Living Wittily

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  • Reinventing English Evangelicalism: 2 Evangelicalism divided

    "Being ‘born again’ can be profitable. Jesus saves, but Jesus also sells. Evangelicalism is big business".

    Not only big business, but with aspirations to political and social clout, as witness the unseemly scramble of US presidential candidates to talk up their religious credentials. In Britain since the 80’s and 90’s, Warner argues, English Evangelicalism has also claimed to be an important movement, to be taken seriously as capable of making a transformative impact in politics, media and other cultural expressions of social life. The claim however, goes alongside the inescapable evidence that religious decline shows no partiality and Evangelical communities have not been immune to its ravages.

    Rob The introductory section of Warner’s book is unsettling for those who fondly imagine an Evangelical unity that remains inclusive and widely representative of those who hold to shared Evangelical principles. The last 20 years have seen a process of increasing polarisation, as Evangelicalism has gone through a period of reinvention, redefinition and realignment. Warner is unsparing in his criticism of those whose critique aims to privilege that particular expression of Evangelicalism which answers to their own doctrinal commitments or ecclesial and missional practices. Warner contends that David Wells and particularly Don Carson, two of the more trenchant internal critics of Evangelicalism, demonstrate an increasingly hard-edged rejection of legitimate diversity, and a refusal to enter into open dialogue with other professed Evangelicals unwilling to subscribe to statements of doctrinal rectitude mapped to Reformed dogmatics.

    However this is only one instance of the underlying malaise Warner’s study seeks to expose, explore and explain. The historic movement of pan-Evangelicalism, has in the past been held together despite many internal tensions, by agreed principles generously interpreted. These were identified by Bebbington as the centrality of the cross, the authority of the Bible, the necessity of conversion and the evangelistic activist imperative. What Warner argues is that in late 20th century English Evangelicalism, these four essentials in the Evangelical bar code have through a process of bifurcation split the Evangelical movement into two axes. The first is the crucicentric biblicist axis which is essentially Reformed, doctrinally defensive, leans heavily towards fundamentalism and is increasingly separatist. The other is the conversionist activist axis, which is entrepreneurial in style, pragmatic in approach and mainly driven by and ecclesial pragmatism baptised in the Spirit, but less doctrinally precise. Both are increasingly discredited.

    The first Warner argues is tied to Enlightenment categories of reason and epistemology, which are no longer intellectual currency with effective purchasing power in the modern marketplace of ideas. The second borrows uncritically from a modernity founded on consumerism, technology and rampant individualism. Between these two axes there are further and emerging strands of cautiously open Evangelicals and progressive Evangelicals, each to varying extents unwilling to be identified with, and no longer satisfied with, either of the two axial options. What this adds up to is that Evangelicalism is now a contested tradition, with the emerging progressive strand still in process, and its commitments yet to be settled, and the cautiously open likely to opt for one or other of the axial divisions. What is clear is that Evangelicalism is now in process of decisive theological reconfiguration, a process that will consign the notion of an inclusive pan-Evangelicalism to an earlier, more generous era, now sadly gone.

    The conceptual framework Warner constructs borrows critically from, and extends, Bebbington’s quadrilateral. Warner adds to the Bebbington’s four, Christocentrism, transformed life, and revival aspirations. These are also constants in Evangelical theology and spirituality and it would be hard to argue against any of them as characteristics of Evangelicalism. Bebbington’s point though was that the four he identified are, when applied cumulatively, sufficient as identity marks. The three Warner adds are each equally characteristic of Evangelicalism, but are surely not absent as features of other Christian traditions. If all seven are applied I’m  not sure what more is added that makes the seven a better conceptual tool than the four, providing the four are agreed to achieve the same end, identity marks which taken cumulatively amount to a definition.

    The rest of the introduction is a careful review of secularisation theory, outlines a justification for Warner’s ‘revisionist account of the historical narrative of pan-Evangelicalism, notes the hotly debated relationship between Evangelicalism and fundamentalism, and takes time to explain the sociological significance of Evangelical sub-cultures. There is then a careful defence of his own position which started as observer participant and moved to participant observer, signalling Warner’s own felt need for critical distance and personal integrity. All in all this first 35 pages is an education in what Callum Brown called the ‘integration of history, sociology and religious studies in the examination of Christianity in the context of contemporary secularisation.’ And it is carried through by one who is an informed insider, now highly critical of aspects of a movement to which he has been a major contributor and leader; it may be that one of his most important contributions is to enable Evangelicalism to face up to the reality of its own failure to make essential theological transitions, within a legitimate diversity held together by common commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Charles Wesley, that too easily neglected ecclesiologist, at the watershed of the Evangelical movement, wrote about the work of Christ perfecting the church below. Twenty first century Evangelicalism could do with a mighty dose of that ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’, which, if not included in any quadrilateral, with or without additions, is nevertheless the core of all Evangelical religion:

    Love, like death, has all destroyed

    rendered all distinctions void;

    names and sects and parties fall

    Thou, O Christ, art all in all.

  • Reinventing Evangelicalism 1.

    Reinventing English Evangelicalism, 1966-2001. A Theological and Sociological Study, Rob Warner, (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2007), £19.99. ISBN 978-1-84227-570-2

    Spstandard_9781842275702 This is a book that compels contemporary Evangelicalism to become more self-critical and less self-congratulatory, more aware of changing social, cultural and global realities and less absorbed in preserving partisan self-interest. It is a study that presents astute social analysis rooted in historical research, displays theological acumen which combines sympathetic exposition and at times astringent critique, and draws upon personal experience of the high points and subsequent developments of late 20th Century Evangelicalism as one who played a central role in some of those developments. It is a hugely important theological and sociological audit, based on empirical data, carried through with honesty and clarity, and providing a reality check for a movement not averse to ‘vision inflation’.

    The central thesis can be stated succinctly: in under 40 years, a homogeneous yet diverse movement, grew rapidly through entrepreneurial vision building, paralleled within the movement by another wing much more theologically conservative. The theological transitions Warner charts during these years expose the growing bifurcation between those increasingly committed to a form of fundamentalist conservation of Evangelical essentials, and others seeking an Evangelicalism more accommodating and progressive in its response to the mission situation of the third millenium. This is not a comfortable conclusion, but it is supported in the book by evidence-based research, cogent argument, and a clear understanding of the various trajectories already well plotted within and beyond the current English Evangelical scene.

    This is, in my view, the most important analysis of Evangelicalism in Britain since David Bebbington’s ground-breaking account published in 1989. It is of course a different kind of study, and in important ways, moves the discussion forward. Bebbington  provided a detailed survey of Evangelicalism as a movement rooted in the Enlightenment, influenced by Romanticism, responsive to social and cultural changes, and for that reason capable of remarkable degrees of adaptation and self-reinvention. Bebbington explored with characteristic precision and authority, definitions, origins, core theological values, historical analyses of Evangelical diversities which were nevertheless containable within a set of shared characteristics.

    Warner’s study intentionally covers only the two latest generations, and deals with recent developments; but by so doing he provides a diagnosis so accurately evidenced, so current to the present scene, and supported by his personal inside experience, that his overall argument, and offered prognosis has to be taken very seriously indeed. And the prognosis is not reassuring for those of us who wish to go on using the term Evangelical in the hope that it still expresses something meaningful about ‘the fellowship of the Gospel’, and that it will go on representing a tradition that enriches the Church with its own peculiar yet vitalising emphases.

    The real questions that arise in my mind as I compare Bebbington and Warner can be asked three ways:

    1. at what stage does a movement’s capacity for adaptation to environment become accommodation?
    2. who safeguards the tradition if refusal to change closes down the possibility that ‘the Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from his word’?
    3. who decides when change has gone so far that continuity with the original tradition is harder and harder to trace?

    This book will be the subject of a number of posts, as I try to weigh the implications of questions like these as they impinge heavily on the future of British Evangelicalism.

  • The Snow Leopard and Extreme Pilgrim

    Last night for the first time in ages I watched two consecutive TV programmes and greatly enjoyed them both. The first was a Natural World feature on my favourite animal, the snow leopard.(photo courtesy of here). The second was Extreme Pilgrim, the first of three programmes presented by a Church of England vicar looking for a sense of meaning, identity and inner peace, and doing so at the extreme edges of religious devotion in three of the world’s great faith traditions. (See here)

    Milantrykarsmallsl My interest in the snow leopard goes back twenty or more years when I first read Peter Matthiessen’s masterpiece, The Snow Leopard. The book isn’t so much about the animal, as the quest to see the snow leopard in its native habitat, the Himalayas. The expedition to Nepal and into the mountains was a quest not only for a sight of the rarest of the big cats, but for a new sense of purpose and worth in living, following the death of Matthiessen’s wife. It is that human quest for meaning in the midst of grieving, alongside the naturalist’s search for the ultimate prize of seeing the wild, elusive beauty and the sovereign freedom of a creature perfectly at home in wilderness, that makes the book a moving account of human longing.

    Last night’s programme was about this magnificent animal – it’s sovereign freedom now being eroded by encroaching human activity. The scientist who trapped a mother leopard and fitted it with a large non camouflaged radio collar, explained that the data uploaded to satellites would be invaluable in helping understand more about the snow leopard. I can see why that’s important; information about movement, habitat, breeding, human intervention will enable more strategic and effective conservation measures in the future. But I was upset by the sight of this magnificently adapted cat, whose camouflage makes it all but invisible against mountain rocks and screes, having the handicap of a high profile collar while hunting for food.

    Peteowenjones Extreme Pilgrim was another kind of search altogether, and yet just like Matthiessen who is himself attracted to Buddhism, Peter Owen-Jones was drawn first to the famous but now tourist-driven Shaolin Temple, and then to a less commercialised monastery, in search of enlightenment, or at least the first stages of freedom from self absorbing attachment. The rigours of martial arts training took a heavy toll on a man who was unfit, and whose lifestyle by his own cofession was more about self-dissipation than self-discovery. I started off being impatient, not liking him much – but as the programme continued I began to sense that behind the camera-conscious presented self, was a man genuinely searching for a sense of self, and not sure if he would like what he might find. Several of those with whom he spoke exuded the kind of peaceful purposefulness that is perhaps only possible to those for whom peace is their purpose.

    Sure there are arguments, discussions, dialogues – choose your noun – to be had between any two of the world’s great faith traditions. But alongside the theology and philosophy, the practices and the devotions, the traditions and the cultures, there is sanctity, the person in process, the human life, personality, character, soul, – and their awareness of that which is sacred and transcendent. Sanctity is not an argument, it is testimony. Sanctity has a transparency that much other religious baggage lacks, and last night, more than once, the discipline and wisdom of Buddhist monks contrasted with the fragmented anxieties of a Christianity torn between, on the one hand western consumerism and its addictive habits of thought, and on the other, the deep realisation that you cannot serve both God and mammon. The question for the church in the West and North, may well be one of where we think our treasure is; and the story of the rich young ruler has an oblique but searingly true light to shine upon a Church anxiously possessive of status and its own survival, and unwilling to sell all it has, give it away to the poor, and follow after Jesus. The question where our treasure is, what we are most attached to, should not need to be asked of us by a Buddhist monk. That it was, and with such courteous deference, should suggest our need for humility and repentance as urgent prerequisites to mission.

  • Blogs, birthdays and books

    Thought I might mention several thoughts and plans for this blog which will be a year old on January 10.

    I’ve revised the list of blog destinations I regularly visit. The initial enthusiasm for Blogging seems to have cooled off, and some folk are now doing different things, or have other priorities. I’ve added two theological blogs that I often visit. Don’t know the full name of Halden, over at Inhabitatio Dei, but he is writing some important and thoughtful stuff on a number of theological issues I’m interested in. You might want to look in and see if it’s your kind of thing.

    I’ve resisted the long lists of "just about everybody who blogs", and rely on several existing bloggers on my own select list for taking me further afield – mainly Ben Myers at Faith and Theology and Cynthia Nielsen at Per Caritatem. If you click on their names in my sidebar and browse their sidebars a very large and varied blogging community opens up.

    As I think through what I want to do with this blog for the coming year I’d be interested in suggestions, comments from regular readers and anyone else who happens by. But I reserve the right to go on posting a mixture of the serious and whimsical, the book stuff and theological reflection, and to ‘have a view’ on some of the issues, stories and happenings that seem to me to be significant clues to what it might mean to live wittily in the tangle of our minds, seeking by so doing to live faithfully after the pattern of Christ.

    Now and again I want to take time to write a more substantial post, which I hesitate to call an essay since that sounds too much like an assessment instrument! Yet the essay is a long established and honourable forum for developing ideas, building persuasive argument, educating and shaping and challenging commonly accepted values, tastes, and perceptions – and that process includes the wiriter. I mean the kind of reflective, meditative, inquisitive question-raising such as I posted on forgiveness on Thursday Jan 3rd.

    Books02619x685 Those who know me know books are an essential element in my humanity, as vital to my life quality as heat and light, food and drink, friendship and work. Books are, as Philip Toynbee once admitted, ‘My royal route to God’. Of course not everyone is book daft – not everyone’s mind works the same, not all personalities learn best through literary forms, not everyone finds verbalised concepts interesting or that ideas interiorised through reading are easily processed into practical wisdom that is life transforming. But for me spiritual discipline, theological reflection, the journey of self-discovery, sympathetic human understanding, intellectual maturity, and contemplative humility before the mystery of God, are some of the blessings of reading – hence the literary bias of this blog!

    In the last week or two I’ve come across several claims that such and such a book is a theological classic. Confining suggestions to the 20th Century, there are those in the blogosphere who nominate (with varying degrees of enthusiasm) P T Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, H R Mackintosh, The Person of Jesus Christ, H R Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, Elisabeth Johnson, She Who Is, G Guttierez, A Theology of Liberation, J V Taylor, The Go-Between God, D Bosch, Transforming Mission, and T F Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God. I suspect most of these reflect personal enthusiasms, but none of them are lightweight either. Suggestions – either supporting some of the above or other nominations – which books would you argue is a 20th C theological classic?  Of course at some stage we have to define ‘classic’ – but for now just go by your own definition.

  • ‘Forgiveness…the language where we have to live.’

    Anger, pity, always, most, forgive.

    It is the language we surrender by.

    It is the language where we have to live… (Elizabeth Jennings).

    Today’s world, contemporary culture, current social realities – whatever collective abstract nouns we use to describe where and when we live, one feature of it that increasingly troubles me is an unforgiving spirit that extends from personal, to social, to international and even global relationships. The words of Elizabeth Jennings are spiritually wise, but they are also politically necessary. Events in Pakistan and Kenya are merely the latest occasions for simmering hatred and repressed suspicions to erupt in violence and legitimised retaliation. Reading  Christopher Wood’s tome, Victorian Painting the other night, and turning over in my mind a definition of forgiveness written years ago, in the Apostle Paul’s Elizabethan English, "I am persuaded….". I am persuaded that forgiveness is the language where we have to live. And retaliation, recrimination, litigation, compensation, satisfaction, strict justice, confrontation, payback, is the language where usually something, or worse someone, has to die.

    Yhst30479181885695_1978_153395172_4 So. A second generation pre-Raphaelite artist, whose piety was inspired and formed by the example of John Henry Newman, and whose religious imagination conceived some of the most telling works of religious art; and a mid-20th Century Secretary General of the United Nations whose personal diary reveals the sacrificial nature of Christian commitment and who died in circumstances still unexplained. Two men from different centuries, one from England and one from Denmark, one a Victorian artist the other a political diplomat, one who trusted imagination as the way to truth, the other insisting on the world of real human affairs as the place where truth is to be lived. But two men of such integrity that their different ways of embodying the truth that commanded their conscience, became for them another art form expressed in the ultimate human art medium – human life portrayed with accuracy and beauty through the demanding artistic discipline of vocational obedience to Christ. Both were skilled in the language of forgiveness, ‘the language we surrender by. The language where we have to live’.

    Burnjones Burne-Jones’ painting, The Merciful Knight represents the Victorian fascination with medieval chivalry and honour. But what is portrayed in the picture is the subversion of the knight’s code of honour by a higher call. The kneeling knight has earlier forgiven another for the murder of his kinsman. He has stopped at a wayside shrine to pray, and finds himself embraced by the wooden crucified Jesus whose hands are unpinned in order to reach out to the one who is forgiven as he forgave. The helmet is removed revealing the face of the knight as he faces the crucified Christ and is fully and deeply known. The sword is laid down, on the left hand side, the hilt not easily accessible to his right hand. The symbols of power and worldly status are thus surrendered, at the feet of Christ crucified. In a reversal of Jesus prayer for his crucifiers who were oblivious of the eternal consequences of a routine execution, the painting shows that same eternal love reaching out, without the protection of armour, from an instrument of inhuman cruelty to affirm, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

    Interestingly, and just perhaps intentionally, The Merciful Knight is an alternative portrayal of atonement, in which the medieval code of offended honour requiring satisfaction, is subverted by a Knight who forgoes the cultural norm of satisfied honour and in an act of counter-cultural foolishness, forgives the offender. And it is this unreasonable, indeed unchivalrous act of mercy which brings him into the embrace of the Crucified God, as his individual act of forgiveness is drawn into the redemptive suffering of Christ.

    225pxdag_hammarskjold Dag Hammarskjold’s slim volume Markings, is one of the 20th Century’s most intriguing spiritual documents. Notes, quotes, thoughts, prayers, complaints, jotted in a diary found only after his death, revealed a man whose interior world was profoundly influential in how he construed the world of political action. It was in this lean and spare volume of political spirituality and personal longing that I first encountered Hammarskjold’s childlike definition of forgiveness. Childlike isn’t the same as juvenile or reductionist. The word is used in the ‘Except you become as little children’ sense of what the kingdom of God is about. "Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle, by which what is broken is again made whole, and what is soiled is again made clean." The most childlike wish when faced with the harsh reality of the broken favourite toy, is that it be made like new, made whole as if the brokenness hadn’t happened. And when newness is soiled, or beauty spoilt, the same childlike longing is for someone to make it clean. The decisive word is ‘again’, because what is described is renewal, restoration, a process of healing and repair that is costly but enduring.

    One of the most cited lines from Markings asserts, ‘In our era the road to holiness necessarily runs through the world of action’. Hammarskjold knew, as our own age must rediscover, that forgiveness is more an activity than an emotional stance, a making whole and a making clean by acting mercifully and as peacemaker. Burne Jones spent much of his creative energy painting themes and images which celebrated a world where ‘beauty is beautiful’ and where the highest norm is not displayed by personal honour defended by shedding blood. On the contrary, The Merciful Knight, is one who in the world of necessity and action, enacts forgiveness, is embraced by the crucified Christ, and speaks the language where, if our own world is to have a future, we have to live.

  • Death of a footballer – Phil O’Donnell, Motherwell FC

    Now and again something happens which exposes the superficial levels at which we sometimes conduct our mental and emotional lives. Take football. For football supporters the team dominates their worldview. Local economies react to the fortunes of the local team; the morale and hopefulness of whole communities is responsive to the results, the way the season is going, how well the team is playing.Like everyone else the least bit interested in football, I have my opinions, more or less informed, as biased as any pundit, and just as likely to exaggerate the cosmic significance of 90 minutes of grown men huffing and puffing up and down the park.

    1627016 But as I said at the start, sometimes we are all reminded of how fragile life is, how precious and unique and irreplaceable a human being is. And we were so reminded last Saturday, when Phil O’Donnell, the captain of Motherwell Football Club collapsed and died during a match which his team won, and for once the result was an irrelevance.

    Bill Shankly’s famous quip, ‘Football isn’t a matter of life and death. It’s far more important than that’, remains a humorous piece of over-stated rhetoric. But even the most famous of Liverpool managers knew that was exactly what it was, and all that it was. No game is more important than life. The Motherwell manager Mark McGhee, in a statement on behalf of the Club, made it clear that for now, no one was interested in the training pitch, the football pitch or anything else to do with football, till due respect had been paid, till their friend had been remembered and his family cared for. Alongside such sudden tragedy and its human significance, football is relegated to its rightful place.

    So yes, football can give rise to some of the silliest, overblown claims about the game’s importance. And sometimes listening to those involved in ‘the game’, you wonder if the real world ever gets a look in. But countless football supporters live out their inner struggles through the ups and downs of their team. Their identity and sense of who they are is mortgaged to the team, the stadium, the colours, the names and numbers on the shirts. And that became so obvious as I watched the devastated groups gathering around Fir Park. Football has its problems alright, but when you witness the sense of loss, the genuine grief and sorrow of a community at the death of a young family man, you become aware of the social and humanising importance of sport when it is exemplified in such popular, respected and decent players; and when it evokes such humane and genuine affection.

    With apologies to Bill Shankly, football isn’t a matter of life and death; rather it is one way in which many people celebrate the life they live in their community, and live through the joy and sorrow that are the changing colours of every individual life. The current practice of a round of applause in appreciation of a footballer who has died is both moving and an important reminder, that life is irreplaceably precious, and that at its best, for football players, football is one expression of that hunger and vitality to achieve through effort, to excel in skill, to express the reality of who they are, through a game that when played both fairly and skillfully, and with all my prejudice admittedly showing, is a beautiful game. Phil O’Donnell was a player who graced the teams he played for, and who gave back in dignity and sportsmanship, easily as much as he earned.

    One extra fragment of evidence to add to widespread testimony and appreciation – outside Fir Park there are scarves left in tribute from many different teams, including both Celtic (whom Phil O’Donnell played for) and Rangers. In sorrow and loss of such a good man, sectarianism is transcended, blue and green on the same side – no bad tribute in itself.

  • Is counting your blessings a form of spiritual spin-doctoring?

    Any meaningful review of what my life has been through 2007 should balance negatives and positives. But if I gave an accurate review I would probably have to indulge in a bit of spin, to make this past year sound better than in fact it turned out to be. "Count your blessings" is one of those Promise Box type of exhortations that is devotionally valid but not always emotionally feasible. Of course a positive spin on how we tell our story doesn’t need to mean that the good stuff is invented or misleadingly told; just that emphasis is laid, attention is paid, capital is made, out of those experiences and circumstances that, in memory and mind, evoke positive feelings. So I count my blessings, name them one by one…..it’s just that there is another list of ambiguities that’s just as long, and often not as obviously beatitudinal. And my journey with God has involved both experiences I thank God for, and other happenings and experiences I wish hadn’t happened.

    But the hard stuff also has its value. Life enriching experiences aren’t always counted as blessings at the time. Often those that enrich most initially seem emotionally expensive, relationally demanding, requiring that we grow in new directions, perhaps taking us through valleys of deep darkness where the presence of God might be felt more as absence than nearness. Which means even our hardest experiences can be beatitudinal. That’s twice I’ve intentionally, and with theological awareness used this clumsily precise word – ‘beatitudinal’.

    When Jesus spoke of those who were Blessed, he wasn’t referring to those who could ‘count their blessings’ in a process of positive spin. He was talking about the meek and materially disadvantaged, the mourner coming to terms with loss and sorrow, the unjustly treated who hungers for the right to be done and seen to be done, the peacemaker who exists in relation to conflict, the merciful who confronts wrong with forgiveness, the persecuted whose sense of being threatened is subsumed beneath a sense of being held. A beatitudinal life is one in which, whatever happens, we need fear not, for it is our Father’s good pleasure to give the Kingdom.

    So as a statement of honesty, for many reasons that don’t need to be told here, this has been on balance, a hard year. That isn’t a negative statement meant to evoke sympathy, it’s as factual and physical, and as significant as if I said the road from here to where I was born passes through some of Scotland’s bleakest moorland – it’s part of the journey from here to there. But it has been a beatitudinal year,in the kinds of ways Jesus declared blessed. Joy and sorrow, peace and anxiety, trust and doubt, companionship and loneliness, healing and hurt, gain and loss, fun and frustration, achievement and failure – and between these poles of human experience, enfolding us within purposes beyond our knowing, the purifying love and merciful constancy of the Triune God.

    I suppose what I feel more than anything else on this first day of 2008, is that, year on year, I confess with more attempted humility but also more trusting hopefulness, that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, are the fundamental blessings that make my life beatitudinal no matter what. And counting them is easy – they come to Three in One!

  • Broccoli, growing older and globalisation

    Broccoli is good for one, so I am told. So like medicine I take it sometimes cos it’s good for one.

    Broccoli2 That’s probably why the elderly pensioner I met at the vegetable counter in our local supermarket was looking to buy some, but grimacing at the price. She had a broccoli head in her hand, and was wringing away at the long thick stalk, trying to break an inch or two off, her face still a grimace of frustration. I would have offered to help, because I thought myself the stalks were too long, and the purplish green floret head too small. Half the weight was in the part you throw away. What’s more, I thought, if broccoli is shipped from Spain should it not be mainly the edible part that’s transported and thus responsible for the carbon footprint? In any case, as my senior friend was discovering, the stalk was bendy and lacking in that crispness that is a sign of fresh harvesting – and would have made it easier to break!

    Made me think about globalisation and growing older. A conversation with another senior citizen (I like that term, especially if it preserves a non-patronising respect for age, and acknowledges affectionately the value of cumulative wisdom and years of human experience) – this other senior citizen was pointing out that her favourite butter spread, Lurpak, has rocketed in price, (30%) as has milk and bread because, as she informed me, there is a global grain shortage. Indeed there is – and for many older people, and others on fixed or low incomes, such price fluctuations compel hard choices. In a society where disposable income is high amongst the haves, maybe globalisation is a blessing all but unmixed.

    But disposable income, that income buffer-zone that absorbs price variations with minimal disruption to quality of life, is all but extinct amongst the have-nots. So limited and fixed income can make a significant difference to quality of life, erode morale and a sense of independence and personal hopefulness, and undermine the confidence that ordinary things are still affordable. I’ve little patience for those retail emotional health bulletins that agonise over consumer confidence. They are not ususally referring to the pensioner who can’t now afford Lurpak, or who wants to break the neck of the nearest broccoli head.

    So I have great sympathy with my elderly shopping colleague, and her covert assault on a bendy broccoli stem with a too heavy carbon footprint. Would it have been an act of prophetic protest and solidarity with the poor to snap off the unwanted chunk of broccoli stalk for her? Or should I have waited at the check-out and paid for an extra one and given it to her, making sure the manager knew what was going on and why?

    I did neither, and I regret that.

  • The politics of assassination and the politics of peace

    The murder of Benazir Bhutto, and its aftermath of escalating casualties, is yet another atrocity visited on a world where exponents of terrorism, political enmity and religious hatred, ruthlessly use the publicity value of random lethal violence. No political or religious goals can escape the searching scrutiny of human beings applying human values to that inhuman moral nihilism that not only sees human lives as dispensable, but considers the inflicted death of others an acceptable means to a desired end. I have no moral calculus that enables me to work out whatever mad logic or rogue religious devotion triggers such destructive hatred.

    Yet nothing I can write here, nor the familiar rhetoric of outrage and appalled condemnation from politicians, is likely to influence whatever powerfully corrosive forces fuel such outbursts of death-dealing animus. What I can do though, is take time to think and pray, to weigh carefully and consider contemplatively, how the Body of Christ can articulate the love of God, demonstrate the peace of the Gospel hopefully, embody the ministry of reconciliation practically, and give credible expression to the sorrow of the Crucified God who bears the infinite cost of redeeming humanity from our self-destructive ways.

    ‘Make me a channel of your peace, where there is hatred let me bring your love……’ That I think, is the kind of New Year resolution that will take grace to keep.

    Kyrie Eleison

    Christe Eleison

    Kyrie Eleison

  • The Church of Jesus Christ and the territorial imperative

    A retrograde step for ecumenism.

    A scene reminscent of The Life of Brian.

    An illustration of religious devotion carried too far.

    A new approach to church cleaning.

    A sign that when it comes to loving and following Jesus, the church still doesn’t "get it".

    An alternative approach to spiritual warfare.

    Or just one more reason why a Gospel of peace and reconciliation lacks credibility in an age long past skepticism and cosily habituated to cynicism.

    The story is carried by AOL. Judge for yourself – then perhaps find time to pray…..

    Priests Fight at the Site of Christ’s Birth

    Broom-wielding priests fought each other at the site of Christ’s birth after rows broke out between rival factions as they arrived to clean the shrine.

    The robed Greek Orthodox and Armenians clashed inside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

    The basilica, built over the grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born, is administered jointly by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities. Any perceived encroachment on one group’s area can lead to vicious feuds.

    Dozens of priests and cleaners went to the fortress-like church to scrub and sweep the floors, walls and rafters ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in the first week of January.

    But the cleaning session turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church’s section, setting off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.

    Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue.