between the generations are being explored in order to give us some insights and understandings into church life. I'm angry because an analysis like this was needed 40 years ago, when the Boomer generation were entering the ministry of the Church of Scotland and the decline in church going was beginning to show. Then, the response of bodies like the General Assembly was one of apprehension that, wait for it, too many people were entering the ministry and we would have too many ministers in the future if the trend kept up. Of course the trend was never going to keep up simply because there was at that time a big pool of potential candidates due to the spurt in population growth: (the boomers are called the boomers because there was a baby boom back then!) This was unlikely to continue once the population began to decline again.

The reason that there should have been a considered look at the generation gap back then, is because many of the boomers could have been helped far more to ready the church for the future generations if the church had been forward looking. What happened was that the Boomers came in, and were held to ransom by the Builder Generation which was effectively in control of the church during the 70's, 80's and 90's. This was a critical time for the church. The Builder Generation is essentially a backward looking generation - not in terms of their desires and aspirations, but in terms of their attitudes and their style. They give respect to status, traditions, structures handed down from the past, and to the given order of things. Boomers were ready to challenge all that and move things on. But they deferred to the Builders who were largely the people attending, supporting, maintaining and controlling church life. Those who challenged the Builders too much found themselves stressed into illness or pressurised into conforming, or both. Small wonder that many of us capitulated and worked hard to make everything fit the Victorian model of church life with which the Builders had been very contented. The working model for the minister's job description which had served the Builders well, was expected to fit the new and changing circumstances of the Boomer Generation people. This conflict was never mentioned in those days where it needed to be mentioned most - the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and its committees. We are now reaping the results of these times. Many congregations are in what feels like terminal decline with few applicants for the ministry and churches closing or amalgamating.

My anger isn't an anger against the Builder Generation - it's against a church that just couldn't or wouldn't see. Of course the General Assembly and its committees were controlled by career ministers with Builder aspirations and mentality, so that was never going to help during those critical years. We are now in the hands of the Boomers - the generation who may feel guilty that it didn't do more to pass the baton on, and that guilt may in itself need addressing in the not too distant future, before we have all retired.

But, I am an optimist with regard to the church. She has survived for the best part of 2000 years. I think she can survive these generational upheavals too. Here in Scotland she may be leaner and smaller in the future, but hopefully fitter too. I think the roadmap of church life will need to be radically rewritten. Generations X and Y I think will have a relatively free hand to do that - the Church is too sick now to be able to stop it thank goodness, so here's to an interesting and eventful future.

Saturday 24 November 2012

Mursi's Egypt

President Mursi has got himself a lot of media space over the last few days. Sweeping powers to overrule the courts and make laws. Why? The headlines and even the news features themselves tell us very little. Instead they feature angry Egyptians who feel betrayed by this move, or militant followers who approve. I did catch a very balanced piece of reporting on radio 4 however. What I heard made me less inclined to be critical of Mursi. He finds himself in a position where many of the judiciary were appointed by President Mubarak. They are still in place. Not only can they effectively block or overturn new democratic procedures, but they have once before disbanded the assembly that is writing the new Egyptian constitution. He was afraid they might try to do this again, and indeed, there were reports that the courts might be about to do this.
That could seriously derail the transition to democracy, further delaying new parliamentary elections, which could deter Egypt's political leaders from taking tough decisions while they wait for the vote.
So what is the problem?
Well, perhaps it is about the way this has happened.

The president failed to consult with other political forces, acting in an autocratic manner reminiscent of his predecessor. Indeed, he has taken more power than Hosni Mubarak ever claimed, with almost no constraints at all. And his attempt to sideline the judiciary is reminiscent of the early power-grab of the Free Officers in 1954, the beginning of what is now being seen as six decades of military dictatorship in Egypt.
As a result, many Egyptians fear the real agenda is not to protect the revolution, but to increase the power of President Mursi, and of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement from which he comes. In particular, there is an accusation that the underlying aim is to enable the constitutional assembly - currently dominated by Islamists - to write an Islamist constitution for Egypt.
So there is an interesting story to be told about this affair. I for one am inclined to the side of those who feel this is a necessary step to further safeguard this fledgling democracy. But time will tell, and in the hotbed of feeling in that part of the word, time may well be short supply.

St George's Tron, Glasgow

The Church of Scotland Ministries Council is advertising a post the like of which I had never come across before: that of "Transition Minister". The post is obviously outwith the domain of normal parish ministries. It comes with a salary/stipend £53 shy of £39,000. Nothing about a manse mind you, but there is a manse with The Tron.
The bulk of the Tron's congregation, its office bearers and minister have left the Church of Scotland. This leaves a gaping hole in the Church of Scotland's presence in Glasgow City Centre. Since there is effectively no congregation left to search for and call a new minister, a new plan has been made. The Ministries Council is seeking for applications by 7th December. I was curious about the job description. Having taken a look at it I am even more curious.
The information under Context For The Role is as follows:
The Minister, Office Bearers and overwhelming majority of the congregation of St George’s  Tron Parish Church have left the Church of Scotland.  The Presbytery of Glasgow, having indicated that its Plan sees the retention of a Parish of St George’s Tron based on the building in Buchanan Street as a continuing  mission  priority, has taken steps to ensure that the buildings are vacated for use by a continuing Church of Scotland Congregation.  The successful applicant will  take the lead role in developing a new congregation based on the Tron building and engaging fully with the parish.

Evidently The Presbytery of Glasgow has told the leavers to leave. I wrote to the Presbytery suggesting they might like to allow the leavers to remain in the building, at a fair rent, thus achieving two purposes: 1) have a vibrant city centre Christian congregation in place; 2) show a huge measure of grace to those who were abandoning the Church of Scotland because of its/their attitude to gay ministers. I admit that this move would have a negative side: the congregation would have a negative attitude to gay ministers. But many ministers and congregations still within the Church of Scotland have this view too.

The thing which really got me thinking though, were the listed main duties of the successful applicant, which are as follows:

MAIN DUTIES 
 Through leading contemporary worship and evangelical Bible teaching and discipleship, to motivate, build and inspire a team of committed Christians gathered from, and working in partnership with, supportive congregations in the Presbytery; 
 to develop strategies to engage in effective ministry, mission and service to people for whom the location of the church building in Buchanan Street is key; 
 to form a worshipping, witnessing Christian community into which new members can be welcomed; 
 to develop the financial and people resources available for this work through partnership with others and creative use of the church building. 
Outcomes:  a  vibrant, mission-focused congregation of the Church of Scotland in the 
evangelical tradition, engaging with the people and wider institutions of the parish; a
settled ministry; maximised use of the buildings for a broad range of missional activity.

Forget the dubious nouveau English, "maximised", "missional", and concentrate on the first duty: "Through leading contemporary worship and evangelical teaching and discipleship....".

I thought it was the evangelicals who were leaving. But presumably not all. And presumably not all the evangelicals therefore, are against practising homosexuals and practising gay ministers. Unless of course the new evangelically orientated incumbent simply bides their time until the General Assembly makes its mind up about gay ministers, and if the General Assembly approves them, well, may we possibly read of the need for yet another "Transition Minister"? There is nothing in the job description which mentions attitudes to gay ministers (or gay people in general) as that would be against the law, of course. So, I will be watching, along with many others I'm sure, this space with a very great deal of interest.









Thursday 11 October 2012

Jimmy Saville

We heard about the breaking storm of allegations almost as soon as we touched down in Edinburgh, back from our holiday in Italy. One of the things which has given pause for thought, and by this I do not mean to try and defend or excuse Jimmy Saville, is the truth that a person is innocent until proved guilty and pronounced so by jury and or judge. Does this change once someone has died? The accusations are flooding in, and already those in high places are making statements which they would not dare make had the accused been alive, and awaiting trial. It is as though the verdict has been pronounced. He has already been judged and found guilty. I know that it is unlikely that so many people would come forward, independent of one another, to make false allegations, and in no way do I want to belittle or undermine their trauma. All I want to make a plea for, are the due processes of justice. Are they not there for a reason? 

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Holidays

We are about to depart for our annual summer holiday. This year we are going to try a walking holiday with a difference, a long distance walk (well, 60 miles or so) unsupported, walking from hostel to hostel or hotel, in the warm and pleasant (we hope) climate of Tuscany. This means we will have to travel light. I'm quite excited by the prospect of having to keep my entire packing for a 2 week holiday within the confines of what I can comfortably carry on my back for several hours at a time on a daily basis. It is also nice to know that we won't be incurring extra charges with Ryanair for putting stuff in the hold. And boy, I have to say, it is a great feeling to get through their booking process without having added extra costs on. To do that requires a fair bit of cautious navigating across screen after screen with tempting little boxes designed to trap, tempt or otherwise get you to spend more. However since their basic prices are cheapy cheap (compare their prices to Pisa with flights offered by other carriers to Florence!), it is well worth the effort.
The walking this year will be fairly undemanding in terms of heights or difficulty, but we like the idea of actually having to get going each day from one place to the next, and if the experiment is a success, we may try something higher and more adventurous the next time....  So, the Italian phrase book sits on my desk, and I learn little useful phrases like Quando apre la mosta? from time to time. I have no Italian, so this is going to be interesting. We will be walking through places which are not really on the tourist trail, so I don't expect that we'll get far with English. Thank you BBC Italian Phrase Book and Dictionary, small enough and light enough to carry in my rucksack. L'aqua e potabile?

Monday 20 August 2012

Ok, so I got there late, but I got there. No, I'm not talking about making a blog post after a couple of months' absence, but about watching the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. I hadn't recorded them so when Lorraine said she'd like to see them, I figured we had better get on with it as I didn't know how long they would remain available for, out there on the 'net. I approached the task with some anticipation of an enjoyable watch, as most of the reviews I'd read had been kind.

Since the Games have generally been viewed as a great success for this country, and it has to be said that we did punch above our weight when it came to medal wins, although of course the jury is out as far the ongoing legacy is concerned, I don't want to be too negative about the closing ceremony. But I sure am glad I didn't pay good money to be there! I mean, very nice and all that to be treated to an eclectic mix of British musical pop acts from about the 60's onwards, all glammed up in a variety of o so British ways, but I think I would have been experiencing a good deal of fatigue with it all after an hour or so. Prince Harry didn't look too wowed as he was caught clapping towards the end. But maybe I was projecting my feelings onto him. At least I had the advantage of being able to fast forward the proceedings. Please, couldn't we have seen and savoured every one of those fantastic moments when our athletes were coming in for gold or for their place, with some of the bands providing more of a background rather than the main event? What a wasted opportunity!

However, just in case you didn't see it yourself, I have to say that there was at least one must see moment! It was replayed another two times and by the third time tears of laughter were rolling down our cheeks. The games committee had left one medal ceremony for the very end. It was the Marathon. Now as well as giving out medals, small bouquets of flowers are also given to the medal winners. People of high standing within the Olympic world had been chosen to distribute the honours at the closing ceremony. The moment came and the gold medal was placed around the victorious Kenyan's neck. All good. Then came the flowers. To watch this was purest delight. The person designated with the high honour of giving the flowers in front of thousands watching, nay, millions, if we include television viewers, approached the bouquets lying on the tray held by a helper, stretched out his hand, and grabbed the flowers by their heads. I could hardly believe we had just watched such a metaphor of carelessness or disregard. But we had. We wondered aloud if it would happen a second time. Before our unbelieving eyes, it did. We were by now laughing uncontrollably. Would it, could it, happen a third time? It did! Tears of laughter were streaming down our faces. It made that comic moment of clumsy self conscious flag waving by Boris Johnston look pale by comparison.
So if you can, have a look. If you are able, go online, and find that moment. It nearly made the total amount of time we spent on watching it, worthwhile.

Wednesday 27 June 2012


2 years to go, and the campaigning is starting. A couple of days ago saw the launch of the "Better Together" campaign headed by Alastair Darling, over against the Scottish National Party's campaign to go for an independent Scotland. I feel there ought to be another campaign. This should be a campaign to get as many people as possible to actually vote in the referendum. My goal would be to have over 90% turnout. I am fed up with electoral apathy. In most elections we actually get results which mean that the winners have the votes of a minority of the population. The last thing I want is to be taken out of the UK (or kept in) by less than 40% of Scottish voters. Whatever the result you want - let's have it clearly stated by a large group. Personally I would still want such a massive decision to have a clear and big majority too. 51% of those voting saying "Out" would not be a good way to leave. Most organisations set a bar for big decisions - so for instance we might want to see a 60% (of those voting) majority in favour of Independence before we go down that route.  So how about a "PLEASE DON'T NOT VOTE" campaign. (I know it's the double negative, but it's more striking than "VOTE" and it flags up the danger of electoral apathy better.) I know it is a terrible indictment on our engagement with democracy, (and of our experience of it), but hey, we need to start where we are, not where we'd like to be.  I see images of people who have long been denied the vote, crying with joy when they are given the chance, forming long queues to cast their vote, and exhibiting all the signs of exhilaration at having obtained political freedom, and it makes me feel ashamed of our apathy. In fact, I may just put this plea on facebook...... !

Wednesday 9 May 2012

Hills and things

Uh oh - 2 months no post - I feel condemned by my own record. I'm sure I am in good company in that regard however.
I took a small group of 6 up our one of nearby mountains - Lochnagar, last Saturday. It was a remarkably beautiful day, the hill was in winter condition, and the light was crystal clear, making it all in all a wonderful experience for those who took part (or so they said anyway!) I find it very humbling to see how people who might be fit enough walkers but wouldn't normally venture up into the higher reaches of mountains, and particularly not in winter conditions, will, when given a little boost in confidence by being accompanied by someone with experience, give it a go, and hugely enjoy it.
Many of us have found this to be the case with a huge variety of different activities, from drawing to cooking to, well you name it. Someone to encourage us, hold our hand (metaphorically), and give us confidence and then share with us appreciatively the results (cooking particularly), is often all it takes to get us to extend ourselves in a particular sphere. I sometimes wonder how much talent is withering on the vine out there simply because it hasn't been encouraged, or even worse, diffident first steps have been criticised and trampled on.
I think some us too need to see ourselves as potential encouragers and helpers of others. You don't need certificates or diplomas, all you need is your experience and enthusiasm, and you could be helping someone to discover more of their own potential.


I see this kind of sharing as a form of collaboration. I bring my willingness, you bring your experience and wisdom, and hey presto, we move on to new pastures. I look at the current political scenarios in many places, but maybe especially, at the moment, Greece, and I think, there has to be a way forward if the politicians could drop their posturing and talk to one another as people who want to help their country get out of the rut. Those with lots of experience would have so much to offer the younger energetic and yes angry players, and together they would find a solution. Much of the tragedy of human history is down to bad people doing bad things, admittedly, but quite a large portion of our tragedy is that we just don't collaborate when we could. 

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Dawkins and Hester in the media.

I was astonished twice in recent weeks to hear a couple of amazing interviews; one on radio and the other on television. The first one was on the Radio 4 breakfast news magazine and was with Richard Dawkins and Giles Fraser formerley of  St Paul's Cathedral. Dawkins was championing his mini census, taken on the back of the official census question which asks people to say which religion they are. Dawkins is not happy with the number of people who say they are Christian and wants to challenge this. His agenda is of course that if he can show that there are far less Christians (really) than the census throws up, we then reduce the grounds for claiming that we are a Christian country, and for having Christian emblems and people and rites in places of privilege and authority. With this latter argument I do not have a problem. Christianity does well to avoid being associated with privilege and power. However, Dawkins uses a very rigorous set of questions in order to weed out the vast majority. He asks questions about frequency of church attendance, prayer and Bible reading, Bible knowledge and so on. Those not able to answer the questions to Dawkins' satisfaction should then be reclassified as non Christians. There is something very arrogant about not allowing people to self describe or self define. Fraser emphasised this nicely when he challenged Dawkins according to his own principles and asked him to state the full title of Darwin's book on the origin of the species. Dawkins stumbled over that, at which Fraser asked if he could rightly claim to be an evolutionist? The lovely irony of the whole thing, the elephant in the room so to speak, was the fact that Dawkins could only do what he is doing because of the Christian legacy this country enjoys. It is precisely because we are a Christian country that he has the freedom to attack the Christian Faith in the way he does. It was a lovely piece of radio.

The other entertaining interview was with Stephen Hester over the massive losses incurred by RBS last year. Hester had the temerity to say that this was a sign of success: a sign that the bank was putting its house in order and moving away from high risk banking. Presumably this success was why he was awarded such a nice big bonus (again) by his board. O, to be able to redefine failure as success and enjoy the sweet fruits of having it named as such. I think Hester could do worse than tread the boards at comedy night at the Apollo.

Thursday 2 February 2012

Knights and the Force.

The government has an honours forfeiture committee! Wow, who'd have remembered. The few times that the infamously wicked have been stripped of their honours most of us will have forgotten the how of it. It should be said that those who have lost their titles in the past have done so for deeds much more nefarious than Mr Goodwin, usually involving people dying and or being tortured. But the government seemed to think that the public wanted him further punished, and this was about the only thing they could legally and swiftly do without asking anyone else's leave, save of course Her Majesty's.  But they have surely opened up a can of worms here. Everyone who is commenting thoughtfully on this is bringing up the question of all the others whose behaviour also helped get us into the financial mess. Will we, for the sake of moral consistency, see others pulled down too? No pressure from them was publicly forthcoming for Stephen Hester. What will this year's round of  Bankers Bonuses' reveal I wonder? 


More interesting however, is a comparison between the government's treatment of this, and their active involvement in forcing massive pay cuts on the Police Force. The Government won't interfere with publicly funded Bankers' bonuses, but when it comes to any other public body, they are swift to put the boot in. I am unable to believe that here is a government that really has the interests of the low paid, the disadvantaged, the marginalised, at heart. I hope I will see things which make me change my mind, for I do not want to be sucked into a stereotypical anti Tory myth about their bias to the well off, but that belief was certainly one of the things that made me vote labour to get Blair in, and abandon my more liberal normal voting instincts so that I could put my voting shoulder to the wheel as it were. I do believe that when the Tories came to power they had to be firm to resolve the debt crisis, and have gone along with some of their austerity package. But they could give just a little bit more to those whose need is greatest, and they could take more from those who do not need at all, and perhaps in the process, stem the tide of uncertainty and insecurity surrounding those treasures of British life, our NHS and our education system. 

Monday 30 January 2012

Tyred out

I bought winter tyres in November. I also bought snow chains and a collapsible snow shovel, all of which fit neatly on top of my spare tyre in the boot. I kind of knew, when I bought them, that the deluge of snow and weeks' long icy weather would not hit us this year, because of course the very act of buying these things was, to be quite superstitious about the matter, to tempt fate to make my purchases unnecessary. (Well almost unnecessary - winter tyres work better than normal ones at temperatures below 7 C and we have had our fair share of low temperatures.)
I am undecided about the usefulness of superstition. Presumably at least some superstitions are built up from a basis of experience, like the wisdom of not walking under ladders! My main reason for being undecided is that it seems on the face of it to be an abandoning of faith in a God who is in control to a set of circumstances which, combined with luck, govern the future. However, we all believe that certain things do govern future events. If I step off a cliff, gravity will decide what happens thereafter. The laws of science just don't seem as irreligious as things like fate and superstition. But if these things, rather like proverbs, come to us from out the fount of human wisdom and experience, then maybe they are more reliable than some of us (me) might give them credit for being. Just because the basis for some of them has been lost in antiquity does not mean that there was not a rational, sensible beginning to them. Of course I wouldn't want to open the door to all superstition with these thoughts, as some superstitions seem now to be plain daft. The one about tempting fate might be a case in point...until we start thinking about it. Usually the reason we make the supposition that we are tempting fate is that we know that the circumstances we are trying to guard against, don't actually strike with the kind of frequency that our behaviour is anticipating, or, we know that the risk we are taking is being done in the face of good evidence that any success will be against the odds. So, behind the irrational seeming thought, there lies a bit more than a grain of truth. So, will I walk under a ladder should there be one in my path today, well, if I did I might be tempting fate....but there again, my experience suggests I'd get away with it, touch wood. 

Wednesday 11 January 2012

World Order and stuff

In the search for the "God" particle, the Higgs boson, the net seems to be tightening, giving the scientists at Cern an ever shrinking field in which to look for results. There was an excellent program on progress so far on T.V. a few nights ago. Among the theories which the scientists are using, are theories of symmetry and super symmetry. Basically these theories predict that everything has an opposite number, so for matter, there is anti matter, and so on. Here's a summary definition of super symmmetry taken from superstringtheory.com: One of the predictions of string theory is that at higher energy scales we should start to see evidence of a symmetry that gives every particle that transmits a force (a boson) a partner particle that makes up matter ( a fermion), and vice versa.This symmetry between forces and matter is called supersymmetry. This I think means that force and matter are being suggested as possible dance partners in this need for symmetry.


Anyway, many of the scientists being interviewed in the program seemed to be saying that if perfect symmetry obtains, then in the end we get absoutely nothing, zilch, for everything cancels itself out. Matter and antimatter destroy each other on contact, and so on. So, for matter to have been able to come into existence, there must have been a flaw in the physics, some kind of imperfection in the process, in order for asymmetry to kick in. This idea that the universe needs a kind of built in imperfection is mind blowing. Leonard Cohen has perceptively sung "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." It is of course a given in Christianity. The brokenness of humanity is the prerequisite for the Incarnation and subsequent crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Without the brokenness you don't get the salvation. It feels like the more we learn about science, the more it conforms to Christian theology. So much for those who think that science and  faith are opposed to each other. Perhaps Science is the super symmetrical partner to religious faith.

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Independence for Scotland?

Why is Scotland becoming so keen on independence, or at least on the Scottish National Party? I remember my father faithfully voting for the SNP election after election. In those days, Perth was a Tory stronghold, one of the few blue islands in an overwhelmingly red Scotland. In my headstrong pre voting teenage years I used to dismiss this as a completely wasted vote. Well, I think my dad gets the last laugh. But it's from our political past that we get a clue as to where the strong SNP support comes from. The solid working class support base for Labour has largely vanished. The old industrial landscape of pit, mill and factory are a thing of the past, and with their demise, so also the Labour vote. The sons and daughters and grandchildren of these Labour voters are not to be relied upon to continue the family political solidarity. Indeed, the phenomenon of large groups of people engaging in similar types of behaviour is rapidly fading. Year on year, viewing figures for the top Christmas programmes decline. Compare the Queen's Speech nowadays with viewing figures 30 years ago. The difference is in tens of millions. It's the same for Eastenders. Or look at football match attendance statistics, political party membership, or even numbers shopping in our High Streets on a  Saturday afternoon. I remember when on a Saturday, Perth High Street and Edinburgh's Princes Street and Glasgow's Argyle Street could be guaranteed to be a sea of moving bodies. So, it's not just the Church which is seeing falling attendances. We just don't do the same huge crowd turn outs any more. It's not that we're not shopping as much, or watching telly on Christmas Day, or watching football as much. We are - but we're just doing these things differently. There is more choice, more variety, more ways of doing the same thing - we can pick our time, our preferred media, our version. So in this way the political landscape has changed along with everything else. The SNP do not have as big a support base as old Labour used to have, but the emergence of other parties like the Lib Dems, has weakened and diversified the overall vote, and in Scotland at least, the SNP have a broader political appeal than the Lib Dems and the other 2. It's not so much about independence as who is perceived to be able to do the job best.
This comment has some bearing on Church attendance. People who shake their heads at the supposed spiritual decay of the populace need to think more carefully. We are no less spiritual that we have ever been, I believe. We are just being offered more choice in the ways in which we express our spirituality. This I think means that there still are great opportunities for the Church (of every shade and description), we just need to engage a little more realistically with ways which might attract today's seekers.