Category Archives: Life

Future Stock!

Posted on by
Reply
.!.

This article first published in Benchmark Magazine (http://www.benchmarkmag.com/).

Barbie: Fairytopia

Pensions! Does anyone still believe that the pension system is functional? Do any of us think that pensions will provide for us when we retire? What is going on?

Surely the point of retirement was originally to provide for those who were too unfit, through age, to work? Pension was society’s provision of an income for those who could not provide for themselves due to, age related, forced retirement from useful work.

Somewhere along the line we confused this pure vision of care for the elderly and developed a selfish vision of escaping the ‘horror'(!) of our working lives and living out a leisure fantasy that we surely deserved!

Be Kind Rewind

Well, living as a community just isn’t like that! We all have a responsibility to do good for one another. John Calvin once said that Christians should “choose those employments which yield the greatest advantage to their neighbour.â€?

Fortunately, you and I both know people who seek to redeem their retirement, doing community work, caring for people and many other positive activities that contribute to the strength of their community. Perhaps, if we take Calvin’s advice, we can only truly review our activities at any point in our lives if we seek to break through the distinction between paid work and other forms of work.

Aside from all this there is a need for us to recognise where our provision is coming from. We should always seek to provide for ourselves and only rely upon our communities (the state) to provide for us if we are unable to do so.

Looking at the state of retirement pensions today we see two kinds: We see taxation of workers to provide for retirees (as per National Insurance) and we also see workers saving up for retirement (as per pension funds). We have looked at the former of these two in the brief comments about a community’s provision for it’s dependants. Savings, however, are a very different matter.

We recognise that we live in a changing world. We know that there is no such thing as 100% security. We see pension funds going to the wall, with pensioners ending up losing all of their life’s savings. We also see the risk of prolonged recession eating into our savings, we also live in an age of fantastic medical advances where if we live to be 100 years old we will only have done paid work for half of our lives! Compare this with an era (or even other parts of today’s world) were economically productive work starts at around age 5 and continues until you die aged 43! That would be 88% of your life working!

Are we going to insist that the our children pay for our retirement? Are the young going to rise up against the old and refuse to pay, or is our ageing population going to ensure that any democratic decision is in favour of the retirees?

Reluctance to Change

Posted on by
1

Stuart Murray’s ‘Post-Christendom’ has got me thinking!

I wonder if there is reluctance to change in the church for this reason:
If dramatic change takes place, anyone who is in a position of power or influence in the church (or ‘a’ church) is likely to find themselves on a level with others, without an advantage. They would find themselves beginners again, unfamiliar with their newly deconstructed/reconstructed environment.

Does this mean that such people might resist change? I wonder…

Why I may or may not vote

Posted on by
Reply

Because I havent read all the information.
Because I am generally pro labour but I was against the war and was let down.
Because Blair seems to have lied
Because Howard’s conservatism seems further right than he says
Because I am unsure if Kennedy would last long enough to see things through
Because the other options would be a wasted vote
Because The Lets have another party Party don’t seem to standing a candidate in the area.
Because I was challenged by Marks reasoning for not voting (see post below).
Because I am idealist and a realist and unsure which way to fall.
Because I am unsure what Jesus would do (WWJV)
Because I think a really turn out may help the under 18s get the vote next time around
Because I haven’t worked out how not vote in an effective way
Because of Mandela, Ghandi, Pankhurst and others
Because I am an activist, but mostly an undecided

Why I’m Not Going To Vote!

Posted on by
3

The General Election has been announced and I am, admittedly, following it with interest. However, I am not going to vote. This may surprise you, but I have good reason to take this course of inaction.

Society needs government to ensure order and prevent anarchy. We even see that God is behind the appointment of governments (Romans 13:1 – Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.).

The rule of government is the establishment of laws which must be obeyed by the society. In the case of democracy it is the imposition of rules by a society upon itself. Such rules only have relevance because of the power behind them – the power of punishment. After all, if there were no punishments then laws would only be suggestions! Ultimately punishment is only enforceable because of the threat of violence to those who do not toe the line. Even if you do something as small as shoplifting the only way they can stop you from walking away free is to use violence against you, in order to apprehend you and then punish you. Violence is only unnecessary when the kindly criminal is happy to co-operate – and if there is no threat of force then the criminal will happily walk free.

I am a pacifist and therefore refuse to participate in physical violence. I see no record of Jesus being physically violent or even encouraging it – in fact he is recorded to have opposed violence.

Christ did not come to free his people from the Roman occupation. There were many injustices in his society and Jesus did not participate in those injustices, he practised justice. However, he did not spend his time trying to force change on society, instead he invited individuals to change. He did not come to set slaves free in the natural sense, only in the ‘real’ sense of setting people free (by opening up the possibility of us a relationship with God).

Christ did not come to establish a moral law in society which everyone would have to abide by. Christ came to establish the law in our hearts, to change us from the inside – he recognised that change could only come from God in our hearts and not by law from the outside. He recognised the failings of ‘The Law’ and came to make the most incredible change in the history of mankind, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Democracy is the idea of finding a common morality to abide by. All members of a democracy are prevented from doing what they want to do – whether that be speeding, murder, being noisy, dropping litter, meeting in large groups etc. Democracy also imposes taxation on the society – money is redistributed according to the democratic choice. I’m not hear to make enemies by forcing people to do my will, or even by forcing people to do God’s will (is that even possible?). I will make enemies if I impose morality on people. Why do you think politicians are widely despised?

We have a tendency to judge how ‘good’ a society is by our own set of human values. ‘Good’ however, is in God’s eyes, not ours. ‘Good’ is only when we do God’s will. People cannot do God’s will by following ‘Christian’ laws, they can only do it by knowing him and loving him. Our mission is to show God’s love to people and be an example of this counter cultural way of life.

I am not going to vote in the elections. I am very happy for society to decide for itself what they want to do, but I’m not here to be part of that system. I am in society, but I hope that I’m not of it.

Vote for God’s love – don’t vote in the elections! Serve, don’t rule.

Pontiffication (sic)

Posted on by
Reply

The Pope is dead, but is it worth pontificating about people that we don’t know? It is a common phenomena to ‘judge’ celebs (whether Christian or secular), but is it relevant?

Surely the important thing is that we are careful about who we get into deep trusting relationships with? We don’t have to judge people whom we don’t know, usually based on hearsay.

That’s my 20,000 liras worth anyway…

Oil Be Going Now…

Posted on by
2

Seeing as the price of oil hit a record high a few hours ago (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4399537.stm), I thought it appropriate to post an article which I wrote for the new edition of Benchmark Magazine (www.benchmarkmag.com):

Is the trend of man’s entire history about to be reversed? Are we going to start getting poorer instead of inexorably richer?

It is possible that the worldwide production rate of oil may have peaked in December 2004, that our supply of oil is slowing down, whilst our demand for oil is still accelerating. The absolute inevitability of this scenario, whether or not it is actually happening now, demands our attention.

In the UK today our energy use is at about 5KW per person. If we consider our waking day and how much useful work we do, then each of us has the energy equivalent of about 250 people working for us! Now, if the amount of oil available, per person, declines (which it is doing already, due to the increase in the number of people making more use of oil) then we become poorer. This is reflected by the price of oil going up faster than our income.

O.K. – so we’re going to become a bit poorer, so what? Well, whilst becoming a bit poorer doesn’t sound too devastating, it can be to a proportion of society. The norm in times of recession is that there is a decrease in consumer, and business spending, an increase in unemployment, bankruptcies and home repossessions. Decline isn’t pleasantly ordered, it is more a case of the weak being picked off!

So what is our responsibility as Christians? Well, unfortunately our responsibility was evident some 40 years ago or more – we have a responsibility to reduce our energy consumption, leaving more non-renewable fossil fuels in the ground for future generations. Instead we steal their wealth from them, while they are still unborn. Now, it is all the more urgent that we stop and consider the price that our children will pay for our greed.

However, aside from such idealistic hopes of reform, we must continue in our regeneration, where we gain control over our motives of greed and focus more and more on those around us. In our communities today people are living death. Our youth see lives devoted to slaving for their shelter with house prices so high that they are continually giving tribute payments to the older generation of ‘haves’. Let us open our hearts and minds to the injustices that we seem so blind to and give people an understanding of Christ’s love in practical ways that really mean something to them. Perhaps this is through charity, perhaps through fairness in trade, perhaps by sharing and perhaps it is through a change in our own consumer lifestyles.

Bono, Geldof and the endless sea

Posted on by
1

I came across this quote on Diddy tong “ If you want to build a ship, dont drum up the men to gather the wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. � (Antoine de Saint Exupery) There are many who have taught me to yearn for the endless sea, including MLK, Vincent Donovan, Picasso, James Hawes, Julian of Norwich, a raft of celtic saints (should that be coracle), Dennis Birch, Jim Punton, several students and countless young people, the Bakers, Bob Holman, Winkie, Keith Green, Paul Northup, Nick and Bridget, Lowel Sheppard, Bosch, David Niven, Mandella, Isla Horton, Ciaron O’Rielly, Brennan Manning, Pip Wilson, Bono, My Mum, Jeff and Pat, Dave Wiles……
As I think about these people (and the many others) I love the fact that many reading will not have a clue who some of them are, and the potential we all have to teach people to yearn for the vast and endless sea simply by being the people we were created to be.

Teaching Disent

Posted on by
1

Don’t you just love it when you find a quote to back up your thinking. Currently there is a debate in youth work circles about curriculum and the nature of teaching, Jeffs who is questioning of curriculum cites Stiener “to teach greatly is to awaken doubts in the pupil,…to train for disentâ€? (Youth and Policy Summer 2004) and argues this is a key to education particularly informal education, and curriculum by its very nature hinders this. I love the quote and tend to be in agreement with Jeffs.
I just wonder how much of this critical education goes on in churches or youth work circles. We prop up the status quo so much, when actually called to be a counter cultural movement. The rich young ruler (see eariler post Is the Church the rich young ruler?) had kept the commands but hadn’t been trained to disent and therefore process/critque his actions so was well away from inheriting the kingdom.