Listening to the radio this morning I was struck by the odd similarity between three of the major news items.

Firstly, ubiquitously, there’s the economic crisis – which more and more seems to boil down to the fact that people – that’s you, me and them – got greedy. With the boss of Barclays now earning nearly 120 times the wage of the average employee (when 30 years ago it was about 13 time) it seems people are finally waking up and demanding equality, and movement towards a financial system in which people, not just profits, matter.

Secondly, there’s the Leveson inquiry into the behaviour of the press, and in particular the mess over phone hacking. Behind all of the lurid details of whose messages were listened to and which celebrities were outed for doing what, we have to remember that the driving force behind all of this was simple: selling more papers. We simply cannot express disgust at what went on if we too were titillated into reading the stuff. It seems now that finally people are waking up and demanding a media in which people, not just puerile stories for profits, matter.

Thirdly, a shocking report into the state of the care system, which has left countless elderly and vulnerable people abused and maltreated.

‘Findings included carers neglecting tasks because councils paid for too little of their time.’

As the reporter highlighted on a piece on the radio this morning, people are finally waking up to the fact that a genuine sense of empathy needs to be restored to a care system that has been run by council accountants and bean-counters for too long.

With all of these disperate stories, the over-arching sense I get is that there appears to be an awakening to the terrible poverty at the heart of capitalism. The market has failed, not because it hasn’t always turned a profit, but because the market has let people down. Capitalism has proved profitable for some, but has impoverished the spirits of so so many more.

Over the weekend I went to the Bank of Ideas building that the Occupy London protesters are now squatting in Sun Street. And though yes, there are unrealistic idealists, what I found was a network of concerned and genuinely caring people.

Perhaps in the midst of what is a pretty depressing news cycle at the moment we can find hope in this resurgence of empathy, of a wider realisation that people, ordinary people, do matter, and our laws and systems do need to reflect that first and foremost.

I’m currently consulting on a BBC programme to be broadcast in the autumn which is all about the mathematics of everyday life. Not allowed to say any more about it, but there is a section there about how Google can inform hospitals of impending flu epidemics days before they actually hit by tracking the search terms people are using.

I raised a question as we looked at that that has been (partly) raised in The Independent today: if Google can do this with health stats, can they, indeed are they, doing it with financial information too?

It appears that they are prepared to admit that they can tell the Bank of England about where house prices and unemployment figures are going, using the same technique of analysing search terms, but there is nothing in there about whether people might be using these techniques to predict rises or falls in currencies, stocks or commodities. What they do admit is that:

“There is also evidence that these data could provide additional insight on a wider range of issues.”

It would not surprise me one bit if they were, or if some within the organisation are, under the radar effectively making insider-dealing trades – buying and selling with good foreknowledge of what is going to happen in a particular market.

Personally, I’d like some clarity on this from them. Why? Because they are aggregating information from millions of individuals, and then as sole guardians of that information, possibly putting it to huge personal gain.

Capitalism relies on information vacuums: I can make money knowing something that you don’t. What concerns me is that this effect is magnified to a near-infinite degree with the quite extraordinary data-set that Google have access to. I think it’s very important that they offer some clarity on this, and are perhaps given some advice by financial regulators about what they are legally allowed to do.

Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ is back in the news again after Christian fundamentalists took a hammer to a print of it in a gallery in France.

If you’ve never seen the photograph ‘up close’ then I’d highly recommend it. It’s far more beautiful than the title suggests, and a subtle piece of trickster-work. It is thus far more orthodox than than the Christian Right have given Serrano credit for. He is not trying to debase God or Christ, but comment on the trivialisation and commodification of the image of Christ – as exemplified in the cheap plastic crucifix.

We have sanitised the crucifixion. One can be quite sure that any Good Friday service you attend this week will not include much blood, and certainly no urine, faeces, sweat, broken bones at stomach-churning angles, ear-splitting screams, whipping, torture, skin piercing or grotesque physical violence.

We weep for the tragedy of Jesus’ death, but are far removed from the pain, anguish and down-right sadistic punishment that went on that day – and every day. Crucifixion was horrible, and common, and when Jesus suffered it none of his followers expected that anything good might follow.

Serrano is working within tradition by forcing us to look again at what has become over-familiar. His filter of blood and urine literally forces us to see afresh. I wrote about the piece and it’s place more in tricksterism more full in The Complex Christ (UK) / Signs of Emergence (US), and quote Serrano there as saying:

Complex and unresolved feelings about my own Catholic upbringing inform this work which helps me to redefine and personalise my relationship with God. For me, art is a moral and spiritual obligation that cuts across all manner of pretence and speaks directly to the soul. Although I am no longer a member of the Catholic Church, I consider myself a Christian and I practice my faith through my work.

Clearly, the Christian Right do not like the introduction of dirt into their sanitised religion. Why? Because it is awkward. Shit always forces us to ask difficult psychological questions, face our fears and doubts, and reassess our classifications of what is ‘in’ or ‘out.’

And there can be no better message as we come to Easter again than that: this is a God who came into a bloody and dirty world, and refused to shy away from our shit.

But there are deeper questions too. What are those who come with hammers to smash a work of art hoping to achieve? Do they believe that God is somehow trapped within the photograph, and needs to be released? Are they hoping that their violence will somehow cause other artists to think twice before attempting similar representations? Or do they want to spoil it so that no one else will be able to see the image? What sort of God do they think they are defending who cannot stand what Serrano has done? Not one that I’m interested in following, that’s for sure.

Very special day today: 50 years since the first human being orbited the earth. On 12th April 1961, Yuri Gagarin was launched by a Vostok rocket into space, and completed an orbit of the earth. He became an international celebrity and travelled the world to talk about his trip and promote the Soviet Union.

50 years on, I wonder what his legacy is? It took only 8 years – read that again, 8 years – to move from this very rudimentary flight to successfully landing men on the moon – perhaps the single most complex and awe-inspiring engineering feat humanity has achieved. It cost $24bn – the largest expenditure ever in peace time – and at its peak employed over 400,000 people.

The Apollo missions lasted just 3 years. Since then, no human has ever left the earth’s orbit. Nobody has done anything except what Gagarin basically did, which was to fly very high.

So what is the legacy of all the money and time and technology? The non-stick frying pan? A GPS system? A nice space telescope? Is that pretty much it?

My hope is that the legacy of Gagarin’s incredible flight will be this: it marked the birth of planet Earth. What he was able to see for the first time, and what all astronauts since have commented on, is Earth in its context: a precious, life-rich place in the midst of a very very empty universe.

Living on the surface of Earth it’s impossible to get this perspective. But what missions into space have given us are a sense of unity. Despite all our differences, we do inhabit the same place. We all call it home. And we should take care of it.

Though Gagarin was able to see more of earth than any human previously, it was only in the Apollo missions that the very first ‘full earth’ shot could be taken. Seeing our planet from that far away was a deeply profound experience for those on board, even more so for the twelve who saw Earth ‘rise’ as they walked on the moon.

In a way then, what we celebrate when we remember Gagarin’s trip is the birth of Earth as a unified object, and thus the birth of a ‘green’ consciousness. And for that reason our celebrations ought to take the form of looking after it as best we can.

Amazon now allow anyone to publish to their store using ‘Kindle Direct Publishing‘ so I’ve uploaded a short story called ‘Into Great Science’ which I wrote last year.

“Fumbling, floating, he found the hammer, and headed for the window…”

In lean times NASA has gone into partnership with the Catholic Church, launching a ‘Voyager’-style probe which will be the first manned mission out of our Solar System. For the monk returning to his former career as an astronaut, the mission will be the ultimate hermitage: he will be in total isolation for the rest of his life.

But that may not be long. A violent solar storm has sent a powerful wave of radiation through space, shutting down Mission Control and preventing them from warning him of the coming danger.

In this tense and tight short story, theologian and technology-writer Kester Brewin explores issues of faith, doubt, abandonment and trust, all based on real data of the projected effects of a ‘mass coronal ejection’ similar to the ‘Carrington Event’ of 1859, which left machinery spontaneously combusting and telegraph operators thrown across the room.

You can get the UK version here for £1.41, and the US version here for $2.

Do I think this will replace traditional publishers? No. But what I think it will do is push traditional publishing back to its roots a little. In other words, they will publish less, but it will be far better. With the material I have written I would without doubt have published it too quickly if I was simply uploading to Amazon. Working with a publisher, working with good editors and readers pushes writers to greater height and depth. And this will be what traditional publishing will continue to offer that KDP simply can’t: quality editing.

That said, it looks like a great place to get writing out there and raise some profile. Hope you enjoy the story if you’ve not already read it.

I want to retain a healthy skepticism about the power of Twitter and other social networks to bring about substantive change. There has been a lot of hype about the Green revolution in Iran, and whether it was tweeting that caused it, and I’d be tempted to side with Malcolm Gladwell – substantive change comes through physical, not virtual interaction.

But with the recent events in Egypt, and the emerging situation in Libya, I’ve been thinking about the nature of change again, especially in relation to the ideas I outlined in The Complex Christ (UK) / Signs of Emergence (US), in which I argue that top-down revolution is to be resisted in favour of bottom-up evolutionary change. Why? Because top-down revolution is classically associated with power struggle and violence, whereas bottom-up evolutionary change has usually been about bit-by-bit change, which can prevent bloodshed.

This may apply more in a corporate or ecclesiastic setting, but within nation states it may be that the nature of struggle is different, especially if there is an oppressive dictatorship which stifles even the lowest level evolving changes.

However, I do think that there is a general principle at work here: change occurs when normal people are given the opportunity to communicate with one another, unmediated by the powers that be. It is irrelevant whether that is Twitter or Facebook or otherwise. What is important is not information dissemination, but shared conversation. Not about ‘this is the news’ but ‘this is where we’re going to meet to make the news.’ Mubarak was toppled because people spoke to one another and decided together that enough was enough. If power-politics is about ‘Divide and Rule’ then social media is the antithesis of this. It is about ‘Unite and Change’ and though these networks themselves did not bring down the government, they facilitated the huge protests and encampments that did.

This, I believe, is how we can see a line joining the revolution in Egypt to the whole emerging church movement: things happen within seemingly dead and immobile institutions when people begin to talk to another and believe that a new way is possible. I don’t believe that it is coincidence that the rise of the internet was paralleled with the rise of the emerging church movement. It wasn’t that the internet made a new way possible, but it did give permission to new forms of connection and communication: people were able to disseminate ideas and discover that they were not the only ones feeling a particular way.

I think this has always been the case, and part of the core code of the gospel is this base-level communication. Jesus didn’t send out edicts or write proclamations. He simply walked around and spoke to people. The message of Pentecost is not about fire-power, but simply this: speak to one another in language you can understand.

I’m optimistic that social media – if it can escape the grip of promoted tweets and constant advertising (which I’m not sure it can) – will continue to be a powerful tool to make powerful structures more accountable. Not because information will be shared, but because people will simply be able to share how they are feeling, and work to act together.

One reason for this optimism is because we can already see how the powerful are worried. In a bizarre move, the US has tried to gain access to information about Tweeters connected to Wikileaks – at the same time as Hilary Clinton called for ‘internet repression’ to cease. It’s clear they are concerned. And that’s got to be good for all of us.

Just to make sure we’re clear, I’ve been through all claims made on this site, and can safely say that I am fully compliant. All the below can be fully verified, viz.:

- Buying ‘Other‘ is guaranteed to enrich your life! Or your money back, times ten!

- If you suffer any ailments, click on my photo in the ‘About‘ page and you will be healed. From anything. Seriously.

- All monies donated to me via my PayPal account will go to helping rescue the kittens that Pete Rollins regularly slaughters when people don’t read his stuff.

Hope that’s put your minds at rest. Now go look in the mirror. Your visiting this site was an act of faith that God has rewarded. You now have gold teeth.

...but they should defend justice.

The political shake-up in the Middle East is going to have serious repercussions across the West too. A democratic system does not prevent those with extremist views coming to power by the will of the people, and there are many in the US and Israel who are concerned that releasing Mubarak’s stranglehold in Egypt will result in a more aggressive stance towards Israel and the rise of extremist elements in its politcs.

This could be awkward, but is the hard end of the democratic system: the people choose, and what the people choose you have to go with. End of.

However, in the case of the more aggressive stance towards Israel, it’s clear that this is an equal and opposite reaction to the almost unquestionably pro-Zionist stance of the US. The Arab countries may appear extreme in their political aggression towards Israel, but this is exactly matched by the extreme political aggression the US has traditionally shown in support of Israel.

Much of this support has come via the Christian right working in coalition with the Zionist lobby, and what concerns me is that many who may be moving towards a more ‘emerging’ view of faith are not really thinking through the implications of that politically. In other words, if you are beginning to call into question your inherited ecclesioloy, you are also going to have to call into question your inherited political theology.

What I love about what Brian McLaren is doing is that he has refused to shy away from this. He’s been to the region, seen with his own eyes, and responded in his writing and speaking. Shane Claiborne has done the same, as has Jonny Baker.

Sadly, many have not followed. They want a theology of ecclesiastic liberation, without a politics of a just peace, and I’m afraid that the two simply don’t match up.

Although he is a self-confessed ‘conservative republican’, a conversation I had on Facebook with someone recently outlined one of the key problems. A plea to pray for peace in Jerusalem – a worthy prayer, of course – was followed by a quotation from Genesis:

“I wil bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

This was followed by the comment, ‘this is not an interpretation; this is just a quotation from Scripture.’

The problem is, by framing this verse in the context of prayer for peace in Jerusalem – alongside a video link to the Israeli national anthem – it has been conscripted to speak on behalf of modern Israel. Which then begs the point: does it mean that Palestinians should be cursed? If so, then the many many Palestinian Christians I know living in Bethlehem or Beit Sahour are being told they are cursed by fellow Christians in the West.

The verse is God addressing Abraham – and again here is a problem. Are the Old Testament passages that refer to Israel to be read as refering to the modern nation state of Israel too? If they are, then Israel is effectively a Jewish state. And this is inherently racist as defined by the UN: its laws are biased towards people of one particular faith.

The problem here is that this is precisely what is going on in Israel: the law works in favour of those who are Jewish, and against those who are still Israeli citizens, but of Arab descent.

The theological positions we hold have political implications, and if these are unbalanced and unjust then we can only expect an equal and opposite position to be held by those on the other side. ‘Praying for peace in Jerusalem’ has to mean justice and peace for all on all sides, and retaining a strongly pro-Israel stance – at the expense of justice for Palestinians – is actually fuelling extremism.

Please, don’t inherit poor theo-political positions. See for yourself – go to the region if you can and meet people from all sides. I’m pretty sure that’s what a guy from Bethlehem would have done a while back.

Justice or plaudits?

I’m perfectly sure he won’t give a crap, but I’m certain I’ll feel better for it – I’m done with Ian McEwan. He’s a gifted writer, no mistake about that, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed some of his books.

But then Saturday was just…too knowing. Too aware of its own cleverness. A bit showy. But whatever, it didn’t hurt anyone. Then there was a recent interview, in which he spat “my writing life has been one long uphill struggle to persuade the world that I didn’t do a creative writing course”. Which was bloody arrogant, and rather chippy, but then, what writer isn’t plagued with doubts about their talent, and where it comes from.

But today I read that he has agreed to accept the Jerusalem prize:

The Jerusalem prize, which carries a “symbolic” cash award of $10,000, is awarded biennially to writers whose work deals with themes of individual freedom in society.

Quite how he feels it is acceptable to take an award in Israel when it is systematically denying individual freedoms not only to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, but Israeli-Arabs living in Jerusalem itself, I have no idea. But I do know I find it distasteful, self-important and utterly lacking any empathy with those who are suffering.

So piss off McEwan, the £12.99 you might have got from me every couple of years with your new books won’t hurt you I’m sure. But I’ll be spared any more of your too-clever-by-half-yet-still-grossly-misogynistic characters, and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign will be a little better off too. Goodbye.

Really pleased to announce that the UK edition of ‘Other‘ is available in the US and Canada as an eBook via Amazon (as it is in the UK too.) As I’m sure you know, you don’t need an actual Kindle to read Kindle downloads – you can get the software for free on your Mac or PC or mobile. I’ve got a copy on the Kindle app on the iPad, and it looks great.

If you’ve got an iPad, it’s also in the native iBookstore too, but I can’t link to that – sort it out Apple!

As for a print edition, negotiations with a US publisher are in (hopefully) the final stages, and a US print edition should be available in a couple of months, which will be great.

If you’ve not read it yet, ‘Other’ is an attempt to unpack what Jesus’ summary of the law might mean in the politically complex and technologically advanced world we are living in:

Noisy neighbours, international terrorism, racism, teenage violence and religious fundamentalism … from the personal to the local to the international and theological, it is our failure to engage ‘the other’ that is at the heart of so many of the problems we face.

It draws on a huge variety of sources, taking in pirates, AA Milne, Zizek, Facebook, Heidegger, Celebrity culture and video gaming…all spiced with some original poetry too. And some great people have said some great things about it:

Brian Mclaren:

With his new book Other, English author Kester Brewin joins Peter Rollins from Ireland and David Dark from the US as leading public theologians for a new generation of thoughtful Christians. He moves gracefully from Scripture to philosophy to pop culture to sociology and back to Scripture again, offering fresh, honest, and needed insights at each turn.

Pete Rollins:

In our socially networked and technologically advanced world we remain surrounded by mystery: the mystery of others, the divine mystery and mystery that we are unto ourselves. OTHER masterfully explores how we might embrace this often complex reality and draws out how love of that which is other is central to the Christian experience. This is a work of rare beauty.

Phllyis Tickle:

This is a brilliant work. Half-mystic and half hard-core intellectual, Brewin here offers us an intimate, personable, completely accessible and, at times, hauntingly beautiful engagement with the hard questions of emergence theology. It illumines with reverence and care the paradox that is faith, even as it speaks, always with vigour, of love and the reality that lies at the centre of our not-knowing.

Hope you enjoy reading it – all being well I’ll be in the US in the next few months with a little tour, so be great to meet people then and engage with the ideas face to face.