Category: Current Affairs

When, when, Peace, will you, Peace?
When an ex Secretary General of the United Nations and an ex President of the United States are refused visas by Zimbabwe, the world is expected to be impressed by more petty power games of a corrupt regime.

But for the people whose suffering is intentionally orchestrated in the power-hungering and power-mungering across international borders, this is no game.

I turn to a poem by a Victorian Catholic, one of the finest peace poems in our language, I think. Hope and disappointment, longing and endurance, impatience and trustful waiting, the rebuke from the heart of the oppressed tempered by a hopefulness driven underground seeking means of survival, and finding it – believing that eventually, one day, peace will come.

The tyrant who causes other people's fear to hide his own insecurity, can't forever silence voices, crush human spirits, exclude hope. The Spirit of God needs no visa, is subject to no exclusion orders, and when He comes 'He comes with work to do'.

And so I pray, "When, when, Peace, will you, Peace?

Peace

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite

To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.
22 November 2008
The dangerous politics of presumed consent, or the generous freedom of the Gift.

The Westminster and Scottish Governments are again considering the issue of a shortage of organ donors and the arguments for and against presumed consent. Lying behind the urgency, and apparent moral validity of the move to establish a norm of presumed consent, there are the very human stories of considerable suffering for those awaiting donor organs, and an underlying anguish made worse for patients and their families by the anxiety of a long indefinite wait, often against a reducing time deadline. Any reasonable and ethically defensible course of action that might mitigate such suffering and make for more hopeful outcomes, should surely elicit the support and co-operation of everyone for whom humane compassion and generous care for the other are key principles of human community.

However, the UK Organ Donation Taskforce has concluded in its recently published report that presumed consent would be unlikely to boost organ donation, and have not therefore recommended such a far reaching change in the law. To be sure there are countries like Austria and Spain where presumed consent is the norm and they have high levels of registered organ donors. By contrast in the UK only 25% of those eligible have registered despite widely acknowledged estimates that a large majority of the eligible population are in favour of organ donation. The frustration such an anomaly causes further strengthens the case for presumed consent, it is claimed. Further, the current debate is about "soft presumed consent", that is, if the law were changed to make presumed consent the norm, next of kin would be able should they wish, to withold consent to organ removal for transplant purposes, and their veto would be upheld.

A number of reasons were given by the Taskforce for rejecting presumed consent as a viable way forward. First, while in countries that do operate presumed consent the number of donors is impressively higher, the explanation is thought to lie elsewhere than in the policy of presumed consent. In these countries greater resources are invested in increasing and maintaining public awareness of the benefits to others, and in promoting programmes of social education and support throughout the entire process of recruiting and registering donors.

Second, the Taskforce believes that presumed consent would significantly undermine trust in the medical profession, and the capacity of medical professionals, under pressure from several directions, to deal with conflicting claims of those requiring organs and those potential donors who may have serious illness or injury. Whether such conlicts are real or perceived, public trust is largely based on perception, and if the public perception is less positive then the consequence would still be a serious loss of trust in the core relationship of patient and doctor.

Third, the Taskforce believes that presumed consent would eliminate the concept of "gift". When a recipient is given the organ of another human being, the fact that the organ is donated is an act of generosity, free and gratis. Knowledge of that "giftedness" is an essential element in the emotional reconciliation between the host body and the donated organ, and plays no small part in the recipient patient's future emotional and mental health. For recipients and their families presumed consent lacks the element of free gift, that willing surrender of the self that is profoundly characteristic of the key moments of human exchange.

Now a Christian approach to such a morally complex and emotionally charged debate will surely include a careful consideration of all the above. And the tone and character of the debate should reflect the life or death nature of the questions involved, and these as felt from both sides. But there is at least one nexus of Christian truths and insights that move the discussion to a different level. It is the Christian understanding of a human being as created by God with an identity and value that is inherent in each created being. And a core element in defining the nature of humanity and the dignity of each human being, is the capacity for moral freedom and ethical choice.

The legal terminology of presumed consent masks a highly dangerous and morally unacceptable claim. Who has the right to presume any "presumed consent"? If the law is changed to enact it, presumably the state. But what exactly is being presumed? That a human being's body is not inviolate but may be "used" on the authority and preumed ownership of another; in this case the State. Such a utilitarian view when applied to human beings and human bodies implies a process of commodification, and the human body becomes one more resource, which the state can presume it is free to use, (albeit for beneficent purposes), unless a prior opt out disclaimer is registered. That I believe runs flat contrary to a Christian view of human beings, human bodies and human life as defined in Christian theology and ethics.

The state has no right to presume any ownership of a person; has no right to legislate into existence a presumed right to use parts of a human body without explicit consent; has therefore no right to impose by law presumed consent in the absence of an explicit denial. If presumed consent were introduced, I would then have to opt out of a legally imposed situation in order to retain ownership, control and freedom over my own body. Which means (by a legal sleight of hand), that ownership, control and freedom over my body has already been presumed by the state and ceded by me, till I take it back.

It has not, and cannot. For a Government to presume my consent by legal enactment, it must first presume such a degree of power over me that it can take to itself the right to make decisions about the use of my body. It has no such power, and to seek such power by legal enactment would be to establish in law a dangerously reductionist view of what a human being is. It would signal an equally dangerous assumption of state power over human life and freedom that has no political or moral justification.

All that said, Christian compassion and pastoral considerations cannot be content with the status quo of acute donor shortage in a population apparently largely in favour of organ donation. That the Government is now making £4 million available for an education and awareness campaign seems an obvious and responsible first step – but the amount doesn't seem to equate to the importance and urgency of the issue. But secondly, as a Christian I belong to a faith tradition in which self-giving for the sake of the other is a central ethical and theological value, rooted indeed in my understanding of God. That has significant purchase on such socially responsive and responsible issues as being a blood donor, a registered organ donor, a strategic and generous donor of money and energy in the service of others. Then there is the importance of pastoral experience. I have accompanied several people whose lives have depended on the "gift" of another human being's organ. The profound emotional, moral and spiritual experience of the recipients takes them and those who love them to the far edges of human courage, wonder, gratitude and trust. The gift of life is like no other gift.The Taskforce were right to highlight this, and to affirm its moral and spiritual importance.

In a culture still in shock at the ongoing consumerist catastrophe, a reaffirmation of the inalienable worth and dignity of every human life is both a required corrective witness and a crucial social goal. Our Governments at Westminster and Edinburgh are going to have a hard job educating us all in the importance of socially responsive compassion, and resetting mindsets away from me, money mine. Organ donation and the concept of the "gift" require a different mentality and morality from value for money and bottom line imperatives of contemporary consumerism. For more than a generation, the self-centred lifestyle sustained by consumer commodities and celebrity focus has dominated (perhaps suppressed) moral aspiration.

For in my own admittedly personal view, our willingness to donate our organs, our blood, our money, our time and energy, and all of these for the good of others – is a moral question not a political or economic one. It is about how we view our own life in relation to others. It's about how as a Christian I look on other people's suffering and think with critical compassion of what that person's situation requires of me as a follower of Jesus. Beyond my Christian commitment I am also a citizen and a member of the human family. That too brings gift and obligation – somewhere in this mess of a world these two ideas need to be invested again with moral purpose and human possibility. You cannot legislate generosity and a sense of responsibility for others – perhaps communities that celebrate the grace of God in worship can again find the energy and imagination to embody that generous self giving love in ways that act as salt and light.

And one further thought. When each Christian community gathers around the table of communion, and takes bread and breaks it, and hears the words, "This is my body which is for you", "This my blood shed for the sake of many", we assent both to the final truth of who God is, and to the lifestyle that flows in worship and gratitude from such a source of Love. In Christian discipleship the link is explicit and essential between the Eucharist, and that giving of ourselves in love and service to God and others, in Jesus name, in the power of the Spirit.

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19 November 2008
Fighting the good fight doesn’t mean punching others’ lights out in Jesus’ name!

Two stories from AOL News.

1. If you want to make sense of the picture, have a read at this.

Same scandal as last year at Christmas – and this time it made the BBC Sunday evening news, linked to the story covering the Calzaghe v Jones boxing match.

Suggested relevant Scripture verses please?

My own suggestion – "Jesus wept".

And then this:

2. Workers at Salisbury Town Hall, in Wiltshire
were told they should not utter the ancient cliche, "singing from the same hymn sheet", because its
religious connotations could hurt the feelings of unbelievers.

The directive said: "Avoid office and council
jargon wherever possible, including phrases such as 'moving forward' or
'singing from the same hymn sheet'. Not everyone understands these
phrases – some can actually cause offence (what would an atheist want
with your hymn sheet?)"

With apologies to the author of John's Gospel, "Jesus laughed".

10 November 2008
Brand, Ross, the BBC and the ethical boundaries of humour

The furore over that broadcast by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross has several subsidiary themes worth a second thought. The following are my second thoughts, offered for reflection and not pushed as anything other than how I think and feel about all this.

Much is made of the fact that the night of the broadcast only 1 complaint was registered, with a few more the next day. Then a tabloid paper ran the story as front page news and the complaint count took off. By last night, with Brand's resignation and Ross's suspension confirmed and the Radio Two controller resigned, the tally reached 30,000+. This has led to a backlash suggesting that since most of those complaining hadn't heard the broadcast, and never listen to the programme, their sense of offence is hypocrisy and their complaints invalid.

Sorry. But having had full and unchallenged reports on the BBC itself of what WAS said, and to whom, and that it was broadcast, comes as information that entitles any responsible person to challenge the morality, even the legality, of such misjudgement of taste. When would an episode of suggestive crudity and thoughtless comment on potential suicide EVER be acceptable? And in what other circumstances could such a series of messages be left on an answering machine without incurring prosecution?

Further. Even if this episode had not been broadcast – what thought was ever given to how such messages on an answering machine would be received by an elderly man who had made the mistake of agreeing to particpate in a show sponsored by the supposedly responsible, publicly funded BBC? Sure the Controller had to resign for approving the broadcast. But had it not been broadcast then presumably that was to be the end of the affair. Not sure that's how I feel – I expect at least a minimal awareness in those entrusted with an audience of millions, of the impact on any individual subjected to their particular brand of 'pushing the edges' comedy. Did no one even consider the possibility that a Grandfather might be offended, and a young woman humiliated, by explicit and obscene references to her sex life?

It is also claimed that it is all about audience. A quick poll of audiences queuing up for BBC recording of programmes revealed a sharp distinction between those attending Never Mind the Buzzcocks and a more sedate crowd queuing for a much less 'pushing the edges' programme. The Buzzcocks folks were unanimous in their opinion that the broadcast was not offensive, and that we all needed to lighten up, and that if you don't like the content of the programme no one forces you to listen to it. But that also ignored the fact that people are victims of such brutal humour, and that the audience's laughter is at someone's expense, which should always be within acceptable moral and humane limits. It also betrays a too often forgotten feature of humour; frequently one of its key components is cruelty, the capacity, even the compulsuon, to laugh at someone else's hurt. Thomas Hobbes that bleak realist was not wrong when he defined laughter as the grimaces of the face when we witness the misfortune of someone else.

Then there is the claim that the furore was all about salary envy. Jonathan Ross is paid £6 million a year to work two days a week for the BBC. To require extremely high standards of professionalism, maturity and reliability in enhancing the reputation of his employer seems to me to be a reasonable, even minimal ask for such a salary. Whether any TV celebrity fronting a twice weekly programme is worth an amount per annum that would pay 240 nurses' salaries is a separate matter. Salary envy is a rather hard charge against those who complained since the BBC is in fact a public service, funded by its own audiences, and is therefore publicly accountable. That public called it to account this week. Implied in that accountability are questions about the judgement of those who agreed to pay such a salary, and who when it went wrong took over a week to deal decisively with it.

All of which said – I listened to all of Russell Brand's statement of apology, and recognise the genuine remorse he expressed. No similar public statement has yet been released by Jonathan Ross. The codes of discipline and professional standards in broadcasting are hard to get right. I for one don't want humour, comedy, satire to be so domesticated that they lose their capacity for important social critique, as important vehicles for presenting alternative perspectives, and their long history of subverting assumptions that can often be oppressive, bigoted, abusive. What they must not do, and certainly not on public broadcasts, is make people targets for precisely that abusive and humiliating ridicule which diminishes and degrades, so that laughter becomes a way of desensitising our humanity.I don't think that was the intent of either the two comedians or the Radio Two Controller – but that they seemed unaware of that consequence suggest the need for some education on the ethical boundaries of humour.

31 October 2008
Prayer and the volatile money markets

Prayer for the current financial situation

The
Church of England put a "prayer for the current financial situation" on
the prayers page of its website and saw traffic increase by almost a
third. On Friday, it was viewed 8,000 times.

The
Rev Simon Butler, a curate at St Giles church in Nottingham, said he
had seen more young professionals at services since the crisis began.
"I would guess that some of them would be looking to things of a
spiritual nature because things of a material nature are looking a bit
shaky," he said.

The Prayer

Lord God, we live in disturbing days:

     across the world,

     prices rise,

     debts increase,

     banks collapse,

     jobs are taken away,

     and fragile security is under threat.

Loving God, meet us in our fear and hear our prayer:

be a tower of strength amidst the shifting sands,

and a light in the darkness;

help us receive your gift of peace,

and fix our hearts where true joys are to be found,

in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The link for this was sent to me by a friend and colleague at University of the West of Scotland. You can find it and other interesting stuff here.

18 October 2008
Northern Rock on not forgiving its debtors

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…."

The news this morning featured Northern Rock – remember, the bank that was nationalised at tax payers expense? Whose debts were forgiven even if the irresponsibility that led to them was unforgiveable?

Now we hear that Northern Rock are using aggressive tactics against those struggling to pay their mortgages, that they are inflexible in helping make arrangements for people who want to pay but are struggling, and that Northern Rock is significantly increasing the number of house repossessions as a way of dealing with mortgage debt. This claim was made by Credit Action who are seeing the consequences of this for families ambushed by recent events that the Government itself blames on global factors beyond its own control.

Apart from the obvious line in the Lord's Prayer, (I prefer the Scottish version of 'forgiving debts' for several reasons) I recall there is a parable in the New Testament about a servant who was forgiven a massive humungous debt, only to be found later beating up on someone who owed him a tiny fraction of what he had been forgiven. That parable ended with oppressors being cast into outer darkness, and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

As a taxpayer, I don't want a Bank that exists because of my money to use money-power against people by defaulting to the repossession of people's homes as the quickest way to realise assets to pay off what is owed to the Government (and me). But what can I do about it? I want to think about this, because I have a feeling that as money gets tight, so will the jaws of the vice that holds people's future. (In relation to abuse of money-power, just noticed, "vice" has a double entendre)

And on a global scale, an even bigger worry, where now the possibility of ending world poverty?

17 October 2008
Mixed metaphors as unwitting truth.

Mixed metaphors can be a very effective rhetorical device – even if it's unintentional. So when a leading Financial Strategist with one of the mega-banks that is floundering in debt of its own making, drops such a mixed metaphor with a clang measurable only on the higher decibel range, and does so on the Breakfast News on the BBC, it tends to waken me up. Asked why the failure of Banks to lend to each other was such a damaging issue she said, and I quote:

"Inter-bank lending is the grist that oils the wheels of the economy".

The phrase "grist to the mill" was first used in the English translation of Calvin's Sermons on Deuteronomie, 1583. It means "everything can be used to move toward a profit or conclusion". Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but grist doesn't oil wheels, it gets ground up by wheels, big round stone ones. And inter-bank lending, and the pass the parcel approach to trading in debt,wrapped up in words like 'securities', it is now very clear, doesn't lead to profit or good conclusions, but to the credibility and security of Banks being ground down by the very system they created. The wheels of the economy are not being oiled, their bearings are being burnt out by grist! Or so it seems to this amateur observer of this new mystery religion with dangerous junior deities called Sub Prime, Credit Crunch and Market Meltdown.

One way or another, we're going to have to face up to a world in which we can no longer afford to worship Money and its pantheon of sub-deities. It's the God who has failed – again! The old Scottish version of the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" could make a comeback in a postmodern world which has tended to assume that the globalised market is here to stay. It's an interesting question, the relationship between the origins and development of postmodern culture and the economic and technological assumptions that nourish that culture.

2 October 2008
Money…moths, rust, thieves….and toxic debt.

I suppose it's hard for a market driven culture hyper-sentistive to the health and long term prospects of wealth creation, wealth retention and thus wealth possession, to come to terms with the reality that no one is immune to the transience of wealth, the permutations of market forces and the capricious fears and greeds of investors.So earlier this week, when financial landmarks were flattened, centuries old institutions liquidated overnight, and vast electronic share monitors were glowing red across the board in all the major global share indices, the cause was identified and named by the US spokesman, responsible for announcing the remedy.

The cause, we are told, was toxic debt.

Now I know what he means, I think. Debt that has become a poison in the system, liabilities that have no matching assets, commitments so overstretched they could never be met, and this not with the odd maverick money-grabbing risktaker, but as a pervasive practice that has become systemic. Toxic debt is a phrase that sounds like an unfortunate set of circumstantial events no one could have predicted, something that has happened to otherwise repsonsible people. But that isn't the truth,is it? Does unregulated greed, irresponsible decision-making, blind faith in money's power to create wealth regardless of human caprice – are these irrelevant?

Here's an odd, scary, perplexing and morally outrageous story. Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world, has seen his personal wealth tumble from $50 billion to $12 billion in the past six months. A personal loss of $38 billion – or around £20 billion.How can someone lose $38 billion and still have more money than it cost to buy HBOS? So is there something called toxic wealth?

You could be forgiven, in the context of the frantic, fevered, frenetic money markets of our globalised greed, for thinking that the Sermon on the Mount has little to say. "Consider the lilies" seems a tad inadequate as advice to a culture busy manufacturing and breathing its own life-diminishing, and life-threatening toxins. But I still want to place alongside the nonsense, (I mean "non-sense" as irrational foolishness), of making money into a golden calf, the words of the clearest thinking and most forward looking wealth analyst ever to comment on the human lust for accumulation –

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven……"

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these…"

"You cannot serve God and wealth".

Unless of course you make wealth into your God – which brings its own judgement, of toxic debt and toxic wealth.

21 September 2008
When email is easier than conversation

From AOL News on the work practices of desk workers:

A survey of over 1,200 office staff found that
most admitted that better communications made them lazy because it was
easier to email someone than meet face to face.

The study, by employment law firm Peninsula,
showed that seven out of 10 workers described themselves as unfit
because they sat at their desks all day.

Managing director Peter Done said: "Modern
technology has made people lazy. It has even got to the point where
employees prefer to send each other emails to someone sitting in the
same room, just so they don't have to engage in a spoken conversation."

"This over reliance on technology is taking away the social side of people's jobs and leaving workers too lazy to bother with exercise."

I had a conversation the other day about a moratorium on the word "community" unless it is used with some sense of what is meant by it. So. Amongst the things I mean by it are two principles implied in the titles of two books. These six words describe a basic philosophy I've long subscribed to and tried to live – "respect for persons," and "persons in relation". If community is the working out of human relationships then the interchange of human beings is integral, essential and defining, and that interchange presupposes respect and relationship between persons.

So it matters that I see a face, hear a voice, be present to and with the other person, share at least in the broad outlines of a life story, care and be interested in who someone is and what other than work goes on in their lives. The email exchange is a highly efficient and useful tool for some purposes; sure, a conversation can be tiring, less informationally focused and time consuming. But a conversation isn't a tool – it isn't only a means of communication – it is an opportunity for human relationships to be kept open, for understanding to have a chance, for coming to know those with whom we work, however tangentially. Conversation maintains those bridges that enable us to travel freely into each other's world, at least far enough to know and understand those who live there.

The workplace community is sometimes called a "team", and "team-building" has become an important priority in a shared workplace – it's hard to see how emails do it better than conversation. Respect for persons, and persons in relation, are phrases which provide a minimal sub-structure for workplace practice. As a Christian, I follow One whose way of encountering people was the expression of the love of God. The conversations of Jesus are told with great delicacy and sharp observation by the Evangelists. And while I find the 'What would Jesus Do' question is often clarifying, it can be frustrating when the situation is anachronistic. Would Jesus send an email or go speak to the person along the corridor? Would the Word who became flesh, reduce the Word to texting? I've a feeling Jesus would have preferred human faces to digital screens, and an embodied voice instead of electronic cyphers.

Now to send an email suggesting a meeting to talk over the matter…..? That uses the tool but doesn't reduce the person we contact to mere recipient of the information WE want to pass on. It sets up a meeting – of persons, faces and minds.

18 August 2008
Disappointing Excellence

We are having the best GB Olympic performance ever. The tally of medals is 11 gold and a couple of handfuls of silver and bronze. And yet time and again in the commentating and interviews the word disappointed and disappointing have been used. Either an athlete didn't make it to the final, or they did but didn't get a medal, or they got the medal but not the gold, ONLY a silver. Now I can understand some athletes being disappointed – it's natural and human to be disappointed when our highest hopes and expectations collide with the reality of personal limitations and other competitor's abilities. What I find it hard to tolerate is commentators and pundits using such a word for people who have worked so hard, whose dedication and personal investment in their event is huge.

I'm not disappointed in any of our competitors all of whom will have done their best, whether or not they feel they did themselves justice. Many of them have recorded personal bests and lifetime bests – for goodness sake what more can be asked. I can feel for and with the women's fours rowing team having a third silver in three consecutive Olympics, and their disappointment is very understandbale. But I hope none of us couch spectators have the small-mindedness to be so disappointed their silver wasn't gold that we underestimate the achievement behind that silver – likewise the men's eights.

Excellence is about a person performing to their potential – that may be good enough to win, but if it isn't it's good enough. Disappointing excellence is one of the sillier oxymorons.

OK. Got that clear. I'm looking forward to the rest of the games and am sure I won't be disappointed. If I keep using my exercise bike will I get thighs like Chris Hoy? Probably not, in which case I'll be….disappointed!

17 August 2008