Giving up on Trump

Before I begin – yes, I’ve already had people say “I told you so…”

So, I liked Trump – certainly much more than Hillary, and that hasn’t changed.
What I most liked about Trump was the possibility that things might change, that the hegemonic principalities and powers would be

Farewell sermon to the Mersea benefice

20181002 Farewell sermon
May I speak in the name of the living God…
And now… the end is near… and so I face… my final curtain
It has been a full fifteen years here. I was tempted to start by saying ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ but that would be misleading, because the balance between the best and worst has not been even – the good massively outweighs the bad, personally and in terms of the life of the church. I have so much to be grateful for, I have so many people that I feel grateful to. Very early on, I think after my first annual meeting here, I was very gently and lovingly told off for not thanking anyone by name – and that was fair, and in my annual meetings since then I have always tried to thank people; there is, however, a terror that comes from the process of naming people because there will always be someone important who in any fair system will need to be thanked but where my human frailty and forgetfulness leads to an omission – if this applies to you I can only beg forgiveness and a chance to make amends after this service

Thanksgivings
thank the wardens down the years: from West Bill Norman and David Walker, Andrew Hester, Richard Grout, Terry Walker, Peter Banks, Barbara Peter, Alan Brook and Val Bocking; Tony Clifton, Marianne Jones and Janis Meanley at East; Pat Moore, Bill Tamblyn, Jane Watson, Hilary King and John Walker in Peldon; Annette Brown, Sue Sargeant, Katrina Lewis in the Wigboroughs
thank John Pantry – in my first days here, when the Bishop rang me up and said that there was this well known evangelical coming to Mersea my heart sank, I thought ‘not more evangelicals’ – but I couldn’t have been wrong, thank you for your consistent loyal support through the years, thank you especially for your music for our services here
they’re not here but shout outs to Mandy and to Mark Brosnan who were also lovely colleagues; the retired clergy: Bernard, Scott, Brian, Keith, Martin, John F and now David – not forgetting the readers, Anne and Peter and Jill – this benefice would not function without you, thank you for all that you have done and all the support you have given me
thank the families workers, Pauline, then Cindy, then especially Heather – you are such an asset to the mission of this church and you’ve done all that I asked of you, thank you – keep gluing the families together!
thank Carol – huge thanks, thank you for your diligence, and your hard work, and your expertise on marriage law! Thank you for keeping me sane, I think we’ve made a good team – I hope you have a wonderful retirement and that when you retire the church gets someone at least half as good
Pat – for your faithfulness esp with MP, for introducing me to In Christ Alone and other things
the secretaries and treasurers and other PCC members, you don’t get thanked enough but all you do has been appreciated, especially those who handle fabric and the social and catering. I would make a particular shout out to East Mersea PCC who could keep things brief, I suspect my record of 16 minutes for a PCC meeting might last for some time
a particular thanks to three men with whom I used to share a regular Monday evening drink in the White Hart: Terry Walker, Peter Banks and Stephen Rice – I think some of my happiest and most affirming times were with you three – thank you for your support, your loyalty and your friendship
I want to thank my house group, which has had a varied membership through the years – you have been an immense support and comfort to me; I am persuaded that you can’t properly be Christian unless you have a group of Christian friends with whom you can be yourself and learn and grow – you have been that for me, I sometimes think that you have had the best of me in these years, but that is because of who you have been – thank you
people in the community
Kathy Bowman – for speaking to me directly and not relying on gossip, for taking on the burden of setting up the friends, and then, frankly, for doing such a great job of it – thank you – and to all the others who have been involved in the various Friends groups across the benefice
the mayors – Alan, Peter, Carl – and especially John – that was a bittersweet privilege to have the honour of taking his funeral, I will miss him – and thinking of John, I have to thank MIPS – I joined in with you just when my first marriage was turning toxic – and you have given me far more than I think you realised – you were a place where I could simply be myself, away from work, away from home and with an accepting community of friends – I have had such fun with you, thank you – I know some might resist this comparison but actually, as a group you’re very much like what I think the church is called to be
I want to thank all of the choirs who have joined in tonight, on so many levels I am grateful and moved for this – particular thanks to Caroline, I really wish I’d been able to finish your teaching!
Ian J – people coming in from outside don’t necessarily realise what difference is made – nothing to compare to – you have made, you are making, I trust that you will carry on making a difference to us. I would say: don’t give up on us – you ask us all of the right questions but you may need to help the church rediscover that treasure which it carries, which are the right answers
so I want to say a few words about the music marathon – a coming together of so many strands – that moment will last with me forever. I had just applied for the job in the Forest of Dean, I knew in my bones that I was going, and I didn’t know if I was going to be leaving this church in a good place, but that night – when the community had been coming in and going out – when the church was properly the hub and a resource for the people – when the doors were open and the spirit was breathing – and then the wonderful finale – I took that to be a sign from God, a promise that it was going to be OK, that my decision was the right one – it was as if God was saying ‘look, you can go now, this was why I sent you here, your work is done’
I hope that was a true insight

Sermon proper
Leaving my native country
Jesus says to Peter, do you love me more?
I wonder if Abram wanted to leave Haran; because so much of me really doesn’t want to leave here. God said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.” I too am about to leave my native country, my relatives, my father’s family to go to a land that God has shown me
My father is buried here on Mersea, in a double depth grave so that there is space for my mum too. My father’s family traced back to Norfolk at the time of the Norman conquest – we are East Anglians – I am very English. But I don’t want to over-emphasise that, and certainly not as a matter of blood. I’m going to a place quite close to where my maternal grandfather grew up: he was a miner in South Wales, in a little place called Mountain Ash, and he was once – before he got a singing scholarship, studied with Caruso and became for a little while a nationally famous tenor singer in the 1930s; he spent most of his working life singing in music halls and the stage – I don’t think he was ever a dame but you wouldn’t be wrong to think that I have inherited something from him – so I am very proud of my Welsh blood, and there’s even a large slug of Irish in there too – but culturally I’m an Englishman, I’m an Essex man, I’m a boy from the Blackwater. I was very moved recently to be shown a picture of dad taking part in the old gaffers race

loved being your priest
Jesus says to Peter, do you love me more than these?

the simple truth is that I have loved being your priest and my best moments have been when I have been able to do priestly things. I have had quite a remarkable last two weeks or so, which seems to have summed up everything good
I’ve taken services – I’ve had some very important pastoral conversations – I’ve taken communion to someone in their home – I’ve chaired a PCC and attended a wonderful harvest supper – we have had Terry’s priesting and first communion – with an impromptu baptism inserted into the middle of that, which Terry managed to be completely unfazed by – it’s not a bad introduction to being a priest, all things considered! I took a candidate to a confirmation service in Tiptree, and wondered if Spencer was ever going to take the plunge – I took my last funeral this morning, in Great Wigborough – it was of the matriarch of a family that I have come to know quite well – the son in law has been on an extremely onerous committee with me for the last ten years, and I married their daughter a few years back – there are forms of ministry possible when you have stayed long enough in a place to really know and be known. It was a good thing to end my ministry with: it’s what I always wanted. I have loved being your priest.

I have loved living on Mersea, I have loved the rural nature of the villages, I will always keep you in my heart and I will pray for you, most especially that the search for my successor will be swiftly concluded and that God sends you a good woman or man to continue the good work that you are doing

I love the local church – the local churches – I believe that the gospel is alive in you
Do not even for one moment believe that my decision to go is in any way about anything wrong with the churches in this benefice. Don’t get the wrong idea – I am fully aware of your several shared and sometimes peculiar faults – but that is my job, to know all of the ways in which you – we – all fall short of our best selves – and to bring to people the rumour of God’s amazing grace which is how we heal and become better

It would be fair to say, however, just as an aside… that I have been driven mad by the hierarchy and the institution – and one kind person, aware of my struggles, said to me that if I stayed it would kill me – I think that’s true. I have tried my best to protect the benefice from the craziness and sheer incompetence of the wider church – but that has been interpreted as a lack of collegiality and they’re glad that I’m going. At this point I was going to say that I hope they don’t cause too much damage – but they have in this past week they done far more damage than I ever expected…

but that is not the note on which I wish to leave you
I have to let go. I have to let you go.
I have to trust that as you keep the faith the Lord will be with you, and you will be protected by Him – trust in God, trust also in his son Jesus Christ our Lord
so I am consciously trying not to be afraid, and to be excited, and to enter into this little death

idolatry and death
The German theologian Bonhoeffer once wrote, when Jesus calls us, he bids us come and die. I never expected to leave here. I’m starting to see that this may have been a form of idolatry – giving too high a value to something, which distorts a life – it may be simply that I have loved being here too much, that I have identified with it too much. When God calls us it always involves a sacrifice – to let go of something that we really value – it is always followed by receiving something of greater value, but taking that step requires faith – and faith is the opposite of fear, do not be afraid.

the core issue for me is, as I’m sure you know, about missing my children in Wales – it doesn’t work for me having them for one week in six, that’s not how I’m built – with the move they will be with me, instead, every other weekend – I think that will work much better, for all of us. But I have started to realise other things about God’s planning; I think this has been the lever that God has used to get me out of this job,

The thing is I haven’t been happy for some time – I don’t think that I have properly flourished or been effective for maybe two years now I think – in part it has been simple exhaustion – but it wasn’t clear to me what God wanted me to do – I listened to the Leonard Cohen song that Stephen read for us over and over again: show me the place, show me the place, show me the place where you want your slave to go

early signs – things that proved to be more of a struggle – particularly the boat – I have found that when I cooperate with what God wants for me things are not a struggle – and since deciding to apply for my new job it has been like dominoes falling – instead of beating up against a heavy head wind, it’s as if I’ve done a controlled gybe and we’re now running before the wind – lots of things are calmer and more peaceful, and it’s all happening so quickly!

death and resurrection
St Paul writes, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it will not bear fruit
I think this process of leaving Mersea is a death for me; the person that I have been will pass away, and a new person will take his place
I am wearing the stole that my father’s mother bought for me when I was first ordained – she was a church warden for several decades in a small church near Wickford, where I was baptised. My father died very suddenly at the age of 55 – I took his funeral, wearing this stole – one of the last conversations about resurrection – a clear and simple faith, took me by surprise, brought me up short – it made me wonder if I was too stuck in my head, with academic abstractions.

I don’t worry about that any more. I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses… And I believe in the resurrection, I believe in it more and more as time goes on.
This isn’t simply because I find the objections less and less credible, and as a matter of historical evidence I don’t see a more plausible explanation for a small group of demoralised fishermen running around talking about a resurrection and converting the Roman empire than a simple affirmation that they were describing what had happened.
It is also because I see the resurrection being carried on daily in people’s lives, whenever grace breaks in, whenever the enemy is put to flight. I see the resurrection woven in to the warp and weft of our world – when through the woods, and forest glades I wander – or when I walked with Ollie on the beach on so many mornings – the reality of God, for me, is undeniable. There is a Word that is written in a book, and there is a Word that is written on the creation by the Creator. It’s all the same God

I believe in the resurrection, and that is why I am prepared to enter into this death – I am throwing myself onto God’s mercy, and like Abram I am dragging my household with me, I trust that the Lord will enable us all to flourish and that we will be blessed; if nothing else my love, you will have trees

What it means to be a prophet
Faith – we’ve come a long way together, since we first met when I was visiting with your mum, and then taking you through confirmation, and then in house group – lift up your hearts! Faith said something to me in our last but one house group – she said what do you want us to remember about you – I thought a lot about that, and I thought, what I most want to share with you now, with my last sermon as your Rector, is what it means to be a prophet. The prophets of ancient Israel were those who called the nation back to a faithful religious life – back to right worship, that is, worshipping the right things, and back to social justice, by which was meant ensuring that nobody was excluded from sharing in the national life. I think we need the spirit of prophecy in our church and nation today.

The Church of England doesn’t have a functioning theology of what a nation is.
This is something of a problem when the name of a nation is in your self-description.
Nations are real things, spiritually real – they are a form of what St Paul calls the principalities and powers – and our culture is very familiar with what it means when a principality is raised up into the shape of an idol, when it is given a greater value than it deserves to have, and it becomes demonic – we all know enough history to be aware of what that looks like.

But what is so often missed is that there is an equal and opposite error – nations are part of the creation and they have their place in that creation – that’s why nations are talked about so often in the Bible – it is a great sin to overemphasise nationhood – that’s why in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, the claims of Christ are higher than that – but this does not obliterate nationhood – it does not mean that we are to abandon any sense of what it means to live within and be part of a nation – it is part of being fully human that we are formed within a community of people – and the most fully human person who has ever lived was not an exception to this. Jesus did not appear to us coming down from on high, full of heavenly glory – no, he lived at a very particular time in a very particular place, he took part in the very particular customs of a very particular nation and from that solid foundation he transcended those particularities to become a source of universal salvation. It is as members of one nation or another that we are redeemed, none of us are redeemed as abstract human beings, devoid of context or roots in a particular place.

George Orwell wrote that England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality, and it seems to me that the mind of our House of Bishops has been captured by that same intellectual disorder; it is, in fact, a theological disorder. Some ten years ago Peter Banks introduced me to a folk group called Show of Hands, and took me to a show of theirs in Putney. It was the first time I had heard any of their songs, and I was blown away. One song that I heard that night I’d like to share with you:

And a minister said his vision of hell
Is three folk singers in a pub near Wells
Well, I’ve got a vision of urban sprawl
It’s pubs where no-one ever sings at all
And everyone stares at a great big screen
Overpaid soccer stars, prancing teens
Australian soap, American rap
Estuary English, baseball caps
And we learn be ashamed before we walk
Of the way we look, and the way we talk
Without our stories or our songs
How will we know where we come from?
I’ve lost St. George in the Union Jack
That’s my flag too and I want it back
Seed, bud, flower, fruit
Never gonna grow without their roots
Branch, stem, shoot
We need roots

We can’t let patriotism, the story of who we are as a nation, be monopolised by the morons and the bigots, but if we don’t have a healthy understanding, a theological understanding of what a nation is then that is what is going to happen by default, they will take up that space – and then the demonic will take it over. This is a task that the Church has to engage with, for it is the Church of England that is called by God to tend to the soul of England. It is because the Church has failed to even engage in this spiritual struggle that we have lost our moorings as a society.

The trouble is, the church of England that there was has died, and our hierarchy is in deep denial about it.
St Paul writes, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it will not bear fruit

I am a product of boarding school and Oxbridge culture – to me choral Evensong is normal – more than normal, it’s beautiful and spiritual and it is how I came back into the Church of England when I started to question my atheism, and recognise just how shallow a perspective I had. Atheism cannot guide a civilisation, a country, it can’t even guide a single person, it just doesn’t have the resources to do that.

But if I have learned one thing from my time here in Mersea it is simply that this background makes me odd in our country today – I have come to see that when the Book of Common Prayer says that worship must be conducted in a language understood by the people this is not just about the words that are being used but also about the musical forms that are sung and the formalities that are depended on – that there is a form of life that is passing away. The Spirit of the Lord has moved, and the glory of the Lord is departing, and Elvis has left the building.

There is so much life still bubbling away in the Church of England, in the local churches, in so many different ways, but I believe that if that life is to burst up from the ground the established church needs to die a death in order that it might be raised to life again. We need to give certain habits of thought and behaviour an honourable burial. We need to say ‘we are no longer in that place, we have entered the wilderness’. We need to not look back to the fleshpots of Egypt. Only by so doing can we hope for God to move again in this land; only then will revival come.

I believe that our institutional church is in deep denial of the truth of our situation. It is afraid of dying, and this fear of dying drives management initiatives and top down control systems and the gospel is slowly Ofstedded out of existence as Pharoah keeps telling the people of God to make more bricks with less straw. And what is fear of dying but a failure to believe in the resurrection?

I believe that we can do so much better than this

thoughts about the future
I don’t know fully what form my ministry will take in Gloucestershire. I know that my parish load will be very different – I’m hoping that I will be able to enjoy being less of an incumbent and more of a priest – I’m also looking forward to the part of the job which is about mentoring those called to the priesthood – I have loved doing that, first with Mandy and then with Terry, and I like to think that I do have a gift of encouragement, that I can nurture people’s gifts.

but what I am wondering is whether I will have the opportunity to teach more widely. Jesus says to Peter, do you love me more than these? And when Peter says that he does love Jesus, Jesus then says, three times in different ways, “Feed my sheep”

I feel called to work on feeding sheep, which means teaching and helping people to understand and have great confidence in the faith. You have every right to have confidence in the faith. It’s true! And the truth sets us free. St Paul writes: So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. This is so true. Keep the faith!

When sheep aren’t fed they either leave or die – which is a good description of the Church of England for the last one hundred years. Rectors come and go, churches come and go, but the word of the Lord stands fast for ever and it is through the word of the Lord that the flock are fed. I’ve had some wonderful presents already from the village parishes; the good people of East gave me a lovely present on Friday night, but they also gave me a cheque and I have been wondering what to do with it. I am thinking that I am going to invest in a decent video camera and some editing software and maybe set up a youtube channel – which means that those who like my teaching can have somewhere to follow it, and those who don’t like it don’t have to come anywhere near it!

I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land

Blake was a prophet, and I have always taken Jerusalem to be about the Kingdom, about engaging the imagination in such a way that working for the Kingdom in a particular place, for a particular people becomes possible – and I think I’m supposed to work specifically for that in England, amongst the English – here I stand, I can do no other

Jesus says to Peter, do you love me more than these, and my answer is yes, I do. I do love Jesus more than I love you, more than I love being with you – and I have really loved being with you

Jesus goes on to say, when you are older people will take you where you do not want to go. Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. Then Jesus told him, “Follow me.” In leaving you, in leaving behind so much and so many that I love I am following him, God help me.

Following Jesus is all that we can do, for in the risen Lord is life, and life in abundance.

God be with you till we meet again.

Of bundles and barrows

In Native American societies there is a tradition involving what is called a ‘sacred bundle’. This is a collection of objects that each reflect a particular moment in the story of the tribe, and each addition to the bundle is marked with great ceremony and ritual. The person who holds the sacred bundle is given a place of great honour within the tribe – but that person is not the chief or the medicine man or healer.

In churches I often think that there is a similar sacred bundle, and a similar person who holds it – the person who can tell all the stories that have brought a congregation to the place they are at now – and that person is very rarely a vicar or a church warden. They are the people who can point out to a new vicar ‘It’s probably not a good idea to move that flower stand because it was given to the parish in memory of old Joe and he meant a lot to all of us’ – you get the idea.

However, all that being said… We recently started to tackle the accumulation of debris at the bottom of the Vicarage garden. There must have been several years worth of discarded branches and hedge trimmings that had built up, and we managed to get a great blaze going in our bonfire. There’s still much to do – and the Diocese is sending a contractor to trim the hedges down properly, although it’s strictly down to the Vicar to do that (thank you property department!) – but in the course of this necessary purging I discovered two discarded and ruined wheelbarrows underneath all the dead branches.

I thought they looked good as a modernist sculpture:

I am left with a question: how do I decide if something, a particular practice or object in a new parish, is meant to be classed as part of a sacred bundle or is simply an abandoned barrow? It’s rather like the discernment of spirits – test these things, to see if they lead to peace and joy or otherwise.

As with all the things that try us, the answers are straightforward and simple: pray, do not be afraid, then act in the trust that God will redeem whatever we do and work it for the good.

Falling into the hands of a redeeming God

There is a notorious sermon – notorious in some quarters – called ‘Sinner in the hands of an angry God’, and it is by a noted US evangelist named Jonathan Edwards. It is a classic, perhaps it is THE classic ‘fire and brimstone’ sermon, in which those who hear it are confronted with the reality of hell and enjoined to change their ways.

Whilst I do believe in the reality of hell, I find that this emphasis is often self-defeating, and for some time now I’ve been pondering the phrase ‘sinner in the hands of a redeeming God’. This is because I think God’s redemptive work is rather more important than his anger, however that needs to be understood.

To explain this, I’d like to share a photo with you, taken from the Nagshead nature reserve the other day.

Here is a birch tree that has been toppled, presumably by some over-vigorous boar. However, what seems key is that the roots have stayed engaged in the ground; consequently, the tree is still alive and has, indeed, sprouted branches upwards from the toppled trunk.

This seems like a good image of redemption to me. After all, we all topple over sooner or later, beset by the boars of this world. If all there was to know about God was his anger then this would be a counsel of despair, toppled into hell. Yet God is so much more creative than that. He takes our toppling and brings something new from it. The tree is still alive, can still grow, can still contribute.

We are all sinners; we all topple – and we can all be redeemed. The key is to keep our roots engaged in the spiritual soil – the first psalm has something to say about this…

A brief thought about the Irish referendum

I believe that abortion is always and in every case morally wrong (and hugely destructive for the mother).
I also believe that there are rare occasions when it can be less wrong than the alternative.
In practical terms, I think the UK should move to a 12 week limit for abortions, rather than fully illegal.
Which is what has just been voted for in Ireland.
Yet I can’t help but feel incredibly sad at the change.
Lord have mercy.

Unacknowledged Materialism and the decline of the Church of England

I have been a little unwell, and postponed various meetings, which has left me, unusually these days, with the time to think and thus to blog. I find my thoughts coming back to what it is that the Church of England has really got so wrong, that has led to its not-quite-terminal-yet long decline.

If I had to put my finger on one thing, I would say that most members of the hierarchy of the church are philosophical materialists. That is, they might pay lip service to spiritual realities but in practice no real choices are made on the basis of those spiritual realities. They would almost certainly all demur from such a description – at least, those who knew what it meant would demur – but the demurral would not achieve much in practice. Which is my point.

Philosophical materialism is, roughly, the dogma that the only things that are real derive from mass and from motion, and stems from the thought of Francis Bacon. He excluded two of Aristotle’s four causes from reasonable (ie scientific) consideration, that to do with formal cause (a determining pattern) and final cause (the purpose for which something exists).

This materialism became culturally dominant in England quite some time ago, to the extent that it is now simply a matter of common sense. To reject such a materialism is socially not respectable; at least, not until extremely recently. It is why all language of miracles is rejected (miracles are, most of all, to do with the final cause of events). It is what lies behind the notion of ‘hard’ sciences – because Bacon’s two causes are the ones that are most tangible.

To take just one example with regard to the hierarchy, this – possibly unconscious – materialist bias is shown when the language of spiritual warfare is used in their presence, and the squirming and unease is palpable. Mostly I think this is a caution relating to charismatic forms of devotion – very unEnglish – but there is often something wider too. I diagnose it as a cowering before the mighty edifice of science. In opposing science the Church of England came off worst, it lost, and anything which smacks of reviving that fight is to be shunned for fear of more pain.

However, where materialism is accepted, the work of the church becomes less about a knowledge that leads to salvation than about those things which can be clearly understood in materialist terms: hence the emphasis upon the palliative care of the suffering and the embrace of a managerialist ethos.

It is, put simply, not a spiritually serious position to hold. Which is rather disappointing given the nature of the job, and it is why, in my view, the Church has been a long time a-dying. It cannot give spiritual sustenance when deep down it doesn’t believe that such a thing is real. Where the flock are not fed, they die or they leave.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that the decline of the Church of England stems from an intellectual surrender to the doctrine of secular materialism. The Church has surrendered to science, and forgotten its own genius.

We need to rediscover the magic of our faith. In every sense.

I’m doing my own part to chip away at this through my own research, looking at one area in particular where this has happened (psychiatric diagnosis) yet I am very conscious of being in a distinct minority within the church community: odd, and therefore lonely. (I seek to avoid the vainglorious notion of being the only one left, I’m sure there are at least 7000 more that have not bowed the knee to Baal.)

I don’t know what to do about this, or even if God wants something to be done about it. It may be that God wants the Church of England to enter into glory. I just can’t help but believe that we need to see our situation clearly before we will be enabled to hear God clearly – and this is my contribution. I will start to believe that we are healing – and therefore open to growth once again – when the language of spiritual warfare, of idolatry, principalities and powers, angels and demons are once again comfortably and normatively used by those in spiritual authority over the church.

The fragility of civility

I wonder how many of you have seen the Channel 4 interview that took place between the journalist Cathy Newman and the Canadian academic psychologist Jordan Peterson. I thoroughly recommend seeking it out on YouTube if you haven’t seen it, as Peterson is a stimulating and lucid thinker. Yet what most struck me when I watched it was the remarkable lack of civility displayed by Ms Newman.

Repeatedly – and by ‘repeatedly’ I mean on at least two dozen occasions – Ms Newman appeared to listen to Peterson before then stating “What you’re saying is X”, where X is a remarkably dishonest and misleading construal of Peterson’s remarks. This is an example:

Peterson: …if you leave men and women to make their own choices you will not get equal outcome.
Newman: Right, so you’re saying that anyone who believes in equality, whether you call them feminists, call them whatever you want to call them, should basically give up, because it ain’t gonna happen.
Peterson: Only if they’re aiming at equality of outcome.
Newman: So you’re saying give people equality of opportunity, that’s fine?
Peterson: Not only fine, it’s eminently desirable for everyone, for individuals and for society.
Newman: But still women aren’t gonna make it. That’s what you’re really saying.
Peterson: It depends on your measurement techniques. They’re doing just fine in medicine…

newman bacon

What I want to bring out here is the remarkable lack of civility that Newman brings to the discourse, compared with the abundance of civility that Peterson displays. Just imagine how the conversation would develop if, instead of Newman saying “What you’re saying is X” she simply asked “are you saying X?”

We might call this the John Humphrys-isation of our journalistic traditions, whereby the task of the journalist is no longer to dispassionately seek the truth and share that truth with their audience or readership – so, in Newman’s case, to ensure that those watching Channel 4 at that point were given a clear understanding of Peterson’s ideas – but rather the journalist believes that their task is to be an advocate for one partisan tradition over against another. When a guest is perceived to be advancing a cause antagonistic to the journalist’s own tradition then they are traduced and mis-represented, as has become so wonderfully clear in the Newman-Peterson interview. Still, at least Peterson was allowed on to the television programme in the first place. The views of the majority of the British population tend not to be given any air-time at all.

I wonder whether this is one aspect behind the popularity of costume dramas like The Crown, Downton Abbey or Howard’s End, which show the country – people like us – operating in a vastly more civilised manner. I am not simply referring to the possibilities of grace and ease that are afforded by being stupendously rich. Rather, I refer to a shared culture of acceptable behaviour that had at its core a distinctly Christian ethos of shared mutual respect – distinctively Christian as it rests upon the idea that all human beings are made in the image of God, which is one of the elements of Christianity that marks it out as different to other world-views. If a person is made in the image of God then it becomes a form of blasphemy to treat that person without respect. In Downton Abbey, this could be seen very clearly with the servants, under the benign stewardship of the Butler Mr Carson. There was a clear standard of correct behaviour which all were required to adhere to.

Is this just a form of curmudgeonly conservatism? A pining for a long-gone age of deference and a refusal to acknowledge the huge advances in human welfare of the last hundred years? I would argue not. It isn’t simply about the possibilities of polite discourse, undertaken in a shared spirit of enquiry and humility before the truth. It is rather one aspect of an overall coarsening and vulgarisation of our national character and culture which has some very stark and chastening consequences.

One that particularly alarms me relates to the welfare of our children, especially our daughters. If we consider the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, amongst the victims of that particular terrorist atrocity were young teenage girls dressed up in ways that exaggerated their age and such secondary sexual characteristics that they might have possessed. There is a link between such display and the way in which the white girls of Rotherham were preyed upon by abusive gangs. In other words, a culture of civilisation protects the vulnerable and the innocent, whereas in the culture that we have now – which is all about assertion and aggression from both men and women – it is the vulnerable and the innocent that suffer the most. Am I the only person who thinks that something like Nickelodeon is designed to stimulate a paedophiliac culture, in Hollywood and then more widely? I worry for the stars of Stranger Things like Millie Bobby Brown, who at the age of 13 is being taken up into the Hollywood publicity machine and made-over to look much older. This is not healthy. This is not right.

I would not wish for one moment to say that there has been a previous golden age to which we must return – that’s a delusional and destructive path to choose. Yet surely there are creative ways in which we can revive the best of what has gone before, alongside all the gains that have been accrued since? A way of restoring a sense of truth, beauty and goodness to guide our common choices around ways of behaving and relating to one another?

What we have without such a shared sense is a disintegrating culture in which all civility is removed in favour of the naked struggle for power. We see the consequences every day, not least in all the arguments that continue to rattle on about Brexit. No longer are different people with different abilities united around a common aim; rather, those differences are exalted and exploited in order to service the media gods of drama and conflict.

Civility is both fragile and marvellous. We neglect its cultivation at our own peril.

So that was 2017

Didn’t achieve most of my resolutions from last year – in fact, I have pretty much got the same ones again this year!

Was Dame in the panto again…

…and had a small role in the May play too.

Bought a lovely boat!

And sailed as far as Ipswich…

Another wonderful Greenbelt

Saw a lovely colleague ordained to the diaconate

Continued to struggle with the CofE, especially with regard to workload and institutional priorities – whilst being more and more enthused with the gospel itself

Got stuck in to my doctorate

Got on a motorbike again

Lost Ollie

Missed my kids

(There would have been images to go with all this but WordPress is not co-operating!)

Previous years: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

Brexit thoughts

brexit image
Much of the discussion about Brexit is fixated on the economics of the change. This is undoubtedly important, especially if there is no agreement at all – latest estimates reckon half a million job losses under that scenario, although that compares to some four million jobs created in the UK since 2010. I also wonder how many jobs are at risk through things like automation and robotics, in other words, what is the ‘churn’ of jobs and how significant an impact will Brexit have upon that. Then there are the questions of how far we can re-orient our economy to different patterns of investment and working and I end up thinking that this is simply a moderate shock to the economy, which will not mean very much over the next ten and twenty years.

In any case, all these discussions ignore the question of sovereignty, which remains the most important issue for most Brexiters. On that point it would seem that the relationship between the EU and the UK can now be seen in all its naked glory, or lack of such. This, I believe, will help Brexit in the long run, as I can see public opinion solidifying against the EU if they remain recalcitrant on things like opening discussions on a Free Trade Agreement. I would still expect there to be an agreement – it’s the closest to the maintenance of the status quo – but I’m not as confident as I was.

What I am most struck by, however, watching these negotiations, is the assumption that the EU will continue to exist in something like its present form for those next ten and twenty years. I am rather sceptical of that. I think the EU is facing some deeply unsettling and existential questions, and I do not see any sign of those problems being addressed.

Just today there are striking images of the crisis in Catalonia. The situation in Greece continues to destroy any claim for moral credibility on the part of the EU. The visegrad group continue to defy Brussels, in accordance with popular democracy but against the Commission’s wishes. Most fundamentally the Euro continues to destroy southern european economies in order to give Germany a helping hand as they break the law on economic surpluses. I believe it to be true that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation – and there is obviously a great deal of ruin in the EU – but I am pretty sure that the future for the UK, even without a free trade agreement, is much brighter than for the EU. I think there is a very real possibility that the EU in its present form will have ceased to exist within five years. If it has antagonised the UK in these negotiations, to the extent that opinion in the UK tends towards letting the Europeans look after their own defense, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see an EU that is mired in internal violent conflict and economic dislocation, vulnerable to power-supply diplomacy from the East and lacking any means to integrate or solidify their own internal political cohesion.

If I was Theresa May I would say rather explicitly – given the cool reaction to her Florence speech – that if discussion hasn’t started on the potential free trade agreement by Christmas then we shall proceed to trading on a WTO basis immediately on our exit in March 2019 – and we won’t pay a single penny after that. Germany will have to meet the bill, but for how long?