Category Archives: politics
Religion for Atheists results in a new moral certainty.
Alain de Botton has recently suggested a new kind of religion for atheists – one which takes all the best bits of religion such as community, generosity, creativity but leaves behind all the less desirable parts such as the rules and the actual beliefs. Ed West in today’s telegraph commented how this would always end up like an alcohol free lager – missing something crucial and something that doesn’t do much for anybody.
An interesting article – his last paragraph was this:
The real problem is that religion is always replaced by something else. The rise of fads such as homoeopathy is well documented, but more commonly people’s religious desires for certainty, morality and community are transferred to their politics; that is why there is this sense that those outside the communion of correct beliefs today are morally unclean, and new sins such as “racist” and “sexist” replace “heretic” and “sinner”. That is the real “religion for atheists”.
This struck a chord with something that we were discussing on Jon Marlow’s blog, about whether postmodernism was giving way to something else – a sense of ‘correct belief’ where everything outside of the prevailing view is not tolerated, shouted down or responded to with the refrain “You can’t say that!”. We called this ‘neo-conformity’. Interesting that this trend has been spotted by others and I wonder if it is really leading onto a change in era.
My 12 most read posts of 2011
1. The Best Caramel Shortbread – Not my most interesting post but it keeps showing up at the top of search requests! I updated it in December 2011 to include a recipe.
2. Lucio and Kaka show their faith – Comment on the place of faith in football, written just before the 2010 world cup.
3. Henry Scott Holland: “Death is nothing at all” – Some thoughts on the popular poem by Henry Scott Holland which is often used at funerals.
4. You can’t help who you fall in love with – A response to a news article where a prison guard falls in love with an inmate.
5. The poor in the gospel of Luke (iv) – One of a number of posts examining what Jesus says about the poor and injustice in the gospel of Luke. For the whole series, click here.
6. Into the Wild – movie review – review of the 2007 film about the true story of Chris McCandless.
7. New Starbucks Logo – Comment on the new starbucks logo announced in Jan 2011.
8. Kieran Richardson and Kaka – More about faith and football following Kieran Richardson’s “I belong to Jesus” T-Shirt and goal celebration in November 2011.
9. Martin Luther on Religion and Politics – Quote from Martin Luther.
10. Why didn’t the rapture happen? Will it ever? – Response and critique of rapture theology following Harold Camping’s failed prediction of the end of the world in May 2011.
11. Donald Miller reviews Love Wins – Donald Miller’s take on Rob Bell’s controversial book.
12. I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead… – Quote in the aftermath of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. See also Has Bin Laden been brought to Justice.
Like this:
Iain Duncan Smith on the undeserving poor
In an interview for Newsnight yesterday (9/6/11) Iain Duncan Smith said “I have never used the language of the deserving or undeserving poor”.
A quick google search brought up this BBC link from November 2010, quoting Tim Montgomerie, a close advisor of Iain Duncan Smith as saying this below, with a simple deduction from the BBC Columnist, Chris Bowlby, following it:
Yet his moral agenda is clear. “I think the best sort of language of welfare… says that if you do the right thing, we will support you,” he says.
But if you don’t, this implies, you will not be supported.
Duncan Smith ought to be careful with his words if he doesn’t want to be misunderstood.
It seems (from the same article) that this philosophy has worked its way into government policy, despite Iain Duncan Smith’s dislike of the phrase ‘undeserving poor’
The eye is the lamp of the body – Bin Laden photos
This came through to my inbox this week from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity. What particularly struck me was the assertion that the graphic and violent images of 9/11 have been stored up and re-emerged in the impromptu triumphal celebrations on the day of Bin Laden’s death. See what you think:
Political expediency it may have been, but Barack Obama’s decision not to release photographs of Osama Bin Laden’s body is a welcome act of national self-censorship that constitutes a significantly counter-cultural move.
Ever since news of the al-Qaeda leader’s killing broke, there has been an inevitable drip-feed of ever more graphic images through the media to the viewing public. Iconic portraits of Bin Laden first gave way to stills of the compound and the abandoned American helicopter, and then to video footage from within the house, including the heavily bloodstained bedroom where Bin Laden was shot dead.
The media are eager to capture such images because it is the image that stimulates and sustains public interest in the story, whether on television or online. It’s the ever-present promise of new pictures that keeps us enthralled. The Internet and a growing superfluity of high-definition, touch-screen devices are constantly reinforcing the lesson television first taught us: seeing is believing. Naturally enough, the corollary is also true: in the absence of images there is doubt, or outright disbelief.
So it is that some believe the US should release photographs of Bin Laden’s corpse by way of providing conclusive proof of his death. Nevertheless, the president has decreed that these very graphic images will not be seen. They have been censored on the grounds that their publication would constitute a threat to US national security. I, for one, am inclined to agree with his decision.
Doubtless, national and political self-interest influenced Obama’s decision, but perhaps we should allow for the possibility that so also did a genuine concern for the global greater good. Since the eye is ‘the lamp of the body’ (Matthew 6:22), and just one look can kill the divine image-bearing people we were made to be (Matthew 5:27-29), we all need to consider carefully the imagery to which we expose ourselves, and to which we expose others. Is it not in all our interests to look on that which will enhance our humanity, and to look away from that which will diminish it?
For proof of the compelling power images can exercise over hearts and minds, look no further than those who, having been inundated this past decade with the traumatic images of 9/11, and of the face of the man behind that atrocity, took to the streets this week to celebrate his killing.
Even in our visual age, there are things we really don’t need to see. Trust me.
It reminds me of the much quoted phrase that one 9/11 survivor said – “I can’t find it in me to be glad that one more person is dead”. Forgiveness really does affect us as well as those we are forgiving.
Tony Blair’s Journey
I don’t ofter read political memoirs – Tony Blair’s book A Journey being only the second one I have read if you include Nelson Mandela’s A Long Walk to Freedom, which, given Mandela’s extraordinary life is not the run of the mill political memoir. Blair’s time in office coincided with the bulk of my twenties, which I think is when you really start to see and understand the world and work out who you are. There were also several huge world events that he had to lead through, such as 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, the London Tube bombings and of course the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it was clearly a challenging time for leadership and that is why I wanted to read the book.
In no particular order, here are my thoughts.
1. Overall, it is an interesting read giving his inside perspective on the events as he saw them and what it was like to lead through them. I found particularly interesting the chapters on the Northern Ireland peace deal, Diana’s death and the week in which there was the G8, the 7/7 London bombings, and the successful Olympic Bid announcement. There are plenty of little asides which lighten the mood. For example, the day after Diana’s funeral Tony and his family went up to Balmoral to spend a weekend with the Queen and Royal Family – something that all prime ministers do on the first weekend in September. Blair describes the scene on Sunday afternoon when Prince Phillip always hosts a barbecue. That is, he cooks – there are no servants that day - and afterwards the Queen goes around collecting the dirty plates and puts on her rubber gloves to do the washing up.
The Royals cook, and serve the guests. They do the washing up. you think I’m joking , but I’m not. They put the gloves on and stick their hands in the sink. You sit there having eaten, the Queen asks if you’ve finished, she stacks the plates up and goes off to the sink.
There are a number of similar small amusing incidents scattered though the book including another story about Jacques Chirac being ribbed by the Japanese PM about some comments he made about English food during a dinner with the Queen at the G8 in 2005.
2. Blair describes his significant relationships with other members of the government throughout the book. For most people he spends a few paragraphs, maybe a page or two describing their strengths and weaknesses and what he liked and disliked about working with them. For Gordon Brown it is different. This relationship winds its way throughout and plays out like a tragic love story. Two young proteges, both elected to the Commons in the same year (in the wake of a disastrous election for the Labour party in 1983), first find a common bond. As they get work their way up the party, they are still good friends. When the leadership becomes available after John Smith’s death, the cracks start to show and by the end there is all out war with neither party really able to hear or listen to the other. As I said this story unfolds from almost the first page to the last and is a sad indication of how good friends can drift apart over small disagreements. (Of course, Blair writes it up as if it is always Gordon who doesn’t understand, but that is another point!)
3. Blair was the leader of the Labour Party for 13 years, and for ten of those, Prime Minister. It is obvious that he regards leadership as setting the direction and bringing the party with him. To be sure, leaders need to lead, to set the direction and give a sense of purpose, otherwise they end up being little more than managers. However, throughout the book Blair always speaks about his direction as being way out in front of the party with most struggling to understand, and he is always trying to persuade others to catch up with him and take his point of view. This happens on an international scale as well as national, and it only really bit back at him during and after the Iraq war. Unfortunately this gives him a slightly self-justifying tone, almost always believing that his position is the right one even up to the projection that if Gordon had stuck with the New Labour project he would have won the 2010 election. On this he may be right, but it did get a bit tiresome after 600 pages.
A quote from the chapter entitled ‘Departure’ about the handing over of power to Gordon Brown and the New Labour project:
It’s really hard to say all this, and I have thought long and hard about it. There’s nothing worse than ‘oh if he had listened to me’ rubbish, and so, after trying valiantly not to fall into self-justifying mode – a bane of political memoirs, I fear – it’s a pity I have. yet I look at those policy papers now – the work on social exclusion, on the use of social security budgets, on structural financial savings, on tax reform, on the next phases of crime, health and education reform - and I do think how different it would have been if we had done it.
4. Of course, the think that will define Blair’s premiership is the Iraq war. It was clear at the time (to me at least) that even if no one else agreed with him, he sincerely believed that going to war was the right thing to do. I’m not going to rehash all the arguments here, but just say that Blair devotes three or four chapters to the build up, combat, and aftermath of the Iraq war. I think he realises that most people reading still aren’t going to agree with him so he takes the tone – I know you’re not going to agree but these are the reasons I went and even had we known there were no WMD’s before the war it still would have been the right thing to do on a moral level. In this sense what he said was not a lot different (but a lot more detailed) than what Bush said in his recent interview promoting his memoirs.
To be honest, three or four chapters of this self-justification of Iraq, although interesting, was just too much. After these chapters I had to put the book down for a few days and read something lighter instead and I was relieved to pick up the book again and find the next chapter contained less self-justification, although of course it was still there, about the crazy week which included the G8, the Olympic bid announcement, and of course the London Tube bombings.
It’s an interesting read, not one I feel I need to read again, but one that makes sense of the man and what he was trying to do with his party and the country.
George Bush Interview with NBC
Here follows a couple of political posts. I’ve just watched the interview that George W. Bush gave to NBC’s Matt Lauer in advance of his political memoir, Decision Points. The whole interview can be seen here. Whether or not you agreed with his politics (for a lot of it, I didn’t) there are some interesting leadership points and other thoughts that come out of it. How much of these has come with the benefit of hindsight can be debated.
1. In the interview, he actually comes across ok – as a likeable fellow and as someone with a grasp and confidence in the decisions he made. Oliver Stone’s movie ‘W.‘ paints Bush as a weak man driven by his advisers and always trying to get out of his father’s shadow and to earn his approval. The movie leaves him stuck in the mire of Iraq and deep in uncertainty about what to do. In the interview, when questioned about the surge he recognises he was going against advice from some quarters and was also taking a risk, but that it was a decision that had to be made and, like it or not, it was his to make. It begs the question why on earth he didn’t give more interviews like this whilst he was president.
2. He is unafraid to defend the decisions he made whilst also admitting where he made mistakes without absolving responsibility. At the end of the interview he discusses a photo that was taken of him leaning to look out of the window of Air Force One over the destruction of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. He says it was a mistake as it made him look out of touch with what was going on, which he wasn’t. Who’s fault does he say the mistake was. he could have shifted responsibility onto the photographer or an adviser, but he doesn’t. It was his mistake. It seems that when Bush does admit a mistake he doesn’t try to exonerate himself from it. Leaders need to be able to stick up for what they think and either defend it or admit responsibility.
3. A fairly obvious point, but one that so many leaders miss – Bush said he didn’t care that his approval rating was so low by the time he left the presidency. Why? Because he was the leader and decision maker and as leader he was always going to face criticism from somewhere, no matter what he did. Leaders shouldn’t chase popularity.
4. There is one point in the interview where he avoids a question put to him. The discussions is about waterboarding as a technique used to extract information from certain prisoners of Guantanamo Bay. When asked how he knew it was legal (i.e. not torture), he responds that he had some lawyers look into the law and they told him. (At certain times leaders need to rely entirely on the advice from others who know more in their field). The interviewer responded by asking whether, given that he thinks it’s legal, it would be ok for an American prisoner in another country to be subjected to it. Bush avoids the question. I can see that it would be very tricky to answer but Bush basically avoided it by saying “I’m not going to debate this, that practice saved lives”. I would have preferred a greater acknowledgment of the question.
5. Finally, recalling the terrible events of 9/11 (and of hurricane Katrina), it made me very grateful that I was not president then having to lead a nation in the midst of such shock, grief and uncertainty and having to decide what course of action to take.
HT: Dave Cook at Cookie’s Days.
Normans Tebbit speaks about coallition
Norman Tebbit has spectacularly missed the point in his blog for the Telegraph yesterday.
And to cap it all, the leader of the party which should have walked away with a massive majority over a government whose reckless spending has landed us with Greek-style debts is engaged in talks with the losing third party over the terms on which he might be allowed to form a government.
The point is that Cameron’s Conservatives did not walk away with a massive majority. The country voted and the result is a hung parliament. The country has therefore voted that it wants it’s politicians to talks to each other, there fore that is what he must do. Cameron isn’t obliged to talk to the Lib Dems, he can talk to any of the elected parties to try and form a majority if he wants. Tebbit goes on:
In my view Mr Cameron should make it plain that while he would be willing to form a government and would welcome support from any party, he would offer no hostages, nor concessions as a condition of office.
This may be what Tebbit wants him to do, but Cameron will form no alliances unless he compromises on some things. If he doesn’t want to compromise he can try and form a minority government.
The country has spoken that they do not want a single-party majority government, but wants it’s politicians to talk to each other. Therefore, Mr Tebbit, that is what they should do!
People feel let down on the economy
Interesting BBC news article about how people feel let down and disappointed that perhaps there isn’t a group of highly intelligent people running the world who know exactly what they are doing. They are all engaged in a kind of educated guessing game.
In the newsrooms, boardrooms and tearooms of Britain there is a great mistake being made.
In decades of reporting about the city and government, the most widespread belief I have come across is that somewhere there is a group of people who know what they are doing.
This group has the answer for to how best to run the economy, how to run a bank, how to put Ikea cabinets together without screaming and perhaps even how to make a traffic warden smile.
When things go wrong, people don’t just feel disappointed. They feel let down, betrayed and swindled because they feel that our leaders knew what to do to make things better but failed to do the right thing. Either they didn’t care enough or were looking after their own interests rather than the general good…. more
Rather than feel disillusioned, surely the answer is to take responsibility for that little part of the world that we, personally have responsibility for. We can all try to keep ourselves to a budget, offer hospitality to those around us, be compassionate with others, build community, and raise our children well. All this contributes in a small way to the well-being of the world we live in.
Religious Views cost beauty queen
The runner-up at the Miss USA beauty pageant says her outspoken opposition to gay marriage cost her first place in the competition.
During the televised event, Carrie Prejean – Miss California – said she believed that “a marriage should be between a man and a woman”.
She had been asked for her views on the subject by one of the judges, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.
“It did cost me my crown,” said Ms Prejean, after the competition.
The eventual winner of the pageant was Kristen Dalton, Miss North Carolina.
>> from BBC News
I have to admire this girl for standing up for her views (and her faith?) even though she knew it would cost her the chances of winning. But it does beg the questions, how free is free speech, and where exactly does the prejudice lie? She gave what was deemed to be the ‘wrong’ answer by Perez Hilton, one of the beauty contest judges and that affected his vote. His prejudice against her views came out in this issue.
Doesn’t it just show that we are all intolerant of those who do not agree with us?
Labour smear at Easter
Who would want to be a politician, or even a political advisor? Damian McBride, on of Gordon Brown’s political advisors, has today resigned after a private email which he exchanged with another advisor became known and published by a political blogger. The email contained suggestions as to how they could ‘smear’ the reputations of Conservative MPs. He resigned as soon as it became out in the open.
This was certainly an underhand and immoral thing to do. And it is interesting to note that he only resigned when his actions became public – the crime is in getting caught, not in doing it in the first place! But the real trouble is that we expect our politicians to be above reproach, even perfect. In some of them, this only encourages an external appearance of goodness whilst trying to hide everything else beneath the surface, so they won’t be caught. The real truth is that no-one is perfect, so in one sense, why should we expect our politicians to be? When we try to win approval by living by some external code, all of us will fail, whether we are caught or not.
This is why Easter is so wonderful. God has recognised that all of us will fail if we try to live up to a moral standard on our own. Even if we try very hard, we will not achieve even our own standards, let alone God’s. However, in Jesus, God has enabled that moral standard to be fulfilled for us. His life was lived perfectly. His death was not for any crime that he had committed. And his resurrection shows us that the ultimate final act of life, death, is overcome. God has shown us that resurrection is another way to live.
When we acknowledge that we cannot be perfect on our own merits, Jesus steps in, accepts us as we are, and allows us to live through his perfection. The resurrection opens us up to us a new way of living. The old way of having to prove ourselves and to appear to be above reproach is beaten, and out of it rises the freedom to live a life without fear and with confidence in God’s approval through Jesus.
Christ is Risen. Death is Defeated. God has accepted us. Happy Easter.
