Not many philosophers whose death would elicit an ‘oh no’ from me, but he’s definitely one. Obituary here. Cosmopolis is the one I’d recommend most for a general reader (though I haven’t by any means read everything he’s done).
Note to self: really must get my philosophical brain up and running again.
So: yesterday I got a CROS hearing aid, from the lovely people at Addenbrooke’s (though, as always, it was a bit hellish to get there).
I put it through its paces pretty quickly, and it was quite a remarkable feeling to know what someone to my immediate left was saying. It’s not quite as useful in a social (ie noisy) setting as I had hoped – people with only one hearing ear lack the capacity to discriminate voices in that context, and the hearing aid doesn’t change it – but it does make a difference, and in other settings, eg PCC meetings, it will be a real boon. I can tell already that I feel more confident in those contexts. Next step – wearing it whilst taking a service this morning.
By the way – it’s worth mentioning – I was getting a bit fed up with my hearing last year, and I did offer up some fervent prayers for it to be fixed. So I do see this as an answered prayer, and a miracle, even if it is all completely scientific!
First day back at work.
Plug the phone back in.
First phone call: ‘Hello sir, this is Kwik-Fit car insurance….’
Paul asked a challenging and intriguing question in this comment thread, which I felt deserved a longer response: How do I, as a priest, assess whether and how far to engage politically, including socio-politically?
I have two principal concerns. First, before I was nobbled by God, I was set upon a political career, and the good Lord made it quite clear to me that this was not the path I was called to follow. My path is in the church, and so any time I start to feel an inclination towards active political engagement lots of bright red alarms start flashing and bells start ringing. Second, the Tesco experience, ie when I spoke out against the setting up of a new Tesco Express on Mersea. I still boycott the store, as part of a personal and essentially private witness, but taken as a whole the experience was (and is) dispiriting. It felt like throwing pebbles at a bulldozer, where the bulldozer wasn’t just the Tesco machine, it was the way in which the community tacitly supported the process, not caring (or not caring to know) why it was wrong. Lots of people who I respect simply thought that I was barking mad to be objecting to it (many even proudly declared their shareholdings in Tesco). It has made me more wary of speaking out; not to the extent of not being prepared to do so again, primarily in realising that I have a limited amount of “outspokenness capital” to use, and it would do no good whatsoever to expend it all tilting at windmills.
These two together became sharp for me when considering the question of Transition Towns. I was involved in the setting up of Transition Island Mersea but took a conscious decision to step back from a direct involvement in running things when it seemed that there were plenty of people able and willing to take things forward. The principal fruit achieved so far was the setting up of the Food, Drink and Leisure festival, which showcased local products. I also believe that the local council has started to take things on board. However, it also seems clear that a great deal is still possible, and the issues are very salient on Mersea because we are so close to Bradwell power station, which is on the list for siting a new nuclear power station. I keep mulling over whether to write some articles about the overall energy situation and possibly, eg, argue for some form of local CHP in the town.
A further factor is the way my thinking has been sharpening up about what exactly the Christian community is called to do in our present context. To that end, it might help to explain, or recap, the context for my recent chewing over of material related to global warming, but which is really rooted in two earlier posts: on being Christian not green and Why bother saving the planet? I feel that the current state of the science with respect to global warming functions as a Rorschach test – people will see in the plethora of data support for conclusions that they already hold. I think that what has happened in me over the last eighteen months or so is a gradual disengagement from some nominally ‘green’ positions in pursuit of a more substantial Christian perspective. In other words, I’ve just been digging deeper to try and get at the roots of the present crisis – with the hopeful consequence of knowing the way forward that much more clearly. I think the time for prevention has passed us by, but there are still many things we can do to ease the pain of the long descent. That way forward still has a great deal in common with the green perspective, but they are not the same.
My thinking at the moment is that the Christian church needs to be strengthened in its understanding of discipleship; to understand that being a Christian is a doing not just a saying; and that this is what the priest/pastor/teacher is called to do. I am not at all arguing that there should be no Christians in political careers – I believe the opposite rather strongly – it is more that the shape of the priestly vocation (perhaps: MY priestly vocation) is becoming clearer to me. I am not called to be engaged in the political sphere in any active sense (though I suspect I probably am supposed to be engaged in a ‘shouting from the sidelines’ sense, what Justin calls the watchman role). I think that the most important thing that a priest can do at this time is enable and strengthen the Body of Christ for their work and engagement in the community. That means right worship, right teaching, right fellowship and everything else involved in calling Christians to a serious commitment to their faith and the cost of discipleship. In my case I think it means teaching about the ecological context in which we find ourselves, and what it means for our lives as Christians. I have an obligation to ‘pattern my life and that of my household’ according to what I believe to be right, but I am coming to the conclusion that a further, active political engagement is not right for me. I could be wrong. I shall continue to chew it over.
Here’s another one:
“Abstraction is the enemy wherever it is found. The abstractions of sustainability can ruin the world just as surely as the abstractions of industrial economics. Local life may be as much endangered by those who would ‘save the planet’ as by those who would ‘conquer the world’. for ‘saving the planet’ calls for abstract purposes and central powers that cannot know – and thus will destroy – the integrity of local nature and local community.”
(Both recent quotes taken from his collection of essays ‘Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community’. Highly recommended.)
“Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into Heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that ‘economic forces’ automatically work for good and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that ‘progress’ is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times. It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and defaults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of creation. For in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities and nations. He is a contradicter of the fundamental miracle of life. A part of the normal practice of his power is his willingness to destroy the world. He prays, he says, and churches everywhere compliantly pray with him. But he is praying to a God whose works he is prepared at any moment to destroy. What could be more wicked than that, or more mad?”
(Wendell Berry)
Going Rogue is the memoir of a politician concerned to settle scores and set the record straight. It is not a substantive work of policy, rather it takes the opportunity to speak at length directly to her constituency, without the distorting and malicious prism of the mainstream media, about her background and beliefs. Palin is manifestly a gifted politician but much more importantly she is a good politician, a woman of substance and virtue.
Although Palin was born outside of Alaska, she moved there while still an infant, and this Alaskan context dominates her understanding of the world. She writes movingly of the influence that her father had upon her upbringing, most especially the way in which she imbibed the virtues of hard work and determination. I was particularly impressed by the story she tells of a Basketball final in which she played through despite having a broken ankle, an ankle that still troubles her today. Todd Palin also comes across well – which isn’t a surprise – but what is a surprise is the way in which Palin tells a story against herself (concerning Faye Palin, her step-mother-in-law) in order to bring out her husband’s integrity. Indeed, the moral failure exposed in this anecdote is significantly worse than most of the criticisms thrown at Palin during the 08 campaign and the lesson she learned then has held her in very good stead ever since.
Palin says much about that campaign, not least her interview with Couric. This caused a great deal of pain and she spends quite a bit of time giving her perspective. Palin is intelligent and well read, but she is not an intellectual, and a format geared around stroking the egoes of the latter was never going to show her at her best. Yes she was stitched up, and it was an unfair presentation, but if you throw someone in the deep end it isn’t a surprise if they swallow some water, so I don’t think it can all be blamed on CBS. In contrast to Couric Palin is quite gracious about Tina Fay, and her sense of humour and innate humility are healthily shown by her appearance on SNL, and, indeed, her recent speech to the Gridiron club. What is most striking in her account of the campaign, however, is how far she was shackled by her “managers”, who seem to have been barely competent. The bias shown by the mainstream media during that campaign, and the vilification, misogyny and obstructionism thrown at Palin ever since, would have caused many people to have buckled completely. I found Palin convincing in her discussion of her resignation as Governor, which was, as her father put it, ‘not retreating but reloading’.
Some particular things that I like about Palin:
The most significant area where I disagree with Palin relates to energy, where she seems to have a distorted sense of what is possible over the next ten to fifteen years (distorted, but doubtless very much the US mainstream). I think she is wise to pursue an ‘all of the above’ strategy on energy, the problem is that I have little hope that the status quo can be preserved, and she gives no evidence of realising the tough choices that will have to be faced. However, I have no doubt that her pragmatism and basic good sense will allow her to make good decisions when she is actually put on the spot. Her record has earned her the benefit of the doubt on that, at least for now.
In many ways Palin is the antithesis of Obama. Where she is unambiguously a product of the US mainstream, saturated in patriotic, even chauvinist values, Obama is multi-cultural and multi-ethnic man who seems to have little visceral attachment to the US at all. Where Palin is someone who has risen on the basis of her own drive and abilities, often at odds with party establishments, Obama is a creature of the political machine. Where Palin was hugely influenced by her father, Obama’s life has been marked by a search for a father figure. Where Palin is an outsider and reformer, Obama is an insider and elitist. If Palin succeeds in parlaying her current influence into electoral success for the Republicans in 2010 then I shall look forward to her taking on and then beating Obama for the presidency in 2012. She is not a person who will solve all the problems that the West faces – who could? – but I do believe that she would make an extremely able and effective President of the United States.
John Richardson has written a series of very interesting posts about ministry, see here, here and here.
This is an issue I’ve been thinking a lot about on my sabbatical (including reflections on the conference at Westcott I attended, and finally getting a chance to read Justin’s book) but I’ve held off from writing anything up as it has felt too much like ‘work’, which is something that I have been religiously avoiding. I’ll write something on those aspects in the New Year.
All I wanted to raise here is that, whenever talk about congregational funding of ministers is mooted – it is something which I feel is both inevitable and right – the spectre of ‘congregationalism’ is raised. We are Anglican, therefore we cannot be congregational!
So far as I can tell, this is a nonsense. To be an Episcopal church is to be governed by Bishops – to have ministers licensed by bishops acting under their authority, where the local priest represents the wider church to the parish and vice versa. The funding arrangements by which that minister is paid are irrelevant to whether a church is Episcopal or not.
Nor is it to say that there shouldn’t be a transfer of wealth from those that can afford it to those that can’t. Yet this does not have to be done on the model of state socialism; after all, we are Christians, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect people to give to worthy causes like spreading the gospel. Frankly, I can’t see any fundamental structural reform of the church being possible for as long as a parish share system is in place.
I also find it theologically dubious to see ‘inner city’ parishes as more demanding of resources than suburban or rural parishes. Having worked in both settings my principal reflection is that those in poorer areas rub much more closely against reality and limits, and this makes for a greater openness to the claims of faith. Those in comfortable, insulated, “rich” areas are a much harder field to plough. As John says, once a particular limit is reached – a limit which I would say is between 120 to 150 people in a congregation – then no further growth of ministry is possible, by a particular priest. (Of course, what this means is that the model of ministry needs to change: George Herbert must be killed.)
One last thing: John did a survey of parishes in his Episcopal area (which is the same as mine) and says “…there was actually a correlation between electoral roll size and parish population — but only until the parish population reached about 4,000. Below this number, a smaller parish population correlated with a smaller electoral roll. Once the electoral roll reached (on average) 110, however, an increase in parish population saw no corresponding increase in the electoral roll. Parishes of 7,000 and parishes of 17,000 still tended to have churches with electoral rolls of around 110.” This applies to Colchester Deanery, where the average ratio of full-time stipendiary to congregation is 1:110, but not to Mersea, where the ratio is 1:320 (total population c.9,000)! I had a long chat with my bishop about this, and we agreed that a) my ministry cannot replicate what has gone before (and it is self-destructive to try), and, b) Mersea is something of a pioneer, in that what is happening here is going to happen everywhere else before long.
Some relevant older posts: on workload, killing George Herbert and specifically on the size of this benefice.
Not worth bothering with a separate post for each; I still want to use the blog to keep a record of the films I see, but I don’t need to say more than the minimum!
Don’t mess with the Zohan 3/5 (very silly)
City of Ember 3.5/5 (solid family fare)
Role Models 3.5/5 (sweet)
Species: Awakening 2.5/5 (I have a new appreciation for what ‘straight to video‘ means!)
Skinwalkers 2/5 (one of the worst scripts I’ve ever experienced, with absolutely no care and attention to, or even awareness of, werewolf lore)
Saw V 3/5 (better than expected)
