Had a good time at my first visit to New Wine yesterday. I’d been asked to go and speak about the book, which I duly did, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Speaking at Greenbelt you’re pretty much already in a place where people are critiquing the forms and structures of faith, so it was very interesting to be in a far more conservative place – and find that people really began to open up on those issues too.

If I had a penny for every time someone has asked ‘how do I start my local church on a path to something more relevant’ I’d… well, be able to buy a pint I expect. It is the major question, and one that it so difficult to answer. To put it into the context there: there seems to be plenty of new wine around, but so much of it is being wasted in old wineskins.

I liked what John Peters had to say yesterday: ‘you be you, and dangerously free.‘ I mentioned in my talk yesterday that this is what we need to think of our faith too. To let God be dangerously free. But in the context of beginning to critique a ‘normal’ church structure, that can be frightening, like leaving a cruise-liner to join a small yacht is how Alan Jamieson once put it. You feel the waves and are buffeted by the wind far more. The boat needs you to take responsibility, and carries more risk.

However, leaving shouldn’t be a first move. My take on ‘you be you, and dangerously free’ would be to reaffirm Jesus’ message that we do not need a priest – we do not need anyone to mediate us to God. In practice? Don’t pedestal the leadership and be patronised or afraid. They are normal people trying to do the best job they can, often in difficult circumstances.

So if you’re feeling that new wine needs some new wineskins in your context, talk to them, be confident and not cowed, but empathetic and engaging and encouraging. See if there are any others thinking the same way, and talk about some positive, simple things that you can do together. It doesn’t need to be secretive or covert, though you may need to be sensitive and discreet.

That’s probably enough for now… I’ll try to follow this up with a few more thoughts about beginning to challenge and change institutions and forms tomorrow.

MPs voted last night to remove the clause that required IVF clinics to consider the need for a child to have a father and a mother – essentially opening the way for women to have the treatment without any father-figure being present in the prospective child’s life.

And a recent report has found that, despite record investment, youth crime has continued to rise. “The government’s record on youth crime and tackling the multiple needs of children caught up in the youth justice system is less impressive than many would have expected.”

And no one suggested there might be a connection.

I am depressed.

Technorati: Crime | IVF

Your one-time minister saying some outrageous things about 9/11,

or being married to a man who had his cigar smoked in the Oval Office?

I don’t get it – surely Bill should be the persona non grata on the campaign trail?

Technorati: Clinton | Obama

"One of the things that makes Mrs Clinton so psychologically fascinating is her tendency to portray everthing in terms of conflict and confrontation. And one of the characteristics that makes her so interesting politically is that she is a much better candidate when things are going badly than when they are going well." From BBC News.

This is precisely why I think you Americans should not vote for Clinton. When she says in an interview that she would completely destroy Iran if they attacked Israel, her rhetoric is getting dangerous. It is highly unwise politics to threaten another nation in order to win votes in your own.

The world does not need another US President who defaults to conflict. It’s fine in Hollywood: the victim finds their metal and fights back. It’s just not good enough if the White House is going to be a force for good.

"America deserves a President who doesn’t quit." Perhaps Hillary, but it also needs one who knows when stopping fighting is for the greater good.

Go vote Obama.

It’s in ‘Politics, Theology and Faith-Based Organisations’, and you can read more about it in the doc attached below.

I’m aware that something similar exists in the US education system, though the only reason I’m aware of it is by it’s bitter-sweet use in movies to suggest some apple-pie nostalgia that’s going to be blown up in our faces.

I actually think it would be a very bad idea, for a number of reasons. As a teacher, knowing both the sorts of people who work in schools and the sorts of kids who attend them, I think it would be totally impossible to implement with a straight face.

However, leaving the possibility of people not taking it seriously aside, the question remains about what it would actually mean. Would we be insisting the teenagers ‘take the pledge’? What would happen to those that refused? Would immigrants or temporary residents have to take the pledge too? Are we seriously suggesting that teenagers might think twice before acting in an anti-social manner, before buying cheap alcohol and marauding around high streets, because of it?

In these sort of public liturgies, the words themselves are merely symbolic, and are meant to be a public statement of some already deeply held truth. The same is true in marriage and baptism. So aren’t we asking our children to actually lie if the are forced to say the words without the belief? And if so, is this not simply going to lead to deeper problems later?

Children in the UK are suffering an identity crisis. They are insecure, adrift and alone on the ocean of free-market consumerism, battered by peer pressure, told not to hold on to beliefs or foster relationships or risk being sunk by commitment.

An oath to Queen and Country is an insult to them. How about instead a commitment, a public statement by government, reciprocated by a public commitment by parents, to do better by our children, to love them and support them, to adopt laws that would support families rather than atomising them in the drive to make people work?

Once again, it’s the children who are taking the rap. And, as I think the parable of the sower suggests, we shouldn’t expect so much of our young seedlings.

Technorati: Allegiance | Britishness | Government | Oath | Parents | Teenagers

This got me thinking: what might a list of the grand theological challenges of the next 100 years look like? Well, I’m no Larry Page, but I mailed out a bunch of people in my address book, texted and called a few others, and had lunch with one, asking them, very simply, what they thought should be on the list.

Actually, not that simply. Because I also asked if they thought whether such a list could even be created. Page’s list is more simple: science – our knowledge of our physical world – does progress. We have better materials and technologies than we used to. But has our understanding of God actually moved forward? Or do people simply dig ever-deeper into their rutted positions?

So what did people say? You can find the unexpurgated version here, but, edited down a little:

Brian Maclaren (writer) Grappling with Jesus’ good news of the kingdom of God, realizing how it differs from the popular Western gospel of “how to go to heaven after you die and be happy and successful until then.

Nic Hughes (designer) I wish that someone, some group, something, somewhere would develop a theological project that captured the imagination. All the good ideas are elsewhere. Cross-discipline theological labs please?

Vanessa Elston (teacher) In very basic terms how do we move from a reformation/protestant/enlightenment emphasis on the salvation of the individual to one of communal participation in salvation.

Peter Rollins (writer) The task of developing concrete faith collectives which are freed from foundationalism and evidentialism – collectives which are founded on something other than shared doctrinal belief.

Greg Russinger (church leader) The ongoing challenge of communal theology among cultural difference or indifference.

Becky Garrison (writer / satirist) The challenge is finding ways to communicate theological change without becoming yet another crass Christian marketing machine.

Richard Sudworth (PhD student) A theology of political engagement that speaks into every area of the public sphere without resorting to domination and privilege.

Naz Georgis (alt.worship legend) A theology of synthesis.

Don Brewin (Anglican Vicar and top dad) I think the key issue for theology in the next generation is the theology of religion. What is our attitude to people of other faiths?

David Townsend (member of emergent group) A GayLesbianBiTransexual theology (as opposed to the polarised entrenchments that exist currently).

Sue Wallace (Visions, York) There is a sense in which the biggest theological challenges will always be the ones of cultural communication, and the frustrating thing is that as soon as we have sussed out how to speak one language, the world has moved on, and we have to learn

another if we are to engage in serious dialogue, and offer true hope rather than incomprehensible poetry.

Luke Bretherton (lecturer) Same as ever – ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’ And we have to ask it in relation to various contexts perhaps most importantly, relations with Islam, the environmental crises and the implications of peak oil for social and political life, genetic engineering and lastly the upholding of human flourishing against processes of commodification, instrumentalisation and totalising forms of modern power, whether economic, political, religious or technological.

Jonny Baker (Grace) Good idea but I am on a few days off so unlikely to contribute – sorry!

So are there any common themes there we might identify?

I think there are. It may simply be a function of the constituency, but I think there’s an over-riding sense of wanting theology – talk about God – to speak to us. We want God to speak into our culture, our politics, our identity, our world. The implication is that people are perhaps feeling that theology is not doing that. So what’s at fault? Are the ‘professional theologians’ hiding in ivory towers not doing enough? Are sermons not good enough? Are churches simply not engaged enough?

The other strong theme, I feel, is that of a serious theology of ‘the other’. Other religions. Other sexual orientations. Other cultures. The world is becoming a melting pot, and people are struggling to work out both who they are within that, and how to relate to these ‘others’ who they now come into contact with. From ASBOs to Islamism, the problem of ‘the other’ is over-arching.

However, finally, the question is whether any of this is any different to any other time in history. If these are the grand questions now, have they ever been any different? And if not, are we failing in our theological practice, or simply evolving to cope with a changing world?

Technorati: Google | Larry Page | Grand Challenge | Theology

His words have been twisted out of all recognition of course. And yet pundits line up to judge that he has been foolish – of course his words have been twisted. Everyone’s are. Which is why people say nothing. And thus runs the plot tension of a whole stack of West Wing episodes: Bartlett knows what should be said, but is advised he can’t. Then at the last minute a way is found that he can, and all is good. In other words, we know this stuff should be said, and feel good when it is on TV, so what is stopping people talking intelligently in the public domain?

I tried to touch on this in the book. I think Marcuse’s analysis in One Dimensional Man is really good. He writes that there are basically three ways that the dominant powers push people down – flatten them into nicely manageable one-dimensional beings. All three ways are lies, and they run like this:

The first lie: “Things are too big and complicated for you to be able to change them. Things have gone too far to change anyway.”

The second lie: “If you do try to change things, you’ll be risking all you’ve got – your own status and position and financial security.”

The third lie: “And if you still persist in taking these big topics on, and are prepared to pay the cost, people will just laugh at you.”

These are the main reasons why people simply don’t do anything: it’ll cost me, it’s too big, people will laugh. And it’s been interesting to note how these three lies have been spun out to attack the Archbishop. ‘You don’t understand enough about Sharia Law / Islam / the legal system to comment’. ‘You’re foolish for speaking out – don’t you know you’ll be putting your job at risk?’ ‘What a Burkha’ etc.

But what is more interesting to note are the groups of people spinning them. As a general rule it’s been legal pundits, the broadsheet media and more right-leaning politicians who’ve spun the first, the church and more left-leaning politicians who’ve spun the second, and the tabloid media who’ve spun the third.

What have all these people got in common? Something precious to lose. And this is the nub of the whole furore: in a country under tension from immigration, from European integration, people feel their identities are under threat. And what is perceived as the last bastion of Englishness? Our own legal system with its wigs and theatrics. The political right and the jurists are afraid of losing this precious control over how to tell people what is right and wrong, the religious right are afraid of Britain straying further away from hard-line evangelicalism, the political left are still frightened they won’t be taken seriously and will lose their hold on power, and the tabloid media poke fun and stir up a storm to sell papers.

None of them are really interested in what Dr Williams had to say – which was a quite brilliant and brave talk on culture, belonging and identity. Not because they have no interest in it, but precisely because they’ve invested too much interest in keeping the status quo. Like Bartlett, I hope Rowan stays true to his message, and doesn’t stop forcing us to see the multiplicity of our dimensions.

Technorati: Archbishop | Canterbury | Marcuse | Media | One Dimensional Man | Rowan Williams | Sharia

I’ve posted a comment outlining some thoughts on how the role of the artist might help us imagine this in a new way.

Technorati: Ben Edson | Mission | Entrepreneur

"The Orthodox church suffers from a wound because it does not recognise the primacy of the Pope. The wound is even more profound in Protestant denominations, and it is difficult to see how the title of ‘Church’ could possibly be attributed to them.”

Great work. Really nice. It’s difficult to see how the title of ‘Christian’ could possibly be attributed…

Technorati: Pope | Ratzinger | Catholic | Orthodox | Protestant | Division