Be angry, be very angry...

I've been doing at bit of homework recently on the development of Hydrogen fuel cells thinking that I might invest a bit of money into a company involved in their development and production - let's face it, the age of oil is over. So I signed up to a few email circulars that promised to offer info about 'CleanTech' stocks. Soon after I got sent a link to a site and innocently clicked through to this:
"The 21st Century's Most Precious Natural Resource is turning out to be the investment opportunity of the decade!
It's history's most illustrious, least appreciated, most essential resource. Without it, manufacturing would cease and the world economy would die. And we're using it up at a frightening pace.
You can bet you'll be hearing a lot about this precious commodity in the coming months and years. In fact, it's already starting to attract attention:
* Already, there are armed conflicts over its control in Sri Lanka, Bolivia, and Yugoslavia... border skirmishes between the U.S. and Mexico... even terrorist threats to halt its supply in Asia and the Middle East.
And now it's about to become the biggest boom industry, one that could make early investors very wealthy! Bigger than railroads in the 1880s. Bigger than aerospace in the 1950s. Bigger than Big Pharma in the 1980s, tech in the 1990s, and petroleum in the 1920s and early 2000s.
Those who take control of this neglected resource will control the world's wealth. And the best news is... the boom is just starting. China is investing billions. Closer to home, the Carlyle Group and Morgan Stanley are committing up to $20 billion.
What is this mystery sector I've been talking about? An essential and irreplaceable product -- drinking water. Potable H2O is the oil of the 21st century, and one would be hard-pressed to find a more compelling investment story. The bottom line is there's a fixed supply of the stuff and demand for it is exploding around the world."

And so it goes on, you can check out the link for yourself here>>>

Now, bear in mind that I'm a James Bond junkie which means I've recently watched Quantum of Solace (and I hope you have too!) The premise of the story is that a company is beginning to monopolise the world's water resources by taking advantage of the fragility and corruption in developing world countries. Now we all know that where Bond goes, the world follows (no really - remember the Space Shuttle!) Anyway, it just beggars belief that in our world, in which 1 billion extremely poor people lack a basic clean water supply and almost 2 million a year die from diseases carried in dirty water, people would want to move in on this as a profiteering venture. Most reports agree that for around £15 billion EVERYONE ON THE PLANET can be given access to safe water. You can quite literally bet your bottom dollar that big corporate interest out there doesn't want that to happen because it would undermine their desire to make a fat profit.

My wife and I will be travelling to Haiti in January with a bunch of friends and amongst the projects we'll be visiting is a clean water facility we're helping to build for a community of thousands of desperate people. Can you imagine us standing there when it's opened and asking people to scrape together the few pennies they do have just so that they can have a taste? The thought is just obscene.

Like I say, be angry, be very angry, it's a greedy new world we're entering.
But don't just be angry, be generous, give some water today:
Water Aid
Tearfund

The Manchester Congestion Charge - which way to vote?

Today I got my Manchester Congestion Charge ballot paper through the door. Now I face the dilemma of which way to vote. Let's face it, Democracy = Compromise, there's never a black and white answer. Here's the tension I find myself in: On the one hand I absolutely hate traffic jams, they're so high on my list of things I hate that when I once found myself on stage with David Cameron in front of a huge crowd and TV audience and he asked me "What would you change if you were Prime Minister?" I responded, "I'd get a gadget in my car to turn traffic lights from red to green." Seriously, I did. He was expecting a profound statement about social policy, I was thinking of the glory of the open road (I did come up with a proper response shortly afterwards). Then on the other hand I hate injustice, and I consider the T.I.F. proposals to be fundamentally unjust at the core. No investment in roads, but all the cash drivers pay goes to subsidise other people's travel (I generalise), that's just wrong.
So it's a dilemma, whichever way I vote I'll be compromising on some level. I do of course have my own ideas about how to sort things out, based on my own deeply considered opinion about what's wrong. Clogged arteries. That's the problem. Like an old heart Manchester's vehicle routes in and out are just too narrow. The A6 coming in from Stockport is useless, those ramshackle old shops through Levenshulme and Longsight need bulldozing to make room. Then we need to get some of those elevated roads, they're proper cool, look at any great city around the world, Skyways they call them in the states, we need lots of them, fpr starters all the way from Cheetham Hill to Victoria Station, swooshing in like a Reticulated Python. Then we need to fly in a whole load of those traffic cops from Madrid, have you seen them in action? Nothing stands still when they're on the case. Combine this with a properly funded Oyster card system like London and a bunch of cameras zapping the idiots who block all the city centre box junctions and you're sorted!
But back to the ballot. Sadly I don't have the option to vote on my own proposals, I have to vote on theirs. It's gonna cost me money that's for sure, about £20 a month based on my typical movements. Will I feel the benefit of reduced jams? Probably not. The only people likely to benefit at all are those who travel by train or those who've been waiting for the Metrolink coming past their house for years. I'm not in either of those categories. The question really is, What are the implications of a No vote? Will the city centre die a slow painful death? Probably not. It's knackered either way, after all who would want to site a business there if all the staff and customers have to pay for the privalege of trucking in? Maybe it will be good for the flagging city centre property market though? People currently driving in from the suburbs might decide to relocate. Or they might just get another job. One thing's certain, a No vote would be a huge embarrassment for the city, we'll be the butt of all the jokes. And if there's anything I dislike more than traffic jams it's embarrassment. Maybe for that reason alone I should vote Yes?

Atheists Going Public

You may or may not have heard about the British Humanist Society's plans to begin advertising on buses with the catchy slogan "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." It's an interesting development within the larger debate that's been rumbling on for some time now - whether or not faith is a public or private matter. I'm a passionate advocate for the place of faith in public life. Privatized beliefs are utterly pointless, I mean, why bother believing anything if it has no connection to the way you live your life and if it isn't worth sharing with someone else? Books like the God Delusion and poster campaigns like this one (which probably doesn't even need to run now as it's attracted so much publicity already) bring the God conversation into the public realm and I love that. Faith is such a deliciously juicy subject to discuss and that's why it drives me nuts that it's too taboo to bring up in polite conversation. If only people could get beyond their cultural conditioning that schools them to resist any situation in which their worldview might be challenged. Pesky memes, they spoil all the fun.

For an interesting look at the 'Probably' bit of this poster see my review of the book 'Deluded By Dawkins'.

Formation vs Information

On Sunday I took part in a TV debate about violent crime and what if anything can be done about it. It was pretty humbling to meet some amazing people like Angie Lawrence from Mothers Against Violence and Helen Newlove whose husband Garry was kicked to death only yards from his own front door by a gang of drunken thugs.
There was general consensus around a number of points such as the joke that we know as the British Criminal Justice system. Host Terry Christian seemed to have a bee in his bonnet about providing jobs for the unemployed in deprived communities. It's always hard to get a word in on these sort of shows so I had to wait for a chance to get a point in that wouldn't just be an echo of what everyone else was saying. That opportunity came when we got on to the subject of education.
One of the things I have concluded after years of working with young people is that lots of people are prepared to offer them information. We are after all in the 'information age'. Schools try desperately to fill young heads with facts that can be regurgitated later in the exam hall. If they're progressive they might offer specialisms in 'information technology'. I've sat in on council youth strategy meetings where Connexions and the Youth Service bleat on about frameworks for offering young people IAG (information, advice and guidance). That's all well and good but what about formation?
Formation is the development of deeply rooted character attributes, the shaping of attitude and the expression of human qualities such as empathy, forgiveness, compassion, patience, generosity and humour. I'm becoming more and more convinced that the only way to change our nation is to emphasise and maximise the formative potential of our social environments. The home, schools and colleges, workplaces, recreational spaces, faith communities, with a bit of re-imagination they can all begin to contribute to bring about the change this nation so desperately needs. It also happens to be an area in which those of us with spiritual insight ought to be able to provide real leadership.

WKD = Wasted Kid's Despair

When I'm zooming around from place to place there's not much can stop me in my tracks. But yesterday I saw something so heart-breakingly staggering that I literally screeched the car to a halt. By the side of the road, at the end of a set of guilty looking black skid marks was a makeshift shrine. I've commented about these before (here) but have never seen such an 'impressive' example before.
The shrine was a couple of miles east of Manchester city centre in a place called Openshaw, somewhere that many of my friends have chosen to live so that they can be salt and light in this needy community. And what a powerful reminder of why they need to keep up their efforts. The real tragedy in this image is not that a young life has been lost (the flowers read RIP DALE) but that the friends' tribute is so completely without irony. If you can't make out the photo which I hastily took on my mobile phone let me explain it. Flanking either side of the 20 or so bunches of flowers are at least 100 empty bottles of WKD, with a few bottles of Jack Daniels and Smirnoff thrown in for good measure. Every single bottle has the appearance of having been 'downed in one' and is planted in the earth by its neck.
If ever there was an image that summed up the utter numbness and hopelessness of today's urban generation surely this is it.

Cold hearts, sick minds

I'm on a bit of a heavy train of thought at the moment. It may have been triggered by a TV programme I watched yesterday about the great Spanish artist Goya. In the latter years of his life, following his witnessing the atrocities of Napoleon's invasion, his work became very dark and grotesque. In particular I think I resonated with Goya's sense of hopelessness in the face of mans inhumanity to man!
The recent news story about the UN aid workers and peace keepers perpetrating child abuse has both incensed and depressed me in equal measure. I struggle to conceive how one human being can treat another in this way. How can a human hearts become so cold as to commit such acts? How can human minds become so depraved to offer no resistance of conscience? Perhaps this is what Jesus was getting at when he told the crowds that anyone who says ‘Raca’ to his brother should be brought before the highest court in the land. That little Aramaic phrase simulates a retching of the throat prior to spitting – it’s an expression of utter contempt. And I do worry that this is where the headlines start, with the variety of ways and means through which even kids are taught the language of hate. At this point I’m reminded of the writings of De Touqeville, particularly his reflections on the newly emerging American nation:
“The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone.”
Because my job often takes me into the most deprived communities in the city I often see the seedlings of this kind of attitude. Some young people I meet will have a firmly rooted stance that everyone outside their inner circle is a nobody (and of course there are categories below nobody but you wouldn’t want to be in them). Sadly these young people are likely to be making their own headlines sooner or later, for all the wrong reasons.

And so, and yet, with all that as a backdrop, I absolutely love the gospel. The pure, joyous and just gospel of Jesus of Nazareth who gave his life so that a new community could be born. And I love being part of that community, the church, in which I can be held accountable for my attitudes and hopefully keep my own heart from freezing over. And I want that community to grow and grow, because I see little hope for the world if it doesn't.

Wayside Pulpit

Driving around the city on a daily basis there are all sorts of things that catch my eye. Some of these things are clever, or beautiful, or original. Some aren't. In the second category are those gaudy, florescent signs found outside churches aka the 'Wayside Pulpit'. Just down the road from my house a new sign has gone up, bright yellow background with black writing in foot high block caps: "ALL WELCOME HERE" It's perhaps the most unwelcoming sign imaginable. And herein lies the problem. It's not just that local PCCs or whoever commissions these signs seem utterly unaware that technology has moved on to the extent that a full colour digitally printed poster would actually be a cheaper solution. No, there is a common tone of voice that seems present wherever the Wayside Pulpit is found.
I was driving down the A6 through Stockport the other day and saw a sign that must get at least 100,000 cars driving past it everyday: "JESUS CAME INTO THE WORLD TO SAVE SINNERS". It was classic of the paradigm within which all these posters seems to exist, US vs THEM. A line is drawn and rather than stepping over it in an outwards motion the slogans expect the reader to cross over and move inwards. The Stockport sign is a classic example. How different would the tone of voice be if the whole of 1 Tim 1:15 was quoted, "Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst." Rather than emphasising to passing commuters just how different they are, SINNERS not SAVED, a message like this might just be able to build a tentative association... "YOU + US, we're not that different, we have stuff in common, it might be worth us taking this conversation further..."

Information Overload

I've spent the past couple of days in London. While I was there I got chance to take a look at the Cans Festival 'Exhibition' which is just a short walk from Waterloo Station. It's the kind of place you could easily spend a whole day, but I only had about half an hour to spare so it was the briefest of glances. As you walk through the tunnel the colour, wit and propaganda leaps out from every painted brick. Most of the pieces in the 'fat end' of the tunnel were pretty large works, painstakingly executed. But at the far end, just beyond the bend and back in the daylight, was a whole patchwork quilt of smaller stencils, hardly a single square inch of the concrete was visible. I reckon there must've been a few hundred artists who'd gone to town on it. 

As I stood there taking in a 360 view I sensed my mind beginning to 'zoom out'. There was just too much information, it was too much to process. I started wondering if I was actually surveying not just a randomly assorted mish-mash of artists but actually a single, powerful, metaphor of the world we now inhabit. Our senses are struggling to cope with information overload. There are so many messages, so many voices demanding our attention. Yes there's a heck of a lot of crap - but it's such well packaged crap - how do we begin to discern the good from the bad, the worthy from the pointless? And perhaps most relevant to a blogger like me, if we feel we actually have something to say, how do we cut through the crap and get noticed? 

American Idol does Hillsong

I think I should be happy about this but instead it just gives me the creeps. Can anyone offer a diagnosis as to why?

"...but this is a Christian nation!"

"...but this is a Christian nation!" So ends another whining diatribe against the latest secular or islamic or humanistic or homo-erotic or politically correct initiative / incident / news story.
Two things collided this week to remind me again just how misguided these passionately held sentiments are. Firstly, I've been reading the Old Testament books of Jeremiah and Daniel, alongside Brueggemann's 'The Prophetic Imagination'. Then, midweek, Channel 4 showed 'Kingdom of Heaven' and whilst the film as a whole was largely a disappointment to me it was still thought provoking on a number of levels. At one point in the film Jeremy Irons delivers a line about Jerusalem (and I wish I could remember it) that evokes the contradiction at the heart of that much used phrase "Christian nation." The blood that has been shed over that dusty bit of land is utterly heinous. Jesus himself made it absolutely clear that his intention was not to establish a Kingdom with geographic borders but a Kingdom defined by a Way of life, exemplified by people of every ethnos living in relationship with him and harmony with one another.
And where do Jeremiah and Daniel fit into that? Well they are just two of the characters we meet in the grand timeline of biblical history who are doing exactly what we (Christians in 21st Century Britain) ought to be doing - working out by our daily choices and actions exactly what it means to honour God and live for him in the midst of a society that revolves around a very different centre of gravity. The quirk of global history known as Christendom is over and we find ourselves living out the same question as our biblical forebears - those who sweated in Egypt, wept in Babylon and faced down Caesar's lions... "How can we prove the value of our convictions over-against the current socio-political backdrop?"

The Location of Evil

It's been dawning on me of late that we live in a world that teaches us to always locate evil outside of ourselves. This is manifest in the blame culture, the demonization of certain people groups and sub-cultures and the blatant hypocrisy of mass media. And this isn't just a problem that resides in secular society, the church is equally possessing of this worldview. We have a particularly effective way of ensuring we are not troubled by the thought that something within us may be wrong. Religious imagination weaves a spell constructing a Satan with powers out of all proportion with the character described in the pages of scripture. He is omnipresent, he knows our thoughts, he afflicts us with sicknesses of body, mind and spirit. Before long we actually begin to shift our focus away from the author and perfecter of our faith and begin addressing our prayers to this imposter - beckoning him nearer by the volume of our declarations that he must flee.
It is two millenia since the Master first warned us that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean, rather 'all these evils come from inside' (see Mark 7). Why then do we still fail to allow the transformational potential of these words to affect our discipleship? Are we so blinkered by pride that we fail to see that the seeds of every human evil lie dormant below the carefully raked topsoil of our hearts. I hope not but fear so. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect every believer to walk around in a state of permanent shame and unworthiness, I just want to hear less blaming of the devil for issues that are self-generated and need dealing with honestly in the privacy of the 'secret place'.

The Power of Ikea

I'm reading Walter Wink's The Powers That be: Theology for a New Millenniumat the moment. It's an interesting book that has a lot to say about the interaction between the spiritual and the material. Wink believes that every organisation, has a 'spirit' - not an actual celestial being like an angel or a demon - but a personality of sorts which once it has been given life then begins to will and act through the entity of the organisation. These 'spirits' can often be tangibly felt by those with a modicum of spiritual discernment. I must admit, whilst his writing is communicated with a good deal of biblical coherence I was struggling to make the mental leap necessary to take his ideas on board. Then I went to Ikea.
What is it about Ikea? The place makes me feel so uncomfortable (which must be the ultimate irony considering its a furniture store!) The minute I walk in the place I start to get a creeping sensation of rage. And every Ikea store I've been in seems to have the same effect. It's like there's a mass-hypnotism in progress, people just aren't themselves. From the car park to the checkout it seems that the blue and yellow beast has its wicked way with otherwise ordinary citizens. Is it just me or can anyone else relate to that???

Is virginity the last taboo?

I was surprised by the affirming stance taken in this article which was printed in Sunday's Observer... what do you think?
"In our hyper-sexualised, ultra-liberal society, virgins are perhaps the only sexual sub-culture left with the power to shock us. You can be as gay or as fetishy or as promiscuous or as transsexual as you like; you can be a regular at Cake parties and on the dogging scene; you can be part of an open relationship, and we won't bat an eyelid. But a virgin? Are you serious? We simply don't expect to encounter them any more. We certainly don't expect to meet attractive, assertive, well-dressed, professional, celibate Christians in their late twenties. But it seems that they do exist. And furthermore, they reckon there are hidden benefits to their choice."

CLICK HERE for full article

The 'I' in 'Everything'

Over Christmas I read Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope by Brian McLaren. It's an ambitious book that attempts to relocate Jesus from the first century to the 21st. Taking in all the big global issues like war, trade, poverty, politics and the environment McLaren tries to join the dots and get to root causes. There's loads of examples in the book to provide ammunition to any wannabee right-on (or should that be left-on?) finger-wagger but I was simply left with the sad and scary reality that I am part of the everything and I must change. Donald Miller describes his own similar moment of revelation in Blue Like Jazz:
Do I want social justice for the oppressed, or do I just want to be known as a socially active person? I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I don't have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself. I am not browbeating myself here; I am only saying that true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change would have to start with the individual. I was the very problem I had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read "I AM THE PROBLEM"
God help me.
Please.

Insurgency of Love

"When a nation is conquered and occupied by another nation, insurgent movements seek to expel the occupiers. The insurgents see themselves not as criminals or rebels fighting a legitimate authority, but rather as a resistance movement fighting occupiers of injustice. They are freedom fighters seeking liberation from tyranny; they are a legitimate power seeking to expel an illegitimate one...
...everyone is caught up in the ultimate vicious cycle of terror and counterterror, violence and counterviolence, hate and counterhate. We can only escape by defecting from this whole vicious, suicidal system... walking away from the king in Rome, walking away from the armed rebels who dream of overthrowing him, and following a weaponless prophet in Galilee...
...seemingly disparate people defect and band together in the way of Jesus... they secretly plot detonations of hope. They quietly conspire to set off explosions of kindness. The plan gentle coup d'etats to replace regimes of domination and oppression with movements of empowerment and service. In a complete overthrow of violent terrorism, they fly planes of generosity into towers of need and plant improvised encouragement devices by roadsides in neighborhoods everywhere..."

from Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope by Brian McLaren

A Christmas Dream

One of the favourite books I own is 'A Testament of Hope', an anthology of the speeches and writings of Martin Luther King Jr. When I need a moment of inspiration I'll often dwell for a few minutes on those great words. Probably the most famous speech King made was I Have A Dream, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC in August 1963. It slowly builds by describing 100 years of frustration since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and then turns to face the outstanding injustice of the day with visionary fervour:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
And it's these words that are echoing in my heart as another year draws to a close. I'm wondering what kind of society we would live in if the same energy that has been directed at ensuring racial equality amongst our children were also to be directed at forming character in them.
As a parent I must confess that I do have some apprehension about the way my little boy will cope with the voices and the forces vying for influence over him. Will he come to see the sleaze and dysfunction as normality? Will he assimilate the inverted values of the world around him that heckles heroes and celebrates cynics? Or will we, his family, be successful in helping him grow the individual content of character that Martin Luther King foresaw as the essential building block of a just world. My Christmas prayer is that it will be the latter.

Brand vs Dawkins

In so many ways this clip from Russell Brand's Radio 2 show last Saturday night is so much more than a comedian talking to a scientist, it illustrates the great paradigm shift of our times - from modernism to postmodernism. I'd love to know what you think of it - leave me a comment.

Beehives and the Church

It was Albert Einstein who famously said "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Of course Einstein wasn't a biologist but the point he was making is of huge significance across all disciplines be they scientific or philosophical. He was speaking (against the reductionist paradigm of his age) of the connectedness of all life - the complex and collaborative nature of life on Planet Earth.
The Beehive is a truly amazing thing, a special community with special relationship to the world around it. I do find myself thinking that there's something strangely ecclesial about it - even perhaps monastic. As the bees live out their rhythm of life the ecosystem around them is given life. Surely that's a picture of the church. And if we follow it to its natural conclusion we wouldn't want to turn the whole world into a hive would we? No, we would simply ensure that we are true to our vocation as those with a unique role in releasing the life-potential of the world around us.
So if the church disappeared off the surface of the globe how long would humankind have left?

Bring Back God

One of the 'fleshly' appetites I have to try hard to keep in check is my love of designer clothes - I'm not into flash but I really love quality and I have some brands that I'm pretty loyal to. This is now compounded by the fact that fashion is an industry not exactly renowned for its ethical record - right now as I speak GAP are reeling from recently being busted (again) for using factories that employ child labour. But check this out - a designer with not only an ethical but also a spiritual conscience! London based Katherine Hamnett made her name in the 80's with those oversize T-Shirts saying 'CHOOSE LIFE' as worn by Wham. As with everything in fashion what goes around comes around but in the last 25 years the cultural goalposts have shifted. The new range of slogans include the superb 'BRING BACK GOD'. Her website describes the idea like this:
"Why isn’t there just nothing? Nobody knows how life started. Darwinism is just part of the answer and all other possibilities have to be considered equally valid including a supernatural one, including a creator. The right to believe in a God is one of our civil liberties."
So will I soon be cleansing my label conscience in one of these organic cotton tees, printed in the UK with water-based, environmentally friendly printing inks? Not at £40 a pop I won't!

Vive la Revolution

History is one of those subjects that is very dependent on a good narrator. One guy who fits into that category is the comedian Mark Steel. I just read his book Vive La Revolution and as well as making me laugh lots it also made me think too - especially about church. You see, around 200 years ago when the revolution was gaining momentum as a movement, groups, caucuses and personalities began to emerge who would shape the future of the French nation and indeed of the world (if you consider the French Revolution to be the paradigm of all modern revolutions). The thing I consider to be significant is that none of these political groups set out with a vision of what their particular club ought to look like. They were all far more concerned with giving their attention to higher things, namely the new world order which they believed could be created and was worth fighting for. And this is where church leaders ought to pay attention. Growing their membership was not the aim. Neither were their activities an exercise in proving the primacy of their pattern of belief over the other variants on offer. For them recruitment was just a necessary step towards their goal of social transformation. Similarly, fulfillment for an individual member was not found in convincing another individual to believe and join the group, it was that they would draw all those around them suffering the same oppression into the action of removing the old order to establish a new world built on a totally different set of values.

I really think we should be spending less time thinking about church growth as an end in itself and more time devoted to sharing with people the amazing Christian vision of what life would be like if the kingdoms of this world became the kingdoms of our Lord.