Responding to the Kony2012 phenomenon

There's been a huge reaction to a film about Joseph Kony, leader of the LRA in Northern Uganda, now operating in the killing fields of Eastern Congo. It's an amazing film that has garnered a quite mind-boggling response from the facebookers and tweeters.

A mate of mine, Jonathan Langley, has written this superb reflection on the film and the phenomenon. Jonathan knows what he's talking about and his piece is worth reflecting on. You can read it here

Thoughts about Amy

I was was going to post some thoughts on the death of Amy Winehouse but Jim Gordon over at Living Wittily has said it so much better than I ever could. So go and check it out.

When the news drives you to your knees

Words cannot do justice to the horror that visited Norway yesterday. Let's pray for the country, especially those caught up in this ghastly event. It is heart-breaking that the perpetrator is associated with the Christian faith. His action is in no way motivated by Jesus of Nazareth and his followers need to stress this in the days to come as we pray for him and his victims.

And I've just heard that Amy Winehouse has been found dead. What a shame! Such a talented singer, such a troubled soul. The former prime minister's wife Sarah Brown speaks for us all when she tweeted "Sad sad news of Amy Winehouse - great talent, extraordinary voice, and tragic death, condolences to her family." 

So much to pray about

Apocalypse postponed

So the apocalypse is postponed and the after rapture parties are still in full swing across the US. And it's all a good laugh and we can roll our eyes in disbelief and mutter 'only in America'.

Harold Camping should, of course, take the Bible more seriously and see that when Jesus says that about that day or hour no one knows, not even angels or Jesus himself (Mark 13:32), he means that no one knows, not even clever people using dubious maths to find underlying patterns in the text.

Perhaps the lesson from all this is two-fold. First let's learn to listen to and trust what Jesus actually said. And second let's be careful spouting nonsense in his name that brings the gospel into disrepute

Journalism's loss is ours too

Today's a bad day for journalism as the deaths of two of its towering figures have been announced. Anthony Howard and Brian Hanrahan have died relatively young and both at the height of their powers.

They represented all the best qualities of the noble art of journalism at a time when there's so much mediocrity in print and TV news. Both were masters of brevity and sound judgement; both knew how to hold the powerful to account for their actions.

Along with Hugo Young, Tony Howard was one of the greatest post-war political commentators, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the men (mostly) and women who have held the great offices of state since 1945, enabled him to put today's politicians in their proper context.

I will miss his clipped tones on the Today programme bringing sanity, wit and wisdom to the morning brawl.

Hanrahan is known for his 'I counted them all out and I counted them all back' report during the Falklands War. But his reporting from Tienanmen Square, Berlin as the wall came down, Russia in the Gorbachev years, offered huge insight into these world-changing events.

Even latterly presenting the World at One as a stand-in for the regulars, he brought insight and incision to interviews that most of his peers could only dream of.

It would be good to think that there are young reporters modelling their approach to their craft on these greats.

Football isn't coming home

So we're all gutted that England didn't succeed in its bid to host the world cup. Well, while I am gutted for football fans, I have to say that I didn't have a strong view either way about the merits of the bid - though it does raise an eyebrow or three that a country with a world class football infrastructure didn't get a chosen, while a country with a lot of sand and not much else was selected to host in 2022.

This morning it has emerged that FIFA shied away from England because of the media. If that is the reason that two only delegates voted for our bid, then it says everything we need to know about FIFA and nothing about the our ability to stage a world class football event. Here we have a hugely secretive, unaccountable body that is responsible for spending billions of dollars on sport choosing to stage its competitions in places where the media will not ask any awkward questions.

If we did lose the bid because of investigations by the Sunday Times and BBC, then let's raise a glass to a free media that is not afraid to lift the lid on murky goings on. It has to be better to lose than to win when there is a strong possibility that we would have won for reasons other than the quality of our bid. Media investigations of the IOC led to that body reforming itself and allowing the light in. FIFA needs to do the same and maybe we shouldn't be bidding to host anything it organises until it is so reformed.

Getting things in proportion

The furore over the bishop of Willesdon is a bit overblown, isn't it? I know Pete Broadbent from Spring Harvest. He is a wonderfully vivacious, shoot-from-the-hip Bible teacher with a keen insight into how the church needs to be communicating its faith to a sceptical world. Oh, and he's an Arsenal fan and a Christian socialist.

Perhaps he shouldn't have facebooked what he did but the reaction of the bishop of London is extraordinary. His statement  to clergy in the diocese reads:

Dear Colleague, "I was appalled by the Bishop of Willesden’s comments about the forthcoming royal marriage. In common with most of the country I share the joy which the news of the engagement has brought. I have now had an opportunity to discuss with Bishop Peter how his comments came to be made and I have noted his unreserved apology. Nevertheless, I have asked him to withdraw from public ministry until further notice. I have also been in touch with St James’s Palace to express my own dismay on behalf of the Church.
Arrangements will need to be made in Bishop Peter’s absence and further details will be given in due course.  With thanks for your partnership in the Gospel.

A good bishop has been silenced for having the temerity to disagree with a senior colleague about an issue as trivial as a royal wedding. Is it any wonder that the church's credibility is at a low ebb?

So the upshot is that the men in pointy hats will tell us what we think about the forthcoming royal wedding and those who differ will be invited to take time out from all ministry. We just have to smile and pay the bill (estimated at £5bn by the CBI and Daily telegraph in lost productivity because of the extended bank holiday weekend on the back of the previous 4 day weekend).

I think I'll join Pete in Calais for a party...

A little snow and a bit of reading

It's been amazing listening to the news broadcasts through today - everyone seems to be looking for someone to blame for the traffic chaos and the fact that London has pretty much ground to a halt in the snow today.

Can you imagine the outcry from council tax payers if London bought the number of snow plows it'd need to clear the streets of what fell over the past 24 hours? We get a snow event of this magnitude of this magnitude once every 20 years or so. Can't we just take a day or two off, make sure the vulnerable have got everything they need and enjoy a snowball fight with bored kids in the streets?

Or am I missing something?

Anyway, I've been reading lots of stuff about 1 Thessalonians - getting ready for our men's Bible study (though it's been cancelled tonight because of the snow!); in particular stuff reconciling the Acts account of the founding of the church with what Paul says in his letter. Rainer Riesner makes a pretty good case for there being no contradiction between Luke's and Paul's versions of events.

It seems that 1 Thessalonians is not well-served in terms of studies looking at the social context of the community and the letter - certainly in comparison to 1 Corinthians or even Galatians. Richard Ascough has written some interesting stuff and Karl Donfried and Robert Jewett have too; Bruce Winter has written a couple of fascinating essays on the Greco-Roman background to some of what Paul says. But the literature is thin. if anyone knows of anything good, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm re-reading an essay by Justin hardin on the Acts account of the arrest of Justin which throws considerable light on the passage. One thing that intrigues me is that there seems to be a lot of attention paid to the political context Paul's mission in this section of Acts. Others have pointed out that Acts 16-18 contains a concentration of business language (Frederick Danker, in particular, in an essay I've not read but which looks really interesting), but it seems to me that there's an interesting study to be done on the use of political language in this section too.

Time for a hot toddy, I reckon - there are just so many good things about a cold snap...!

Little Dorrit and the credit crunch

We watched the final episode of the BBC's wonderful adaptation of Little Dorrit last night. It's made me want to read the book - like all good adaptations do.

I was struck by the fact that the news was full of the implications of the $50bn Bernard Madoff fraud and the episode opens with the fall-out from Merdle's suicide with all the ramifications for families and businesses being ruined by his fraud.

It just showed how prescient Dickens was. He writes about how moral infection flows from the greed and financial sharp practice of those who ought to set an example in society. And he suggests the humble can point the way to salvation - though even the humble need to be redeemed in some way. Shaw said Little Dorrit was more seditious than Marx's Das Kapital! Maybe he was right.

hyperbole and market mayhem

It looks like the bank I used to bank with is taking over the bank I moved to to get a better service - the lengths some organisations will go to to keep customers!

LloydsTSB is taking over HBOS - or are they merging, consolidating to weather the chill winds of the worst downturn since hyperbole began?

I wonder if, when the dust settles after all the shenanigans going on in world financial markets, we'll still believe in the myth of unfettered free markets; or will we be able to admit that without governments the economy doesn't work and that the mixed economy of John Maynard Keynes is actually the way things are and that Milton Friedman's pipe dreams lead only to catastrophe - especially for the poor.

It is a curious irony that those who have telling government to leave well alone for the past twenty-five years are now blaming the government for everything that's gone wrong and insisting the government sorts out the mess. Northern Rock shareholders objecting that they weren't getting a fair return on their investment when the bank was nationalised seemed oblivious to the fact that market forces - in the form of their bank going to the wall - would have left them at the back of the queue of creditors and almost certainly with nothing. That's capitalism for you...

Ah well... Providing I can get my money from a hole in the wall, I'm happy (and frankly am not too fussed which combination of barrow boys actually manages it.)