Paper cities

I've been listening to a song by Other Lives and pondering 9/11. It seems to me these words capture something of what  think about the event and its aftermath.

paper cities

we sent them all across the ocean
many lives were taken
but i didn't cry, i didn't know them
and i just looked on with no expression

this land was once a home
of friends and family
we used to know
they are all gone now
they are now gone
and for what i cannot tell

put down your banners and flags
this war you've made won't last
your country, just lines on a map
they're drawn up, they don't last

the paper cities burning
the ashes fell like rain
when the fire was over
everything had changed

and people come together
reminds us we're the same

put down banners and flags
this war you've made won't last
your country, just lines on a map
they're' drawn up, but they don't last

I was in Sainsbury's in Dog Kennel Hill when the first plane hit the tower. Shoppers at checkouts looked uncomprehendingly at TV screens with the sound muted. The buzz of conversation was that there'd been a terrible accident in New York. When I got home and turned on the TV, I knew the world had changed: a plane struck the second tower and seemingly minutes later the whole edifice came crashing down.

Ten years on 300,000 innocent lives have been added to the 3000 that died that day; the world is locked in an apparently never-ending war on terror. Yesterday Tony Blair on the BBC recited the mantras of ten years ago as if we have have not lived the horror of the last decade.

Other Lives' Paper Cities seems to capture something of pathos of these last years.

Voting for Robin Hood

The day after 50 economists call for a cut in the 50p tax rate, 1,000 economists are urging the G20 to adopt the Robin Hood Tax, a 0.05% levy on every financial transaction.

Also known as the Tobin tax, it's estimated that it would raise 20bn a year in the UK alone. such money could be used to create jobs, invest in the health service and youth work across the nation.

It's good to see that there are some economists committed to the public good. A recent poll carried out by Oxfam suggests that 51% of the UK population think this is a good idea. And the even the IMF, which has reservations about it, has published a report suggesting that it could raise significant sums without unduly affecting the health of the financial services sector.

Let's vote for Robin Hood, I say....

Polly receives her just deserts

Congratulations to P J Harvey for winning a second Mercury Prize for her stunning album Let England Shake. She is a deserving winner for a record that could well be the album not just of 2011, but of the decade.

It is particularly fitting that she lifts this award on almost the tenth anniversary of 9/11. She won the prize the first time on 9/11 and was stuck in Washington as a result of it. This new work is in many ways born of the aftermath of that horrific event. It is a meditation on what it means to be English and how our character as a nation has been forged in war; a character that is as dark as it is bright.

Let England Shake is profound, unsettling, musically and lyrically witty and adventurous. It isn't just about our experience of war - containing songs based on stories of First World War battles as well as reflections on our recent adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan; it's also about how those experiences have shaped the nation in which we live, left its stain on our character and landscape.

It repays repeated listens and grows richer with each one. So well done Polly Jean!

Another day, another remedy

Ken Clarke's analysis of the riots is a broken penal system (today's Guardian). He bases this observation on the fact that three quarters of those charged already had a criminal record. He calls for a rehabilitation revolution. Amen to that.

Of course, it's hard to rehabilitate offenders if the economy is broken because a key factor in successful rehabilitation is being able to find ex-offenders jobs on their release. As the economy flatlines and recession returns to most of our overseas markets, and unemployment rises, there are few jobs for those coming out of prison and young offender institutions, so very little hope of a rehabilitation revolution.

The trouble with Clarke's analysis - as with that of Cameron's broken Britain rhetoric - is that it is strong on blaming the poor and weak on helping to put things right. Rhetoric is not what's needed. What is needed is something that addresses the issue of worklessness and the only remedy to that is creating more jobs. And as Keynes demonstrated in the 1930s, when the private sector is incapable or unwilling to do this, the public sector has to step in.

In the medium term, this is cheaper than public support for the long-term unemployed. So the issue is not do we spend public money in this area but how. We can spend vast amounts tackling a problem or we can spend sensibly to prevent it. Creating economic growth and jobs for all seems to be a better way of spending that money than on more prisons and endless mean benefits.

We need more than Ken Clarke's remedy: 'Addressing unemployment means making progress on the economy by getting the deficit under control and pressing ahead with welfare reform and work programmes.' Because his remedy lacks any reference to how jobs might be created.

The cost of extraordinary rendition

Bizarrely, plane operators offering rendition flights to the US government have to comply with US equal opportunities legislation. They also have to offer good value for money and submit detailed expense claims which include the sandwiches purchased by the flight crew at various airports around the world.

This information about this hitherto murky world, has come to light in papers posted in a US court by one operator who is suing another in a dispute over payments. I reread the whole sorry saga today (you can do so here) as the news emerged from Libya that our government has been complicit in this trade.

Now we need to be clear what we're talking about here. People suspected of being bad guys are snatched off the streets of the city where they live, trussed up with a sedative inserted in their anus, dressed in big nappies and orange jump suits and flown to destinations in Eastern Europe and the  Middle East where the prison system is expert in enhanced interrogation techniques (that's torture to you and me). It's called extraordinary rendition because that sounds so much better than kidnap for torture.

One such destination was Libya. It emerged in papers found in the ransacked Tripoli prisons that the UK government has been complicit in this trade. And while it's true, as David Cameron told the House today, that this started under the previous government, it seems to have been happening until February this year. This means that while our government has been calling for democracy, freedom and the rule of law for the people of Libya, it has been happy to use the Libyan prison system to extract information from people it suspects of being terrorists, one of whom is now the rebel commander in Tripoli, a man NATO has bombed into power..

Words fail me...

Shane: the aftermath...

Shane Claiborne was great, the Rend Collective excellent and our church was heaving (probably the most people squeezed into it for many a year). But while putting on a good show was important, what matters is what effect the evening will have on the lives of those present.

So since Wednesday I have been having many interesting conversations with people about difference hearing Shane might make to their lives and to the life of the church. And while it's early days, the signs are encouraging.

Not only have I been surprised by the range of people who have told me what a powerful and challenging evening it was, but I have also been struck by the thoughtful way in which people are processing what they heard. Often at such events the response is very emotional and immediate. Sometimes this is good. It seems that the response to this event is more considered; people have gone away asking 'if this is true, what does it mean for the way I express my walk with Jesus at home, at work, in church, etc'

So I had a number of conversations over the weekend about what implications Shane's message might have for home groups, possible social action projects and involvement in mission more generally. This is enormously encouraging. I'm hoping that those conversations will continue and lead to action with Kingdom consequences in the coming weeks.

All in all, I think was a great evening with real potential to lead to lasting change in people's lives and our neighbourhood.

Getting ready for Shane

We're just over 24 hours away from hosting Shane Claiborne and the Rend Collective Experiment on their Upside Down Kingdom Tour.

Tickets are selling like hot cakes which is very gratifying in late August), but there are some still left.If you're in Bromley and are intending to come, let us know. It's going to be a fab night.

Getting to grips with the vision thing to turn the world upside down

Here's the piece from our church magazine that hits the racks this Sunday - for those not given to read print media or not able to pick up a copy because of distance from the building (forgive the parochial nature of some of the references....)

George Bush senior famously intimated during an election campaign that he didn’t get the vision thing. The Queen on a visit to the London School of Economics in the autumn of 2008, as the credit crunch was sending global markets into free-fall, asked ‘why did no one see it coming?’ Both those issues came to the fore in responses to the disturbances on London’s streets in August. Why did no one see it coming and who has the vision to lead us to a better place for all our citizens? Such questions will rumble on through the coming months.

They were questions that were probably being asked, though in different terms, in Jesus’ day as people responded to economic injustice and occupation. They were certainly in the mind of Luke as he told the story not only of Jesus but also of his earliest followers. It’s that latter part of the story that we are going to pick up in the autumn to see what it might be saying to us at this time in our city.

In particular, we will be looking at the subject of vision. The Acts of the Apostles is built around a number of stories where God’s people saw, heard and responded to vision. Indeed, the story that Luke tells in this second volume is not the story of a well-drilled army of people working from a plan to take over the empire. Rather it is the story of how a ramshackle band of people who loved Jesus were led by a vision from heaven to share the good news about him across the world, to found communities shaped by his values and welcome any and everyone who came to explore what the life of God’s Kingdom might be like. So, this autumn we’re going to be exploring these vision passages in Acts because we too want to be people led by a vision from heaven.

Which brings us back to this summer on the streets of London and other cities around the UK. The Queen’s question is a good one and lots of people have been trying to answer it and will no doubt continue to do so. But for God’s people it’s the vision thing that matters. We are not called in the first instance to respond to a set of circumstances on the ground. We are called to respond to and live by a vision.

As Paul told Agrippa ‘I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.’ That vision showed Paul who Jesus was and is and sent him on a life-long mission to share that Jesus with the Roman world. It led him to plant churches and proclaim the gospel in every city he visited. It led him to take up a great collection among the nations to take to the followers of Jesus living in poverty in Judea. And it led him to his death in Rome having first preached the gospel in that city for at last two years. Paul would not have been the man he became but for the vision from heaven.

And so it is with us: as we seek to be faithful disciples of Jesus in Bromley in 2011 and beyond we too need to see and hear and respond to the vision from heaven. All that we do as a church in seeking to embody the good news of Jesus in our lives and our activities needs to grow out of the vision from heaven.

The vision with which Acts opens is a vision of the risen Jesus telling his followers that the Kingdom will be restored through their lives of witness beginning at home and stretching to the ends of the earth. It’s the vision that holds good for us here and now.

If we want to respond well to the events in our city over the summer, we will be fired by this vision to make Jesus known in word and work in our community. It will mean that our programme as a church will be focussed on embodying and imparting the values of God’s Kingdom on the streets where we live and the places where we work.

Our neighbourhoods need to see that there is a way of living where all people are valued, where we can work together for the common good, where the weak can be supported, the fallen set back on their feet, the poor helped and the love of Christ shed abroad in all our hearts by the Holy Spirit working in, with and alongside us.

For this reason, we’ll be continuing to deepen our links with JusB and Street Pastors; and we’ll continue to explore the possibility of setting up a debt project with CAP, a foodbank with Trussell Trust and neighbourhood groups that will share the good news of Jesus with those around them through parties and practical action.

Paul lived in obedience to the vision from heaven and was accused by people in Thessalonica of having turned the world upside down. We too have the opportunity to be accused of doing the same if we too are obedient to the vision from heaven. Are we up for it?

Enjoying our full pot of beans

Glen Campbell was on the Today programme this morning talking about living and touring with Alzheimer's (I guess that's something we'll get used to hearing in the coming years). It was an uplifting interview with a man whose voice has travelled with me over a number of years.

I'm not a big Campbell fan, though I think Wichita Lineman is one of the greatest songs Jimmy Webb ever penned, but I thought his line this morning about how he views life was just priceless. He said: 'God's going to give me my full pot of beans; I'm sure of that'.

Wonderful.

Can we do better than blaming the parents?

There's an excellent leader in yesterday's New York Times that you can check out here. It touches on the issue of parenting in relation to our recent disturbances and the government's response to them and asks the question whether the parents of those who caused the banking crisis, led the hacking of innocent people's phones or over-claimed their expenses in  parliament will be similarly called to account.

It's a good question, one also asked by the comedian Nathaniel Tapley in an open letter to David Cameron's parents (here). It's easy to blame parents, providing they don't mean us.But where did our children learn the values of consumerism, competitive individualism and careerism, the story that lies at the heart of our acquisitive, me-first culture from, if not partly from us? Of course, they also learned it from their peers, the media and the very educational system that countless parents were praising as they lauded their children's achievements in exams yesterday.

More specifically, do we hold the parents of bankers to account for their off-spring living all-out for profits (especially for themselves in ever-inflating bonuses) that come at the expense of competitors and are paid for ultimately by the poor who suffer most in the ensuing busts that follow the champagne-glugging booms? Or do we call the parents of those  involved in phone hacking (an ever-widening circle, it seems) to explain why their children seem to think it's OK criminally invading the privacy of other people? Or do haul the parents of MPs over the coals for instilling in their little darlings the value of grabbing as much as they can for themselves while purporting to serve the interests of others?

Of course not; the suggestion is absurd. So why do we always blame the poor and the parents of the poor for their plight and actions in response to it? We could say that the off-spring concerned (mainly 16-25 year old males) are young enough to be under their parent's authority, as was David Cameron and his ilk when they engaged in the high jnks associated with the Bullingdon Club (here)

Perhaps there are other narratives that we need to be telling our children so that they will grow to model the values we want everyone in our society to live by. When Jesus met a rich young ruler he told him to sell what he had and give it to the poor (because that was the logical outworking of the set of values the rich young man said he had learned from his parents). It was not part of the deal for the rich man to blame the poor for being poor or to say that his wealth was the result of his hard work, careful planning and astute investment planning (see Luke 18:18-30).

Jesus offers a story for us to live by that isn't the one of competitive individualism, consumerism and careerism that we grow up hearing from our mother's knee. It's a story of community, sharing and looking out for the interests of others, a story that's rooted in the cross that deals with all the reasons why we can't live this way and written in our hearts by the Spirit who tells us that we can live this way if we keep in step with her.

As I said in a post recently, what  God expects of us is pretty simple - that we love him and we love our neighbours (you can read it here). That's the story of the Kingdom of God that Jesus announced through his living, story-telling and dying on our behalf; a story that's written on our hearts by the Spirit God gives us; a story that our hurting neighbourhoods urgently need to see and hear from us.

Counting down to Shane Claiborne and the Rend Collective

Well, excitement is growing here as we're only two weeks away from our big night with Shane Claiborne and the Rend Collective Experiment. That's right 31 August, 7:30pm, Bromley Baptist Church. Be there or miss it (and live with the regrets...).

Shane Claiborne is undoubtedly one of the most exciting voices to have emerged from the American Christian scene in recent years. In the mould of Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo, Shane Claiborne is a great communicator with a bold message - simply that we need to take Jesus seriously.

One of the founders of the Simple Way in Philadelphia, he seeks to live as a disciple of Jesus among the poor and marginalised of that city. It's out of that life that he speaks of God's upside down Kingdom and urges followers of Jesus everywhere to take it seriously.

So, if you're anywhere near Bromley on Wednesday 31 August, then you need to get to Bromley Baptist Church clutching a fiver (and maybe a little more to buy a coffee, a book and CD) and hear something that might just make you think in a whole new way about your life. More than that, it might make you live differently - and let's face it, in the wake of recent events, we need people living the Kingdom of God in our communities.

There will be music from the Rend Collective Experiment, vibrant, mumford-like, intelligent worship music from Northern Ireland. You can check them out on their website here.

And you can find out more about the Upside Down Kingdom tour from our website here (there's even a link to a brief film of Shane to whet your appetite). See you on the thirty-first....

Getting to grips with some thinking about our current problems

I'm reading Chavs: the Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones. I've had it a while but events have pushed it to the top of the pile and I'm glad it has. It's a great read - I'm 90 pages in and learning stuff from virtually every page. So I heartily recommend it if you want an insight into those often blamed for being poor, feckless and responsible for everything that's wrong with our society.

And over in Canada business leaders have suggested that inequality might be a bad thing. “High inequality can diminish economic growth if it means that the country is not fully using the skills and capabilities of all its citizens or if it undermines social cohesion, leading to increased social tensions. Second, high inequality raises a moral question about fairness and social justice,” they say in a report published this week. You can read a full account of it here.

I found it sobering and full of good sense on the day when the unemployment figures rose in the UK and that unemployment in London, focused on some of the poorest boroughs in the city, rose above 400,000 for the first time in 15 years. This is not good for social cohesion. Neither is the fact that there are nearly a million 16-24s out of work, that's 20% of people in that age group.

Along with Lord Harris of Peckham, I think the Government ought to be doing something about this - but maybe we're both missing something.

Digging below the surface of our recent troubles

OK, I know I said no more riot comment, but I just wanted to alert you all to this superb analysis by King's College's Luke Bretherton. It's on ABC's Religion and Ethics site (click here). Profound theology meets sharp social commentary.

He cites Peter Oborne's piece in the Telegraph which is also worth checking out.

Buffetting (sic) the rich...

I wasn't going to blog again today (it's my wedding anniversary - 30 wonderful years!) but I came across two things that I wanted to pass on.

the first is a great piece by Warren Buffett, the veteran investor, a billionaire whose favourite drink, I gather, is Cherry Coke! He's written about the nonsense that politicians speak about the effect of high taxes on investment and where rich people live. You can read it here. It's great stuff.

The other is a simple fact that I came across in Will Hutton's book on fairness that I'm reading again. Talking about the madness of  the market fundamentalism that has dominated economic thinking for the past 30 years - pretty much as long as I've been married! - Hutton points out that governments around the world - but mainly in the West - shelled out $14 trillion to shore up the banking system when bankers crashed it into the buffers.

That amount is virtually the same as the US government's debt. That debt resulted in Standard & Poor downgrading US credit-worthiness (that's the same ratings agency that gave triple A ratings to all the bundles of toxic sub prime mortgages that drove the banking system to its knees) and much hand-wringing about the need to slash spending on government programmes to keep the markets happy.

Which brings us back to Warren Buffett...

A final word on the riots (for now...)

I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but there's a very thoughtful and thought-provoking piece by Boris Johnson in today's Telegraph (posted on line late last night here). He is making the government's response look more and more flat-footed and uncertain.His mix of tough policing and the creation of hope for those left behind in our society looks like a promising way forward.

I do think his dismissal of any linkage between the looters and MPs and bankers is a little glib, however. For twenty-plus years we have lived in a culture where those at the top told us there is no such thing as society and that people needed to be set free to acquire because that would result in everyone being better off.

This has turned out to be a cruel lie but it has spawned a culture that idolises material gain. The only measure of whether you are somebody is the size of your bank balance and the ostentation of your home. From the National Lottery to the Million Pound Drop the message is that the good life is only possible with a heap of cash and all the gizmos that cash can buy. Only last night I saw an ad for yet another TV show offering to make someone a millionaire.

And our papers are full of stories of celebrities flaunting their bling and yet behaving pretty badly - as we saw on the first day of the new football season yesterday with players earning £70,000 a week behaving like street brawlers in front of their fan-base - and lambasting bankers bonuses while simultaneously calling for tax cuts for the rich.

It's little wonder the Bishop of Manchester talks of a moral vacuum from top to bottom of our society. Perhaps the rioter who said he was helping himself the way the bankers and MPs had done had a point.

Boris talks about the need to create jobs - and I applaud him for that (as I do Lord Harris who said the same in the wake of his carpet store going up in flames in Tottenham) - but we need to pay attention to the kind of jobs we are creating and the structure of rewards in those jobs. It cannot be true that a fund manager is worth 400 times a care worker in a nursery or old people's home. This pay gap is as much as illustration of the moral vacuum as the silly greed of the gossip pages and the criminal action of looters.

As long as we undervalue those who offer care and nurture in our society, while offering excessive rewards to those who move money from one place to another, we will breed a deep sense of injustice and unfairness. This is not an easy issue to tackle but Will Hutton goes some of the way in his book on how we create a fairer society (Them and Us: Changing Britain - Why we need a fair society) as well as the excellent Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone (by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett).

One place to start would be to replace minimum wage with a living wage (putting the wage floor at least £2 an hour above the current one - something Boris supports for London). At the same time you'd have to change corporate governance rules so that maximising shareholder return was not the number one duty of board rooms. We could do this; we just need politicians with vision and balls. And we need to raise the amount the amount national and local government paid care homes.

I'll leave the last word to David Cameron: 'Research by Richard Wilkinson and Katie Pickett has shown that among the richest countries, it's the more unequal ones that do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator. In "The Spirit Level", they show that per capita GDP is much less significant for a country's life expectancy, crime levels, literacy and health than the size of the gap between the richest and poorest in the population. So the best indicator of a country's rank on these measures of general well-being is not the difference in wealth between them, but the difference in wealth within them.' 

He said that before the election - maybe he'd like to act on it now.

Supporting parents, creating community

The attempt to create a narrative (as the pundits call it) about the recent riots is in full swing. There is one narrative that majors on criminality and another that majors on social deprivation made worse by cuts. It has to be said that neither are entirely convincing.

Both refer to parenting and the Guardian has an excellent piece on that issue today (here). The narratives talk about the inadequacy of parenting or the struggles of parents. And listening to some of the stories emerging from the estates where the overwhelming majority of those involved in the riots came is heart-breaking.

I don't know what the answer is beyond something really obvious that I'll mention in a moment. I'm fairly sure the answer isn't to evict people from their homes because a family member is convicted of involvement in looting. I know that sounds reasonable -  why should society provide homes for the ungrateful? But a moment's thought suggests that pushing the poor beyond the reach of services that might be able to help them get their lives together doesn't sound sensible; punishing a whole family because one member was caught up in a night of madness seems guaranteed to increase a sense of not being part of the community we are all so keen to build.

And as a Christian I have to say that it lacks grace. Most of the narratives lack grace. And so most of the narratives envision a society where only the deserving can belong. I struggle with this because we'd all be up to our chests in the brown stuff if God treated us this way and I think we are called to be like God (Matthew 5:48 etc).

So, my simple, obvious thought is this. Let's not rush to set up parenting courses where experts tell the inadequate how to bring up baby (there's a place for classes and courses and groups, but they tend only to reach those who know they've got a 'problem' and are prepared to admit that to at least one other person). Rather, let's get to know parents and offer them the support that comes through a network of friendship.

I know from having a six month baby in the house that being a parent can be demanding and stressful - and our granddaughter has four adults responding her every cry! I also know from our work offering parent and toddler groups through the church that every parent is grateful for help and advice that grows out of friendship. That is part of being community. Lots of my friends are part of a wide network of friends and family who offer support just by being around.

Most of the families where I am cope just fine - mum and dad are together, the home is secure, money is plentiful, life has its stresses but is generally good. But there are some families that are on the edge, living in poor housing, subsisting on benefits or minimum wage, working unsocial hours, lacking the support of an extended family network. How might our friendship help them? What could the offer of a meal or having the children for an hour or two, organising a picnic for a group of families to be together with something organised for the kids for an hour or so do for such families? Who know where it might lead...

I keep coming back to the realisation that what God expects of us is pretty simple - that we love him and we love our neighbour. Such love is essentially very practical and involves offering grace to others as God has offered it to us. And because this is pretty simple, anyone can get involved.  It doesn't require a bevy of experts or expensive project apparatus to function. It requires people giving time to forming relationships with those around them - people like them and people very different from them - and so making community that works and is mutually supportive.

Of course, more is needed; of course, some problems are deep and require deep wells of grace, experience and expertise to tackle; of course, some people will be impervious to our offer of friendship; of course, we can find all sorts of  reasons to throw our hands up and say 'someone other than me must do something.'

But as Jesus said to the baffled twelve when they were faced by a mob of hungry men, spoiling for a revolution, 'you give them something to eat'. He says the same to us. And we know - because we've read the story in Luke 9 - that Jesus will help us do it once we've knuckled down to attempt the impossible.

What would Jesus do?

There's been far too much pontificating on the riots already, largely by people who don't live in the affected areas and didn't experience what was going on (like me) and I'm reluctant to join in. But following the response to my facebook status this morning, I thought I'd offer a reflection on how I'm feeling and pass on a comment or two that I've found really helpful as I've tried to process how I'm feeling.

I feel sad and pretty helpless. I feel for those who've lost their businesses and homes. I feel for the police officers bearing the brunt of an inchoate anger.  I feel for those who've been left fearful in their communities. The stock response when something like this happens is to find someone to blame. In this situation it's easy: the rioters are to blame for mindless criminality for which there's no excuse. Yes and no.

In one news report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," he replied. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?" He went on:

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you." (you'll find it here - along with some helpful reflections on events).

He has a point. And his point is not that rioting is a good thing. His point is that he comes from a community that is invisible to us, disregarded by us, not part of the big society that we all feel a sense of belonging to.

In today's Independent, Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of Kid's Company and long-time champion of neglected communities, offers this insight: 'Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped'. And she backs it up with stories of families at breaking point, receiving little or no help, being made to feel that they are just a problem with nothing to contribute to society and so having no stake in society. Her piece is well worth reading (it's here)

There is a need for a good tough policing response to this disorder; those who have committed crimes - and that's what they are - need to be brought to book. But what then? Will these young people, the vast majority of whom have no qualifications, come from challenging backgrounds, face a future devoid of opportunity, just fade back into invisibility (after they've served time) until the next long hot summer?

Jesus told his disciples that stumbling blocks will come our way but woe to those who put a stumbling block in the way of any of these little ones (Luke 17:1-2). To whom is he referring? Surely to those who have been the subject of his stories from 14:1 onwards - the poor, the neglected, those on the edge, invisible to the god-fearing community of his day, and yet very visible and very loved by God.

So, I think if we are followers of Jesus, we have a part to play in raising the visibility of the unseen communities in our country and working to show that they matter to us because they matter to God. This means that we will resource and run good quality youth work - and press our local authorities to join us in that (by reversing cuts to provision if necessary). For baptists in London, it means asking why our association has no regional minister responsible for youth work in post to enable churches to rise to this challenge. It means that we will dedicate resources to helping those who struggle to make ends meet, cope as parents, achieve at school through projects (which is just a short-hand for motivated, mobilised and managed individuals) offering to get alongside those in need of help. Again we will do this with all sorts of people of good will, including local authorities who need to be pressed to take their responsibilities to the poor seriously.

And first of all, it means listening to those who are rarely heard, hearing what their lives are like, what struggle they face and, most importantly, what they have to offer as a contribution to making the kind of society we all want to live in.

 What we've had enough of is hand-wringing and finger pointing. We're all to blame. But much more importantly we can all play a part of making things better. I think it's what Jesus would do. What do you think?

There's nothing wrong with 'ian' but he won't save anyone...

There's a fascinating and sobering piece on the BBC website about Dutch Christianity. You can check it out here. It has all the hallmarks of a silly season piece - though there's enough happening on the world's stock markets to have squeezed it out - if it wasn't so serious.

Robert Pigott reflects on how some Dutch churchmen are offering a version of the Christian faith without either Christ or faith - so I guess all they're offering is 'ian' (nice boy but he's hardly going to save the world!). The puzzling thing is that the congregations of Klaas Hendrikse and other ministers like him seem to lap up their 'God isn't real, Jesus is a myth, it's all over when you die' version of the faith.

Now, I'm no die hard traditionalist (as many know only too well) but it seems to me that it's a complete failure of the imagination to strip everything difficult out of the Christian faith and yet still go to church. There are plenty of places where people who are not theists, do not believe that Jesus is of anything other than passing historical interest, believe that this life is all that's on offer, can gather to chew the fat and work out the meaning of our time here on planet earth.

Jesus' teaching is not easy - unless you strip it down to a vacuous 'be nice to each other' message that these guys seem to hold to; it is not for those who are not prepared to grapple with the deep mysteries of life, not prepared to face the injustices of the world and protest that there must be a better way to live. To come to church and engage with Jesus is a bold act of the imagination that demands of every participant a willingness to lay aside our easy perceptions of the world and wrestle with what else might be going on within and around us.

Merely to gather people together to tell them that there's no God and nothing to look forward to when we die, so make the most of life here, seems to be a waste of everyone's time - not to mention the cash poured into the utility bills and upkeep of the buildings.

A thought on when it's a good time to take a holiday

The world's stock markets are going south and so, apparently, have our leaders. As economy's tank all over the world and the prospects of recession loom ever larger, the prime minister, deputy prime minister and chancellor have all gone on holiday, leaving the hapless chief secretary to the treasury to defend the UK's totally irrelevant deficit reduction plan, as if our protestations of austerity will save us from the financial tsunami brewing off-shore.

The current crisis is a political one born of our inability to reform financial markets in the wake of the credit crunch. So it is not a time for our politicians to take their eyes of the ball and head for the beach. A massive restructuring of the way money of all kinds is managed around the globe is urgently required so that the poor stop bailing out the rich every time there's a market panic.

We need a more creative approach to getting out of the mess we're in than the slash and burn policies of the IMF, EU and our own governments, cheered on by the nutters in he US tea party movement which merely lead to rising unemployment, falling output and a squeeze on the incomes of those least able to cope in the hope that the system will magically correct itself.

Now is maybe not the best time for our leaders to be on the beach.

Sharp stories of a salty alternative to tower building and war mongering

A couple of weeks ago I was preaching on the end of Luke 14. At first sight it seems to be just a general call to discipleship, wrapped up in a couple of think-about-it stories. It comes after the parables of the great banquet but seems to have little connection with them. Furthermore, Jesus speaks off his own bat rather than in response to a question or observation from the crowd. Luke reminds us that Jesus still had a big audience and that they were 'travelling' - ie Jerusalem is getting closer and we all know what will happen there.

And maybe that should alert us to the fact that there's a sharper focus to these words than just a general call to serious discipleship. It also suggests the link with what's gone before. At the end of chapter 13 we have Jesus words about Herod and his tears for Jerusalem. Now we have stories about tower builders and war-mongers. Perhaps we are in the same territory. Tom Wright helpfully suggests that Herod the great was probably the tower builder and that the tower in question was the still unfinished temple and that those plotting rebellion against Rome were the war mongers. Suddenly the story is freighted with spiritual and political urgency.

The parables of the great banquet have strongly suggested that the party God will throw at the end time is for the poor, the marginalised, the dispossessed, those with no stake in the current order who are always being pushed around by what a writer in today's Guardian wonderfully called 'the feral elite'. Followers of Jesus ought to be concerned about the poor and not the dreams of the tower builders and war mongers.

This throws light on the puzzling little saying about salt in 14:34f. God's people were supposed to be showing the world a different set of values, an alternative lifestyle. They are meant to be - in the words of  American historian and cultural critic Theodore Roszak who sadly died last week - a counter culture. The trouble is that Jesus looks around at Israel and he sees that it's anything but. That is why he weeps over the city, why he longs to be able to gather it to himself like a hen gathers her chicks. That is what lies behind his despairing comment that what should be salty is just bland and indistinguishable from the surrounding cultures; it's just another empire of tower builders and war mongers. And Jesus weeps.

Having told the story of the banquet, he calls people to join his revolution, his counter culture, his way of being that embodies the values of the God who reigns. Hence he ends by asking those with ears to hear what he's saying.I don't think it's an accident that this is immediately followed in Luke's account by the parables of lost things (sheep, coins, sons) that are kicked off by the Pharisees grumbling that Jesus models these values in who he offers his hospitality to; nor that the apparently mystifying parable of the unjust steward (the subject of another post to come) follows immediately on with no change of audience or pause for breath.

I was thinking all this when the postman arrived with my copy of Kavin Rowe's World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age. I've been looking forward to reading this for ages, having read a couple of Rowe's papers on Acts, because he argues a political reading of acts that is based on God's apocalypse in Jesus and treads the fine line between being a counter culture that turns the world upside down and fermenting a revolution that seeks to replace one tyranny with another. I'll keep you posted on how it shapes up.

It's lovely to be noticed

I came across the first review of my recent book, the World of the Early Church, yesterday. It's in the Theological Book Review, a twice-yearly publication from Liverpool Hope University - indeed it's one of the four books highlighted on the cover! It's written by Daniel Jeyaraj, the professor of World Christianity at the university and director of the Andrew Walls Centre for the study of African and Asian Christianity.And I think it's true to say that he liked it.

It's particularly gratifying to have one's work reviewed in places where a key target market for the book will be found. As professor Jeyaraj says: 'Every reader of this book, whether an expert or a beginner or a student, who wishes to better understand the socio-cultural world of the persons mentioned in the New Testament better, will gain new insights.' Well, that's precisely why I wrote it. I hope lots of people read and benefit from it in the way the reviewer suggests.

Here's hoping it gets reviewed elsewhere...

Remembering John Stott

I never met John Stott but I heard him preach a few times in the 1970s and early 1980s. He was always clear and gracious and my dim memory of it is that he always pointed people to Jesus rather than to the Bible. So I am really pleased to see in an interview with Tim Stafford in Christianity Today (available here) that he says: 'the really distinctive emphasis is on Christ. I want to shift conviction from a book, if you like, to a person. As Jesus himself said, the Scriptures bear witness to me. Their main function is to witness to Christ.' That's well said.

Stott's greatest contribution to evangelicalism, I reckon, was that in the 1970s he was one of the key evangelical leaders who put us back in touch with the world and social action as a key part of the mission of the church. Through the first Lausanne Conference in 1974 - which he was instrumental in making happen - evangelicals rediscovered the core gospel truth that God loves the world and that his people are called to be active in that world bringing good news to all, especially the poor, the marginalised, the excluded, the suffering.

Stott wrote a seminal book (Issues Facing Christians Today) on the Christian response to social issues that informed a growing number of eager evangelicals that there was more to proclaiming Christ than just calling people to faith. It was a book that shaped my early thinking on social action and encouraged me to integrate my faith and my working life, my love of Jesus with my involvement in seeking justice for all and engaging in social and even political activity to further the coming of the Kingdom.

So, he was a towering figure who lived a good and fruitful life and has now - at a ripe old age - gone to his reward. The best memorial for him is that a new generation of Jesus followers will rise up to bring good news to the poor in our villages, towns and cities and create vibrant communities that embody the life and values of our Lord and his.

The passing of a great saint

News has come through that the great John Stott died this afternoon. He was a stalwart defender of the faith and an all round lovely Christian man. There are tributes here; I'm sure lots more will follow.

Reading scripture together

A while back I mused on how we communicate to our churches the developments happening in the world of theology, in my case New Testament studies.The issue came up again last night at our church Bible study when someone asked how they were supposed to keep up when the interpretations of the bible - we were looking at Romans 7-8 - keep changing. I've been troubled by this question most of the day.

Baptists have always believed that the Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from his word. It is a key plank in baptist hermeneutics. But when it happens it can be unsettling. Are interpretations changing - meaning we have to forget old readings - or is our understanding deepening and broadening - meaning that we are grasping more of God's big picture?

I hope that the latter is happening. In relation to Romans I'd like to think that we are moving from a reading - popular among evangelicals for a long time - that the letter is just about justification by faith. Even more bluntly, many Christians have read the letter as being all about them, how God loves me and sent Jesus to die for my sins so I could be saved and go to heaven when I die.Now, of course, Romans has always been about more than that - even Luther, who stressed justification by faith, saw that - but that has been the central reading of it since the birth of evangelicalism.

I'd like to think that as we deepen our appreciation of the context in which Romans was written, the language used, the themes developed in what is a highly complex and magnificently written letter, so our understanding of the themes of the letter deepen and broaden. It seems to me that at the very least Romans is about God and Israel, about how God acts in covenant faithfulness to his people and through them to the rest of the world. Within that, of course, is an explanation of how I can be part of all that.

The issue that arose last night is two fold. The first has to do with the scope of scripture and the second is about the tools we need to understand an ancient text. They are closely related.

One of the great strengths of evangelicalism is that it has sought to put the Bible into the hands of ordinary Christians and encourage them to hear God speaking directly to them through it. It has always been a faith of the literate. This is a problem in contexts where rates of literacy are not high but that's an issue for a different post.

The trouble is that this has led to a focus in our reading of scripture that means we are always looking for what it is saying to me about me. We risk missing all the important things that scripture is telling us about God, the world around us and other people; worse, we see all those things only in relation in to me; I become the centre of attention. This is not helpful.

But this is allied to the second issue: namely, can anyone pick up an ancient text and expect to understand it without help? As we get further and further away from the work shops in Rome's back streets where this letter was first heard by a motley collection of craft workers and others, is it not the role of teachers in the church to help Christians understand the context in which this letter would have been heard and what the language would have meant to those first hearers?

Of course, to many this sounds elitist (maybe it is); worse, it sounds like an attempt to take the scriptures away from the ordinary believer and put them in the hands of an educated minority, indeed back into the hands of the 'priests' that the Reformation fought so hard to wrest them from all those years ago. The trouble is that this reading of the reformation misses the extent to which the movement across Europe in the sixteenth emptied the churches and appealed only to a literate minority of Christians, the very people who pored over books, discussed new ideas, listened to erudite sermons and asked searching questions of the preacher in a desire to greater understand the text under discussion (but that's a subject for a different post).

My fear is that the church like the rest of the culture has dumbed down somewhat, settled for a lowest common denominator equality that means anyone can read an ancient text and instruct others on its meaning. we only have to look at some churches to see where that leads us!

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

Hacking is not just the province of newspapers

There's a good piece by my friend Steve in today's Society section of the Guardian. He's a bit of an expert on keeping young people safe on line and has some important things to say about how young people without good literacy skills and supportive adults are at some risk of finding themselves 'hacked' and their futures left in threads.

I particularly liked his image of the social web created by new mobile media as an incubator rather than merely a platform. 'It is a place where communication is captured, aggregated, added to, morphed, changed and rehatched as a new broadcast or "ping"'. His article is based on an extensive report he's written on the subject for the government's training and development agency.

Check it out here. And you can download the full report here.

It is a reminder that information is currency, often highly sought-after, not just for those seeking to grab better headlines than their rivals. Perhaps it's yet another reason why what's happened at News International over the past years has affected the environment in which all of us live.

Riding the roller coaster

It's been a busy, roller coaster of a week. On Friday I took the funeral of my sister-in-law, Trish, who finally succumbed to cancer after a five year battle. On Sunday, my youngest daughter, Olivia, got engaged to Joe. So the Jones household has run the gamut of emotions!

Trish's funeral went as well as these things can. the chapel was full to hear moving tributes from both her boys and a poem/prayer from one of her oldest friends. What struck me was that there were people from all aspects of her life present in good numbers to mark her passing. It is testament to her ability to make friends and keep them. She'll be missed.

Olivia's news was not unexpected as Joe had given us a heads-up ahead of popping the question and we are thrilled and delighted for them both. They are a great couple and wonderful parents to Sophia. 

While all this was going on, we had the biggest Messy Church of the year (when we were expecting people to be away). We had first-timers and returners who've not been for a while. Messy Talk also went really well - the final instalment of how we experience God. In the autumn we're trialling another Ugly Duckling Company tool which includes DVD material. We're looking forward to it.

Maybe this week will give me chance to pause and catch my breath.

The place of faith in public life

Two great pieces in today's papers about religion in public life. There's a superb interview with Rowan Williams in the guardian magazine conducted by David Hare which is online here and there's a great piece on Maurice Glassman, the man behind Blue Labour in the Times. It is on-line but behind the Murdoch pay wall.

Both make a strong case for the involvement of Christians - and religion more generally - in public life. Williams is very moving on his recent visit to Congo and Kenya and the vital role that the church plays in creating civil society and safe places for those caught up in the horrors of violence in those countries.

In his speech to General Synod last week, reflecting on that trip, he said: ‘If it wasn’t for the Church, no-one, absolutely no-one, would have cared, and they would be lost still.  It was almost a fierce sense, almost an angry feeling, this knowledge that the Church mattered so intensely.' (you can read the whole speech here).

Glassman is an orthodox Jew and stresses in the interview in the Times how important religion is in shaping his life and in shaping the labour party. We all knew the latter but he goes on to say that religion is vital for reshaping and renewing the Labour Party now. It's a bold thing for a man of the left (even the centre left where he is) to say but it's really good to hear it being said. More power to his elbow, I say

Lancing the boil?

So, the Murdochs have decided that the solution to the News of the World phone hacking horror is to close the newspaper. So, lots of people are going to lose their jobs while the people responsible for the culture at the paper make the announcement in sackcloth and ashes, assuming that sweeping away the title gets rid of the problem.

Astonishingly, the Government thinks it's the right decision. Hopefully, it won't dissuade the government from holding the enquiries that David Cameron promised yesterday.

What we've seen today is the combined effect of advertisers, figures from public life and even outraged readers attacking Murdoch's bottom line. His response is to remove the running sore. But it doesn't do anything to deal with the infection at the heart of this company. The boil is still waiting to be lanced.

At the very least all those who have had editorial control of the paper in the last decade should be sacked - whatever job they currently hold - and investigated by the police as part of their wide-ranging enquiry. After all, it is they, not the News of the World's current staff, who bear responsibility for dragging the paper into the sewer and beyond.

And surely no one can now think Murdoch is fit and proper person to run yet more of Britain's media. The company's desire to control all of BSkyB must be thwarted. It's turnover makes that of the News of the World look like petty cash. Over to you Jeremy Hunt; try to do the right thing; seek help if you're not sure what that is.

Refreshed, relaxed and returned

Gramping's quite good fun, all things considered. We had a great time with the grandchildren, children and partners in Hope Cove. The best thing about it was that we no internet access (unless we went to the nearby hotel for cream teas - tough!) and no mobile phone signal. So we had to talk to each other and make our own entertainment. Fab.

We swam in the sea and walked on the beach. Hope Cove is one of my most favourite places on planet earth. I've had some good times there with God and at least one blazing row with him on a damp October morning. This time, in the sunshine and warmth, it was good to soak up the wonder of his creation and the company of my family.

Tomorrow it's back to work with a church meeting and a service saying farewell to our GB captain. Should be a good day - not as good as swimming in sea and going back to the house for a barbie - ah well!

We're off gramping

We're off to Hope Cove tomorrow with our whole family - daughters, grand-daughters and partners. The weather forecast is good and we have a four bed-roomed house 150 yards from the beach for a week; can't be bad.

Apparently what we're doing is called 'gramping' - where grandparents provide the basis for a holiday for the whole family. We're really looking forward it: Hope Cove is gorgeous and it'll be great to be away from the study and the landline for a week! Best of all, we'll have lots of opportunity for inter-generational bonding.

So postings will be in short supply for the next few days.

The choppy waters coming from Greece

The ever prescient Jon Snow has some sobering words on the Greek crisis over on his Channel 4 News blog. You can read it here.

It might be at the alarmist end of the spectrum but it does highlight a salient point in all this: the city of London is still at the centre of the spider's web of international finance. In particular, we are the hub of the world's insurance and reinsurance business and there'll be a hefty bill when the Greek's go belly up. But that bill will be dwarfed by the one coming our way when Ireland and Portugal hit the buffers.

Instead of tinkering at the edges of serious banking reform, perhaps the EU leaders gathering in Brussels today might sink their teeth into the issue of how we can make the sector more accountable and transparent so that we can see the scale of the waves heading our way before they break over us.

I wondered about the consequences about Greek default yesterday. I still think it's inevitable; whether it's desirable is in the hands of our leaders: it could just be the wake up call we all need and failed to heed when Lehman's and Iceland went down.

I am pondering the parable of the rich fool from Luke 12. It's not an exact parallel to our situation but I am always chastened by the fact that Jesus introduced the sobering tale with the words: 'watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions' (v15).

We're good at applying this verse and the parable that follows to us as individuals (well, to other individuals), but it clearly also applies to us as a culture. We live in a system that says 'greed is good' and rewards that greed with all the stuff that we think is essential for the good life. Unfortunately, as in the parable, such a way of life is not sustainable; eventually God comes calling.

Sadly, unlike in the parable, it is not the paragons of greed who suffer when the wheels come off but the ordinary people, struggling to grab a bit of the action for themselves, who get a kicking; and the poor of the planet who see the little they have swept away in the flood.

So let's pray for the people of Greece, the ordinary people who, like us, have tried to grab the most they can, often in the least sustainable way, and who now face ruin. And let's pray for the leaders gathered in Brussels that they will own responsibility for the mess we're in and actually do something to sort it out in the interests of the poorest rather than the richest.

And let's pray that we all realise that 'life does not consist in an abundance of possessions'