"Morally Repugnant"

Apparently, David Cameron thinks that Jimmy Carrs perfectly legal avoidance of tax is "morally repugnant". Carr has apologised, and admitted that he made a mistake. Maybe he did, maybe not - lets be clear, there was nothing illegal in what he did, but it was a means of avoiding paying tax on a lot of money.

It has since been revealed that David Camerons dad made his money - and a lot of it - from providing tax havens. Exactly what he seems to consider "morally repugnant". Cameron himself inherited some 300K of this money. I presume that if Cameron really finds it "morally repugnant", he will give this money to a worthy cause.

Actually, what he has done is announce plans to remove housing benefit from under 25YOs. Taking money from young and vulnerable people because of the economic situation we are in. A situation that he is at least as responsible for as the previous government. Punishing the poor - that is morally repugnant.

Cameron said at the start of his term that "we are all in this together". What he meant, of course, is that while we are all in this together, some peoples role is to benefit, whereas other people suffer. Mainly the rich benefit and the poor suffer. That is morally repugnant.

At the same time that he is claiming that Carrs perfectly legal tax avoidance is morally repugnant, Vodafone have been let off several billions of tax - substantially more than Carr avoided. Apparently that is acceptable - evading tax (illegally) is better than avoiding it (legally). That is morally repugnant - if he is serious about Carr being wrong then surely he should ensure Vodafone pay up.

And, of course, if he is serious about tax loopholes being repugnant, why doesn't he close them? He has the power, so he should do it. Of course he won't do that, because that would hit those who support him - the rich who fund him. If he was serious about us all being in it together, he would crack down on all tax avoidance, he would make sure that the wealthiest pay the tax they owe. That he doesn't, and rather chooses to make the poor pay for the failings of the rich, is the real moral repugnance here.

Note that I am not suggesting any punitive tax rates or a rich tax or anything like that. All I am suggesting is that everyone should pay the tax they should on their income. As a minimum, everyone earning over 20K should be paying 25% on their income earned in this country. Is that too much to ask?

Morally repugnant? Yes you are David.

One of the worst threats in the last 500 years

This week, senior Church of England clergy issued a press release which was reported as saying that Gay Marriage is one of the worst threats in the last 500 years. And it has caused no small stir across the internet. I want to try to address some of the questions raised.

1. Some people have said that those who criticise it should read the entire report first, and comment on that as a whole. Have I read it all? No, and I don't intend to. Because most people will not. It may be a carefully worded, theologically nuanced document. But 99% of people will not read that, they are interested in the summary version, which is as per the headlines (I presume, as I have not heard anyone say it is a poor summary). the truth is that people do not need carefully thought out theology, they need simple answers to basic questions.

It is naive in the extreme to assume that the headline summary is not going to be the main way that people receive this report. The CofE does, in parts, seem to have this sort of naivety, but there is no excuse for this from the senior clergy. The society we live in today does not do long and detailed reports, it does summaries and soundbites. You may not like this, you may think that it cheapens communication, or it panders to personalities - all of which are, to an extent true. But to behave as if it is not the case is beyond naive - it is stupid.

2. There have been some comments that those who oppose single sex marriage are homophobic. Actually, I don't think that they all are. Yes, some are, but the majority are not. I may disagree with them, but I respect that they have their opinions. Debate and discussion is healthy, and it is good to have. The problem with the report is that is is presented as the position of the whole church - something that is definitively not the case. In fact, there are a whole lot of different positions in the church. It is possible that the majority are actually reasonably tolerant of gay marriage.

3. It is wrong. In fact, gay marriage is not the most serious matter facing the church today, never mind for the last 500 years. At the very least, I would think that economic crisis, the situation in Syria, and the increasing irrelevance of the church to society today. That is three for starters. Never mind anything else in the last 500 years.

The truth is that sexuality is not the most important issue for the church. I have tried to not blog about this too much, because it is nothing like as important as some people make it out. Defining the in and the out - the acceptable and the unacceptable - based on ones position of homosexuality is ridiculous. There are people on both sides that are wrong, and on both sides that are right. And, to be honest, God loves all of them. And it is my job to do the same.

I wish we'd all been ready

I was just reading an article in Geez Magazine with this title, an it set me thinking.

I was brought up through my teens in the 1980s. To those who were also of a similar age, particularly if involved in evangelical or socially active churches, those were very scary times, with the imminent certainty (as we then thought) of nuclear holocaust, epitomised for me by Gillans excellent "Mutually Assured Destruction" and Frankie Goes to Hollywoods "Two Tribes". I was also a fan of "War Games" - the film that reflected that era exceptionally well. It is still a good film, but today it seems overdone, it is hard to realise just how close it reflected the times.

I grew up in an industrial city, which would have been a prime target - that bit at least was true.

From the church perspective, we have films like "a thief in the night" and the follow ups. And the song of the title from Larry Norman, which is, actually, a very good song. Just with a rather depressing concept behind it. There was, in some circles at least, some strong apocalyptic beliefs being preached and taught, reflecting, almost certainly, the worry of the clergy about the impending nuclear war.

But here we are, in 2012. The Berlin wall has fallen, Jesus has not returned, we are still around. So what has this taught me? Apart from a deep-rooted fear of the future?

Firstly, the threat of nuclear apocalypse has given me, I think, a rather more jaded view of the current time, a world that, in my opinion, is far safer than it was then, with some rather crazy people in power, rather too trigger happy for anyones safety. Today, we are still in a very dangerous world, but most of the idiots are terrorists, who can cause destruction on a far smaller scale - not to diminish this, or minimise the suffering that they can cause. But I lived through people who would rather destroy the entire world than lose a war.

Secondly, all of the claims that are still made about us being in "the end times", or giving the date for Jesus returning, I can take with a large pinch of salt. We did that, and it didn't happen. It will one day, but we will not predict it.

And finally, but most importantly, I have learnt that working to make things better here and now is really my duty as a Christian. Trying to work out where we are in the Biblical timeline is a pointless task, as is using fear and panic to convince people that they need to embrace the faith. The real message is that this week, I need to make a difference to someones life, in a positive way. They or I may be dead next week, or may not; Jesus may come back tomorrow, or not for another thousand years. Tomorrow is not something I can deal with, because I don't know what it holds. Today, I need to seek and support Gods working somewhere. End of.

My body is a temple

I have recently finished a trial course with Zest 4 Life which is a diet and health regime which has done wonders for me - I have lost weight, and feeling a whole lot better. The regime works, and I would recommend investigating it to anyone else who want to lose weight and/or improve their sense of well being.

Enough of the advertising! Because that is not what I want to talk about. It struck me that the churches - in fact, Christians as a whole - tend to be poor at talking about looking after the body. We seem to limit it to "not doing harm", so drugs and self-harm are considered bad things, but reasonable amounts of alcohol and processed food are OK. Tattoos and smoking are somewhere in the middle, with strongly divided opinion on them.

I think that interpretation of the biblical teaching is mistaken in two ways.

Firstly, by identifying things which are considered "unacceptable", we dismiss the people who do them far too often, especially if they persist. I would bet that in your church, if you have one and it has more than 50 people connected to it, there is at least one person who self-harms, or has self-harmed, and cannot admit this to the church for fear of rejection. And I can be certain that there is at least one person with tattoos and one who smokes, not matter what your official position. By identifying there as "bad things", we fail to deal with the people who do them. From a personal point of view, I am more concerned about helping people whatever and wherever they are, irrespective of their behaviour and actions. Drugs and self-harm are damaging the body we have, deliberately and explicitly, so I would want to ask why, rather than just say stop.

The other side is that the church so often supports and even promotes body damage. We serve coffee after services, and accept that some people will drink a lot of coffee in their day, and ignore the fact that it is also a drug, and one that is very hard to break from. We do not find out about or promote the concepts that I have been learning, which is that the right foods make our body work better. And there is almost certainly in your church someone who drinks too much coffee and someone who eats too much, or too badly. And both of them will suffer for this at some point in their lives.

But I am not suggesting that the churches start diet courses or anything, just that there is teaching and messages, like this one, that are an important part of my Christian life, but are never touched on within the church. We miss out on some important lessons. Maybe we focus too much on denial and/or celebration, and miss out living normally.

Why do we need church buildings?

The church campaign about VAT on listed buildings, which was opposed by a strong campaign, made me wonder about the church's relationship buildings.

In fact, the two major campaigns from the church of late have been to endorse "traditional" marriage, and to oppose paying VAT on building alterations. I think that probably explains why I no longer feel that I can be a part of a church.

There seems to be a few reasons why church groups want a building - I may have missed a few, but I hope I have the majority of them.

1. It is cheaper in the long run than renting somewhere. Yes it is. But then there is a significant cost to running and maintaining a building. In the early years, the cost of running it is less, but there are also long-term costs involved in having a building. There is a real danger that the church group buys a building when it is growing and expanding, and then the group start to focus on the building - how to use it, what to do with it, things that need doing and how it could be improved.

 As the group focuses more on the building, within years or generations or however long, the focus on the building so often takes over. If numbers dwindle, as they often do with time, the burden of the building becomes even more significant, and the death spiral starts.

I don't remember Jesus telling people to buy buildings. I don't remember Jesus telling people to settle down and spend money on buildings. In fact, he said something about tearing a building down..... Yes it may seem to be cheaper to have your own building, but is that what Jesus' people should be doing? Rent somewhere, because a) it means you are not focusing one other people and b) it means that you meet somewhere that is public, somewhere that people are used to meeting. Meeting in the public places is surely what the early church did, and what Jesus did too.

2. It is easier to organise all sorts of activities when you have a building as a centre to do things from. Yes it is, if what you want to do is set up another organisation running their own activities. But why would you want to do that? Surely the best thing is to run events and meetings and whatever you want to do in the places that people meet anyway. Why not organise your young peoples events in the schools? Or your business meetings in the pub? Why do you actually have to have your own building to work from?

3. It represents a place of spiritual importance. This might be somewhere that people have worshiped for centuries, or a place with a particular spiritual significance. I think places are very important, having a interest in Celtic spirituality, but that doesn't mean that we should build churches on them, or revere them for ever. The proper Celtic understanding of places is about finding a thin place wherever you are, and remembering it, but not setting it in stone.

Jesus found places that were important, mainly because they were quiet, away from the crowds, but he didn't revere them. The places Jesus died and were buried were not revered for a long time, which is why there are so many different possibilities. Jesus didn't come to tell us to set up shrines to places of spiritual history - he told us to make disciples, to make the faith a modern, living faith. Places are important, but they are important NOW, not as historical monuments. When we have buildings marking places of spiritual importance, we are in danger of missing the spiritual places - the thin places - all around us now.

4. It is a place that inspires worship, and we can keep it as such a place. In some cases this is true. Having said that, there are some churches that do not inspire worship at all. I am not suggesting that places that inspire worship should be torn down, just that it is too easy to need somewhere like that to worship, and miss the reality that we should be able to meet with God anywhere. Yes it is good to meet with God in places that are inspirational, but we can forget how to meet with God in all sorts of other situations.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate that buildings can be useful or helpful, but the real question is whether the ownership and maintenance of buildings - something which occupies a lot of time, money and energy for congregations - is important as part of the mission that Jesus sent us on. Is spending time and energy on trying to get tax breaks for supporting buildings? Is that the most important challenge the church needs to make to the current governments policies? Really?

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

The title is a simple expression of Marxist ideology - not all of it by a very long way. It is also a concept challenged in Ayn Rands "Atlas Shrugged", which I have just finished reading, and which provides some interesting challenges. It is worth a read, if you are interested, but at 1200 pages long, this blog post may be all you need.

Rands approach is "objectivism", which, in the terms of economics, is "from each as he will give, to each as he earns" - that if you invent stuff, or create stuff, you deserve to make lots of money from it. She is also very opposed to regulation and restriction of practice, on the grounds that a free and fair competition gives the best opportunity for creative and imaginative minds to make a difference, and make something of themselves.

Before you think that these are trivial pieces of economic theory, the Marxist approach has been tried and failed in communist states - most especially China. And Rands approach is an important underpinning of Western capitalism, especially American. And that is in the process of failing as well.

The problem, I think, is that both of these approaches are flawed. I would like to explore why.

"From each according to his ability" - actually, properly understood, this is a very good principle. Each person should be enabled to perform to his - or her - ability. But this does not mean, as Rand suggests, that the most able just have to work harder. It does mean that those with greater ability should work in more challenging environments, because they will flourish there. It is about fitting people into the right places.

Rand is correct that, if you just make more able people work harder, then you are punishing ability. That is not what this should mean. Ability should not be punished, but rewarded. That is the key. And - to an extent - that reward needs to be financial.

"To each according to their need" - this is also a good principle, sort of. I would alter this, that to each is partly according to what they give, to their ability, to what they are able to achieve. This means that people should receive according to what they contribute, as a starting point, meaning that nurses and teachers would be paid reasonably, but people who simply juggle money would be paid less. And I would probably be paid less than I am, which is life.

But additionally, people should be able to have their basic needs met, which is what this is really about. It is not, as Rand suggested, about providing for peoples wants, or for what they can argue that they "need". It is about providing some basic needs - somewhere to live, something to eat and drink. We would probably include health care too. The important thing is that this is NEEDS, not WANTS. So much of our system is about providing something more than basic needs, which is not a bad thing in itself, but that is something over and above basic requirements.

This basic should be somewhere to live, not necessarily in the places they want or as large as they may desire, enough food for their family to live on properly, and a little spare money. And, of course, it must be worth while to get a job, and work needs to be taken into account. We far too often confuse needs and wants - it is not unreasonable to provide for peoples wants too, but we shouldn't confuse needs and wants.

The principle "from each ... to each ..." is actually not a bad one, as long as it is properly understood. The danger of Rands approach is that it fails to do what it claims, because people are not altruistic by their nature, and it depends on them being so. If they are not, but are greedy, then it will fail. As we are seeing.

If you don't believe that it fails, then watch the Leverson enquiry. That should convince you if nothing else does.

Malcolm Bowden

Some of you may have heard Malcolm Bowdens 4thought.tv slot this last week, where he claims that depression, and other mental illnesses, are the choice of the individual who suffers from them.

He says that a "true" Christian can never be depressed, because it is incompatible with their faith.

He says, on his website, that he has been involved in counseling many people, with what he calls "True Biblical Counseling".

There is so much I could say about him, but I would pick up a few for now. Firstly, he seems to have a real thing about "True" Christians, as opposed, I guess, to "False" ones. This always sounds alarms for me, because, in the end, what he means is Christians who agree with him. It means that people who don't agree, or - more significantly - people who are not helped by his "counseling" are not "True" Christians.

That will really help someone if they are already suffering from depression or self-esteem problems, to be then told that they are not really a Christian either.

The other problem I have though is far wider than this. My problem is that he given Christianity a bad name. Now most people I know will happily acknowledge that his opinions are not representative, but people I don't know may assume that this is a representation of evangelical Christianity.

And what bugs me most is this quick-fix approach to mental illness. Actually, I see it in other places, although this is a particularly bad form of it, where the assumption is that some short term counseling, or a few prayers sessions, can cure everything. The real challenge for the church communities, for evangelical Christians as a whole, is can they live with, work with, and support people who have mental illness over years. Can we provide the long-term care and concern that people need? Can we get away from the quick-fix mentality that is so common in society, and pray with people, spend time with people, support people over the years they may need it?

I hope so. And I hope that Malcolm Bowden and his like are seen as a dangerous and minority extreme, and not the genuine, real, caring side of Christianity.