Category: Current Affairs

One of the more glaring ambiguities of being the Established Church is the qualities, attributes and skills required to be a leader who is able to face two different directions at the same time, work with two sets of pragmatic principles which are likely to get in the way of core convictions that don't easily survive compromise. I am thinking of Rowan Williams, a man in whom deep spirituality, theological scholarship, personal holiness and ecclesial conviction leave him deeply unprepared for the maneouverings and compromises, the moral ambiguities and relational ruthlessness that seems to be required to prosper in the arena of politics, ecclesial or state.

He comes to the end of his tenure soon, and there will be those who will do an audit on his performance as Archbishop. For myself, I think there need to be two audits, appraisals, or reviews whichever term we prefer. And the criteria for assessment cannot possibly be the same in both spheres, the political and the ecclesial. As a spiritual leader of worldwide Anglicanism he cannot escape political engagement within and beyond the concerns of the Church; but neither can he surrender principles of spiritual conviction, theological commitment and Gospel imperatives. It is that dichotomy of foundational commitments that have always made the role of Archbishop of Canterbury impossible to fulfil to the satisfaction of everyone. That's before we talk about being the leader of a culturally diverse, theologically broad, historically compromised organisation whose foundation beliefs are vigorously contested in the postmodern marketplace of alternative narratives.

Holiness has little value as political currency; prayer and spirituality by definition are not power tools at committee level, where pragmatic instrumentalism is a primary virtue; theological wisdom and erudition, even when combined with moral imagination in exploring the cultural and ethical minefields facing an ancient church travelling across the terrain of the contemporary world, do not carry decisive authority. It is near impossible to speak with Christian integrity and a political correctness all will approve. Indeed there is a plurality of political correctness which underlies the polarities and conflicts of much contemporary ethical and theological debate. Clashes of fundamentalism tend to crush those who stand between them as mediatior – Christians of all people should know that. The photo above captures someone whose surprise, laughter and sense of the ridiculous are emphatically not out of place in someone asked to do the impossible as a routine expectation.

I leave to others to judge the contribution of a good man in an impossible role, though I would ask them to be careful of Jesus words about being judged by the same measures we judge others. For myself I am grateful to Rowan Williams for accepting a vocation from God that for his years as Archbishop of Canterbury, has gone against the grain of a spiritually faithful intellect. His term has exposed him to dilemmas of labyrinthine complexity, and at times has made him in turns unpopular, ridiculed, deemed irrelevant, focus of anger. But he has demonstrated the incompatibility of being a leader in Church and State. And he has done so by speaking and arguing out of a resilient and generous faith, by manifesting holiness as both practical and costly and ultimately different from mere goodwill however astute, and by a rootedness in his own tradition that does not need to diminish or exclude those of other traditions and faiths.

I leave you with one of those momkents of brilliance that say so much about the faith and faithfulness of Rowan Williams.

Rowan Williams once brilliantly compared prayer to sunbathing. "When
you're lying on the beach something is happening, something that has
nothing to do with how you feel or how hard you're trying. You're not
going to get a better tan by screwing up your eyes and concentrating.
You give the time, and that's it. All you have to do is turn up. And
then things change, at their own pace. You simply have to be there where
the light can get at you."

I pray that at the next stage of his ministry, there will be time for such sunbathing.

This is the face of courage, bearing witness against a brutal world

Malala Yousafzai is slowly recovering.

This also the face of hope – for Muslim girls and women.

She is not out of danger. Medically she has a long journey ahead.

Her enemies remain incensed by their own lethal hatreds.

She was shot because she wanted to go to school.

If ever there was a time to uphold the value and human significance of education in our own culture, and across the world

If ever there was a person who embodies the human passion for learning

If ever there was a personality and character more worthy of our admiration than any amount of "celebrity personalities"

If ever there was reason to hope for a better human future for children across the world

If ever there was a time to contradict and subvert prejudice and religious hatred

If ever there was a demonstration of how one person's actions can make a difference for others,

Then Malala Yusafzai is such a person, and the time is now.

And,

If ever there was a young woman entitled to immediate nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize

it is this young teenager

whose blog was answered by bullets,

whose love of learning is threatened by lethal force,

whose young life has been spent in an environement of fear, repression, violence and religiously fuelled hatred,

and who only wants to go to school, in peace, to learn.

May the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, protect and bless her.

I have a number of Muslim friends, with whom I have laughed, argued, shared food; to whom I have listened, spoken and whom I deeply respect, a feeling that is mutual.

When earlier this year I conducted the funeral of a close friend who was a spiritual ecumenist, a man of profound and searching Christian conviction, who epitomised respectful listening, humble speaking and generous thinking, and who was a trusted member of the Inter Faith Group in Aberdeen, amongst the mourners were some of his Muslim friends, one of whom spoke at the funeral, to which the local Imam had sent a sincere apology that he could not attend due to other duties.

At University I majored in a course called Principles of Religion – forgive the immodesty, but I won the Class Prize. A major component was study of Islam, including sections of the Quran, a study of Judaism including Talmudic Tractates, and the same for Buddhism and Hinduism. I later won another prize for an essay entitled, "Compare the Islamic and Christian Conception of God". Amongst the greatest books I have read was the then recently published book by Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, a book still acknowledged as an exemplary exploration of Islam by a critical and trusted Christian friend. 

This isn't mere autobiography, nor, I hope a piece of online self-indulgence. My Muslim friends, my experience of Muslim Christian relations locally and in relationship, my own education and ongoing interest in the Abrahamic faiths, all combine in a complex reaction somewhere between deepwater sadness and turbulent moral outrage, laced with compassion and tears when I read the following:

"Taliban gunmen have shot and seriously wounded a
14-year-old schoolgirl who rose to fame for speaking out against the
militants, authorities have said.

Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head and neck when gunmen fired on her school bus in Pakistan's Swat valley."

I do not, and will not recognise nor concede that such an act has any connection whatsoever with Islamic doctrine and practice, with Muslim ethics, with a valid Islamic worldview, or even has a foothold on any mind and heart that dares speak the name of the God of Abraham. Taliban justification is a meaningless rhetoric of lethal hatred and a misconception of righteousness that is the toxic opposite of all that the great word "righteousness" means. 

Oh God Of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

have mercy on your daughter Malala Yousufzai;

restore her to health,

protect her from those who hate her;

frustrate the hate and violence

that targets children and silences voices of truth.

Eterrnal God, look on our history with compassion,

help us to look on our history with hope,

invade hearts that are hate filled,

occupy minds that are empty of life-giving ideas,

turn bullets to bread,

grenades to grain,

and the improvisation that creates devices of death,

convert to energy and creativity to build a different future.

We are running out of ideas, God of Wisdom:

Come in peace, Bringer of Life, Compassionate Lord,

Amen, and Amen.

Now and again it's the comedian who, like the joker and jester of old, opens the eyes of the audience to unpleasant truth. Ironic that Ricky Gervais has opened the eyes of the wider public to an experiment involving sewing the eyes of 31 kittens closed, and once the experiment was complete, the kittens were destroyed. Cardiff University defends the experiments because they are aimed at understanding the signals between the eye and the brain cortex, an important area of ophthalmic research into lazy eye conditions in humans. You can read more here

The University Ethics committee approved the experiment, which of course begs the question about which criteria are invoked to justify such purposeful cruelty. Interesting that in search of a cure for a human condition, inhumane treatment of non humans is spoken of not only as acceptable but as an imperative claiming moral high ground. Further, the very procedures required suggest a best an emotional confusion for the scientists and vets involved, who we believe are acting out of altruistic compassion. You have to be cruel to be kind isn't to my knowledge a scientifically established procedure. 

On any ethically responsible investment portfolio it would be difficult to justify making money, or putting money into, what by any definition is such an extreme form of animal cruelty. What makes this situation more unacceptable is that tax payers' money funds this particular research project. I not only object to that; I protest against whatever guidelines make it possible to sanction such behaviour. 

Then there is the question of animal rights which are the flip side of human obligations. What is it, what exactly and precisely is the basis for human beings treating other life-forms as if pain, suffering and abbreviated life is at the behest of human self interest? We rightly prosecute those who are cruel to animals. Why wasn't the Cardiff University experiment articulated truthfully and transparently, and only when outed is there the usual ethical smokescreen of the greater good?

Is it really necessary cruelty? Even if it is necessary to find a cure for lazy eye, does that necessity and the perceived possible benefit override the cost to the animals, and the desnesitizing impact such behaviour has on human attitudes to other sentient beings? Sewing a kitten's eyes shut is rather different from recalibrating a tool, rebooting a computer, or trying out a new golf club! Different too from putting a car through a road impact test that wrecks it. I mean different in kind – inanimate as opposed to animate. Sentient life is not a mere commodity for human consumption, and animal suffering is not to be discounted merely because scientific research is furthered by it. The balance is finer than that, and the moral implications of sanctioned cruelty far more dangerous, and requiring higher ethical norms than utilitarianism. 

University Research Ethics Committees are highly responsible, ethically informed and composed of people who combine commonsense, humanity and expertise. As such they are expected to acknowledge the profound responsibility of acting under public trust, and in decision-making be transparent and outward looking beyond the immediate interests of its researchers. This is true especially in areas of such heightened sensitivity as balancing animal welfare and perceived human benefit, or animal suffering and assumed advances in knowledge.

This however, was not an experiment in the search for a cure of a life threatening condition. Even if it were, misgivings and safeguards ought still to be an essential part of a process that demonstrates there is no other way. Even then such a conclusion is not itself a sufficient reason for proceeding with an experiment of inflicted suffering. It is a legitimate question -where are the boundaries of human behaviour and inumane behaviour in pursuit of human welfare? 

All readers of this blog know I'm a cat lover. But if the experiment were carried out on mice, rats or rabbits the arguments would be the same, and the outrage as real. So I'm not special pleading for my own pet preferences. Therefore no cute pictures of cuddly kittens in this post – and no distressing images of mutilated animals either. Instead I post a protest at the hubris and callousness of human behaviour towards creatures over whom we have absolute control and the power of death or worse. That power brings with it responsibility and the institutional imperative of a University that life never be discounted, and suffering of animals never be dismissed as the mere emotional inconvenience of an oversensitive public. 

And as a taxpayer I express outrage that I am implicated through public funding in practices that would – rightly - have me jailed if done outside a laboratory. Public opinion may be deemed fickle by the scientific community who are well into data and statistics and social trends – but public instincts and disapproval are important guidelines for decision-makers. And there are times when what is done in our name is plain wrong – this is such a case.

Not often that North East Scotland reminds you of Isaiah the prophet. But this photo, due only to the coincident thought flashes in my own imagination, reminds me of Isaiah 35, one of the most remarkable poems in the Hebrew Bible.

1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,

the desert shall rejoice and blossom;

like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the LORD,

the majesty of our God. 

Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees. 

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,

"Be strong, fear not!

Behold, your God will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you." 

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 

then shall the lame man leap like a hart,

and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy.

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert; 

the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water;

the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,

the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 

And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Holy Way;

the unclean shall not pass over it,

and fools shall not err therein. 

No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the redeemed shall walk there. 

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return,

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah was a harbinger of hope, a good news correspondent in a world wearied by waste, a visionary who could imagine an alternative reality and make it sound realisable. He is the patron saint of indomitable faith, not fideistic naivete, but someone who spoke out of a living core of obstinate belief that God is faithful, come hell or high water. Deserts blossom, streams flow out of rock and sand, safety is not a mirage, and joy doesn't have to be sought in artificial stimulant or chronic mental distraction, nor emotional satiety, but in the deep, deep knowledge of a love beyond grasping, holding and being held by that inexplicable hold God has on us that provides subterranean permanence beneath our doubts.

In other words, God is the renewer of deserts, the restorer of hope, the giver of joy, the eye-opener extraordinaire, the sound that penetrates the dullest deafness and speaks new truth. For jaded 21st Century Christians Isaiah is the fifth Gospel, the good news for a world whose ecology is being devastated, for a world of jagged fractures and frantically maintained walls, for souls parched with too much flux and hype, starved of silence, cheated of joy for the sake of pleasure, and deprived of peace.

I love this book – to use an older phrase, "it speaks to our condition". What would it be like if, after the usual litany of what we now call the news, someone was brave enough to say "And finally, the wilderness will be glad, a highway for the righteous, streams in the desert, and everlasting joy shall be upon our heads". I know – daft, naive, – but Isaianic naivete is preferable to what we call political sophistication and realpolitik.

, s a