Cash 4 Jesus?

Having followed the news of Peter Cruddas' implication that he could grant private individuals access to the Prime Minister, David Cameron for a substantial fee... and the subsequent furore surrounding that story, I found the reading set for yesterday's sermon both highly appropriate and ironic:

"Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.

“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.

Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgement on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die."

John 12:20-32

This passage is an important one for Christians because it marks a turning point. Jesus, realising that his message and teaching is at last reaching beyond the sphere of the Jews, commits himself to the path ahead... the path of the cross.

Jesus then goes on to talk with double meaning. He speaks in terms of a kernel of wheat falling to the ground and dying that a plentiful harvest can come from its sacrifice. At first it seems he is talking about his own sacrifice but he makes it clear that anyone serving him, must follow him. As a wise person once said... the trouble with Easter Sunday is that you have to go through Good Friday first.  In order for Jesus to be resurrected... he had to die first.

Similarly, the trouble with Christianity is that in order for us to be born into the kingdom of Heaven, we need to die to ourselves... and the aim of every Christian should be that we become more Christlike. In the modern world the expression "born again" (taken from Jesus words to Nicodemus in John 3), quickly rose to prominence... and for some has even become a cliché. Sadly, some wear it as a badge in a manner akin to a Marks and Spencer advert... "I'm not just a Christian, I'm a born again Christian".

We need to constantly remember that anybody who is a Christian is by definition, born again. For as the apostle Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians: "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new, has come!"

"Born again" isn't a badge that marks a better breed of Christian. It is our actions and attitudes that are our badge. Jesus used an analogy of a tree to illustrate this principle - good trees produce good fruit, bad trees produce bad fruit. We can give ourselves as many names and titles as we like... but if we aren't living in a manner that demonstrates Christ's attitudes to the watching world, then we aren't producing fruit in keeping with salvation.

Even then, what do non-Christians make of the concept of dying to oneself? Putting myself in the mind of an outsider for a moment... I can see how the idea might terrify some. Without proper explanation it might seem like dying to Christ or being born again is an experience akin to being assimilated by the Borg from the  Star Trek universe - having all trace of individuality and personality erased and becoming a mindless army of automatons... clones of an invisible God.

Is that really the Christian experience? Is it yours? Is it mine? I'd argue that this isn't the case at all. Yes we are all one body, we are all unified by one Spirit and we are all being called to walk in the footsteps of the same Jesus. Yet we are all called from different cultures, different places and different experiences. None of us shares the same walk with Christ and we actually have a diverse heritage albeit bound by a common belief. When you look at a great work of art, you see one painting but each brush stroke is different. Whether it is the colour, the breadth, depth or length of the stroke... no two parts of a single painting are the same. The artist is usually conveying only a small number of messages but they have expressed themselves in a manifold number of ways in order to achieve that goal.

In my opinion it is the same with Christianity. We are the embodiment of a single message - the Gospel, but we are different expressions on the canvas of how that message is portrayed.

So how much does a meeting with Jesus cost? How much do you need to put into the collection plate in order to guarantee an audience?

If the Sunday Times investigation is to be believed, if you want to meet David Cameron it will cost you a amoral and outrageous £250,000 as a donor to get into the "Premier League".

Indeed, the established church in medieval times seemed to operate a similar scheme - cough up for a monastery here and a chapel there... and if you were lucky, the prayers and chants of the monks and choirs who worshipped there would reach heaven and you *might* just have a shot at eventually meeting Jesus.

But if the passage above tells us anything... it is that just like the Greeks it will cost you absolutely  nothing at all to meet with Jesus and speak with him... NOTHING.

Conversations with Jesus won't cost you £250,000 in Church donations.

You cannot buy Jesus... and if you do decide you want to meet him, the cost has already been met by his death on the cross.

There is one caveat though. There is a paradox: A meeting with Jesus has the potential to alter and transform your life in an infinite number of ways (all of them beneficial), so in as much as it costs nothing, an encounter with Christ will cost you EVERYTHING.

So Jesus costs NOTHING and EVERYTHING but I promise every "penny" is worth it.

Some things for you to ponder:

• Is the term "Born Again" helpful to you... or is it a cliché?
• Is your experience of Christianity more "Borg" or "Federation" (Autonomous vs Diverse)?
• How much has meeting Jesus cost you?

Community

I've been doing some thinking with regard to various things and want to revisit my previous post on the topic of the recent riots. As I mentioned before, I do see them as a symptom of something far larger... an inconvenient truth that is being swept under the carpet because it presents us with something ugly that we ALL need to deal with.

It was very interesting to see the different responses of Tony Blair and David Cameron with regard to their perception of the social problems at the heart of the issue.  Cameron put it like this:

"The greed and thuggery we saw during the riots did not come out of nowhere," he said. "There are deep problems in our society that have been growing for a long time: a decline in responsibility, a rise in selfishness, a growing sense that individual rights come before anything else."

However Blair countered this by stating Britain, as a whole, is not in the grip of some general "moral decline"and that:

"The big cause is the group of young, alienated, disaffected youth who are outside the social mainstream and who live in a culture at odds with any canons of proper behaviour. And here's where I don't agree with much of the commentary. In my experience, they are an absolutely specific problem that requires deeply specific solutions."

In my own view, there is truth in both their perspectives... just not the complete truth. I do believe we have witnessed a moral decline in our society... but I think it is wrong to put this down merely to a blurring of the borders between right and wrong. I believe it is down to a shift in perspective of who matters. Western society has become decadent... and as we are increasingly dazzled by the sights and sounds of this material world, the still small voice of calm that speaks of mutual dependency and connectedness can get drowned out.

It is interesting how materialism actively encourages us to gravitate away from "us" and more towards "me". Just look at the products out there and how they have become named in such a manner as to glorify the self:

iTunes, iPlayer, iPad, iPod, iTeddy, iDog, iPoo (yes... there apparently really IS an app for that... ugh!), i Robot (well.. maybe one day, we can hope), and the Independent's sister newspaper simply called "i".

Everything it seems is i... i... i... or actually... is it really "ME! ME! ME!"?  

It is at this point that I rather sheepishly look at the header of my own blog and ask myself if I am enthusiastically hurling stones whilst standing in a glass house. I don't think, but do call me on it if you disagree.

Community means looking beyond ourselves... together.

Yes, there has been a rise in selfishness... but I believe it is wrong for us to lay the blame solely at the door of disaffected youth. Is it not true that bankers and rogue traders have demonstrated a selfishness unique to them... one that led to the economic crisis we find ourselves in now? Is it not also true that the MPs guilty of misusing expenses for personal gain were also guilty? Or what of the energy firms who continue to push up prices regardless of the damage it causes to people who can scarcely afford to keep themselves warm in the winter months. Or how about greedy property tycoons who allow for house prices to inflate to such a level that only a select few can afford to live in them... and then they wonder why there is a crash because people can't reconcile their finances with the amount the property prices have risen to. The tendrils of self centredness creep in to every part of society and try to choke each one of us into turning away from the importance of community. Some are more affected than others, but make no mistake... it crouches at the door of all of us and we must do what we can to reject it or at least keep it in check.

When treating an illness, a doctor may prescribe more than one medication. One kind will deal with the root cause of the illness... whilst the other will act as symptom relief. It occurs to me then, that we too must do something to treat the wounds of our society. The problem of disaffected youth is a symptom problem and not a root problem. As Blair suggests, it does require a specific solution... but any work done to resolve it will be undone within less than a generation, if we do not at the same time treat the pandemic.

We've seen part of the bigger solution in the way many people have rallied to clean up, repair, restore and help victims in the wake of the riots... but it needs to go beyond this.

Community needs to be more than reactive. Community needs to be proactive.

We need to look beyond our cliquey little cells and our ivory towers and mingle. We talk about disaffected people or uncultured people, or irresponsible people... but how can anyone learn a culture unless someone shares it with them? How can someone belong... if others are not daring enough to go out there and invite... not from afar but shoulder to shoulder?  I know what it is like to stand on the outside looking in... and I'm ashamed to say that I know this from a Christian perspective. If *I* feel that way and am part of the family of Christ, I can only imagine how someone who has no connection to the Church feel when all they see is a closed door.

One of the things I hate about modern politics is how it has become more and more about focus groups - looking at the specific wants and needs of particular groups and currying favour with them in order to gain power. I think this is counter productive; if we value any part of society over another... it breeds isolation and disaffection and groups with very different aims or attitudes begin to come into conflict.

Community must rise above this, it must be so much more than this. We need to draw the threads back together and learn that our actions have consequences for everyone else and not just a select few people who we meet regularly.

Community... it's a big word... isn't it? As it should be. If we truly value it, we must stop thinking in terms of our private universes. It is not enough just to think of yourself and/or your spouse and/or your children. Yes... these things demand time and maintenance but I put it to you that by robbing others of your own input in their lives, you in turn rob yourself of the help that can come from them in return.

Christ summarised the Law in two concepts - loving God above all and loving your neighbour as yourself. The apostle John went on to say that anyone who loves God but mistreats his brother man, is a liar. Now in the Old Testament, God gave his people a hard time through the prophet Malachi. He cautioned them that the difficulties they experienced were because they were not giving him what they owed him... but that if they changed their hearts and fulfilled their obligations, he would pour forth his blessing in amazing ways.

In a way, I want to draw all the points in that last paragraph together. Those of us who call ourselves Christians do our best to try and live in a way that pleases God, we try to give him the worship, the love, the time and resources befitting of a relationship with him. However... if we do that and don't invest time, resources and love in our brother man - our community, isn't that counter-productive? As much as Malachi's people robbed God directly... are we not doing the same indirectly when we neglect to benefit the lives of those around us?

One can be the loneliest number... and yet when we learn to use that number in the right context it is the least loneliest. The spirit of true community means understanding that we are all one... not just in times of crisis, but all the time.

We are one.

"Ave!" AV?

With only a couple of days to go before the local council elections and voting system referendum takes place, I feel somewhat obliged to blog on the topic. My primary aim in this is  not to sway your vote in any way.  I will be posting my own view, and will uncharacteristically nail my colours to the mast publicly... but don't worry if you aren't interested in hearing yet another person's take... because I will make a clear distinction before I go into that.

The point I wish to address is why you should go and vote on the subject of AV at all.... particularly if you feel ambivalent, nonchalant or apathetic about the whole thing.

The AV Referendum: How Should We Vote?

As you may know, I'm a strong believer in exercising the right to vote... even when you feel there is no "right" choice... I absolutely believe you should express your opinion by deliberately spoiling your ballot paper. I think it is lazy and disrespectful to all the people who have fought and in many cases died to obtain and preserve your right to vote as a free person.

For me, this belief is amplified when it comes to the referendum.

Why should this be?

It is simple. Referendums are curious political exercises... in many ways they deliver more power and say into our hands than a simple electoral vote. This is because when we are voting on a single issue (especially one as hotly debated as electoral reform), we are actually directly shaping policy. Whatever the outcome at the end of this week... Parliament will have to abide by it.

In an age when many of us have become sick and tired of being pushed around by politicians, many of whom exist within a detached bubble of irrelevance... when all of a sudden we are presented with an opportunity to directly manoeuvre the country's direction... we should grab it with both hands (and if necessary fight tooth and claw).

Having established that we should take part we come to the question.: how should we vote?

No... this isn't the bit where I tell you what I'm voting and try and sway you. Instead I want to make some very important points about the criteria we should... or more to the point, should not be using when making a decision.

1. I Will Vote In Line With My Preferred Party.
   If you are thinking of making a decision based on this notion, then I humbly suggest you take another look at what you are doing. This would be a waste of your vote... you would not be exercising democracy, you would be acting like a robotic sheep. I have become incensed at the way certain parties have thrown all their weight behind one campaign or the other. The Conservative Party had absolutely NO business making the "NO" position the party line. Similarly I was disgusted with Peter Mandelson for coming out and stating that this was an opportunity for the British public to hurt the Government and give David Cameron a bloody nose. Tribalising the debate about electoral reform benefits nobody.  It neatly avoids the issue and turns the vote into a farcical re-enactment of the last General Election... or a dry run for the next one. Both Government and Opposition are guilty of using this as an opportunity to damage their adversaries' credentials; they are making this debate about them... and not the country. They should be ashamed of themselves and need to be taught a lesson.
   
   
2. Voting X Will Benefit The Party I Am Most Inclined To Support
   This is a similar argument to the one above (in fact, it is pretty much the same intent dressed up in a different way). The simple truth is that you are not charged with the mere task of voting for the outcome that benefits your personal ideology. That is extremely selfish thinking. Instead you are bestowed with a far greater responsibility - deciding which form of democracy is fairer for all.... even if it flies in the face of your own deeply held political convictions.
   
   
3. Tradition or Change for Its Own Sake.
   This isn't a game... and you should treat the subject with appropriate gravitas. "It's always been this way, as far as I can remember" and "lets get rid of this just because I'll feel like I've achieved something" are once again invalid criteria. The former reflects an attitude of unmoving, overbearing parental imposition... the latter betrays a vein of recklessness and a desperation to make a mark without thinking things through. In both cases, any decision is dominated by ego and not by sound objective judgement.

Tempting as it may be to take any of the paths above, may I urge you instead to take the road less travelled by? When Thursday comes and you make your mark on the ballot... do so with objectivity and responsibility.  Remember that this vote is not about them (the politicians) and it is not about you (personally), it is about all of us collectively. The decision you make will not be for part of our society... it will be for all of our society. Try to take yourself and all the public figures clamouring for your attention out of the equation. Research the basic facts and come to an informed decision.

The power is yours, the freedom and choice are yours... and the responsibility is yours.

Use these things wisely.

Don't "Choose Poorly". ;-)

***End of Main Post Scroll Down for Personal View***

Before I go on... I want you to know that my choice in the referendum is based on the criteria I endorsed above... I am not a hypocrite. As it stands, there are no parties (south of the border at least), that match me closely in terms of my politics... I therefore have nothing to gain personally by voting either way. My choice has been made entirely on my interpretation of what is best for the nation as a whole.

My personal inclination is to vote in line with the "Yes" campaign. At first this was on gut reaction. All my adult life I have not been happy with the first past the post system. It is a known fact that whoever gets elected always represents a minority; in fact in modern politics, the number of people who vote for any party are generally outnumbered by those who either spoil their paper... or do not bother to vote at all. I do not subscribe to the idea of enforcing a compulsory vote as a viable way of dealing with this problem... as I find it undemocratic. Much as I loathe people's laziness for not bothering to show up and vote... I respect their constitutional liberty and democratic freedom to not participate if they so choose.   I do not begin to presume that AV will magically redress this imbalance on its own, I do believe it is one avenue we can explore to try and do something about it. If people are deciding not to turn up and vote because they know they are in a political stronghold... then AV would in part at least give those who feel disenfranchised some incentive to become involved once again. The NO Campaign will tell you that AV supporters are sceptical of its merits but they are far more sceptical of the status quo... and many see this as an opportunity to "start the ball rolling", a means to an end.

The NO campaign will also tell you that AV is not widely used... but really is this at all relevant? Should we be deciding the fate of our country based on what everyone else is doing? Are we really that lacking in resolve that we will follow everyone else? So what if only a handful of countries use AV... it isn't about them. It is about us.

The No Campaign states that AV will put more power in the hands of politicians because they will need to make back room deals and concessions to other parties in coalitions.  This argument above all the others betrays the Tory agenda most clearly (it even uses the watchword term "broken politics" that was so liberally applied by the Tories in the last election). They know that ideologically, their list of allies is a lot thinner than that of say Labour or the Liberal Democrats. If you take a look at this analysis on the Political Compass website, you can see why the Tories would be rightly anxious about a system where coalitions are the norm rather than the exception. David Cameron has also stated himself that under AV, politicians would be more corrupt because they would have to make promises to everyone... that they couldn't keep, in order to be elected. This really is nonsense. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that a person should be elected to serve the majority electorate interest... and not make promises left right and centre just to secure power. I for one am not so much interested in a person/party's promises and targets as I am their ideology. When all the smoke and mirrors fade, I believe most people vote on a basic understanding of the traditional agenda and principles of "the big two".  I don't want a politician promising me everything in the world... I want to know what their core standards are. If they think something is wrong and they aren't willing to commit to it, I want to weigh it up against my other choices... not have some schmoozer feeding me a bag of excrement for the sake of his own selfish political ambition.

The No campaigners will also tell you it is unfair and undemocratic. This is a misrepresentation. I would mistrust anyone who said either system were undemocratic. Neither is technically undemocratic, they are different expressions of democratic systems at work.  Whichever system we use will always carry some level of unfairness for someone. What we need to establish is which is which unfairness we are most comfortable living with. Simply put... are we more comfortable with a current system that hands the keys to the country to a party that may win less than 20% support (going by 40% of a 40% turn out), or are we prepared to allow people who have had their first choice eliminated to have their second or possibly third choice counted?

I believe that the most important thing we need to establish going forward in the future of politics for this country is consensus. We live in a society that has been fragmented into diverse political focus groups who have radically different and sometimes opposing agendas. The only way we can establish a government that truly represents this diversity is to establish which party most are happy to live with. The saying goes that "you can't have your cake and eat it". Under First Past the Post there's a danger that "you can't have your cake or eat it". It's a bum deal... you get left with nothing.

Right from birth, we are taught about how to make compromises. Imagine you are a boy in a toy shop. You want to buy a flashing glowing giant Optimus Prime toy robot but your dad tells you you don't have enough money. You do have enough money for a Barbie doll, the other option is that your kid brother has a bit of money that would get you an Action Man if you were prepared to share. Are you seriously going to walk out of the shop with the Barbie? Because that is all you'll get out of First Past the Post. If you are prepared to make the sacrifice and combine funds with your brother that will get you something you can live with? That's Alternate Vote in a nutshell.... and that's why (petty squabbles in the campaigns aside), I've thrown my lot in with the Yes campaign.

In case I have not been concise, the video below was put together by the television historian, Dan Snow. It is by far the best, most positive campaign I have seen on either side of the debate. If you haven't made your mind up yet, I encourage to add this to your contemplation:

Labour Pains

As I write this entry, the trials and tribulations that have beset Gordon Brown's premiership, are mounting by the truckload.

I can't help thinking that Mr Brown's biggest problem by far, is his lack of charismatic authority. The hints were there right from the start... in an early Prime Minister's Questions session facing David Cameron... where he rather embarrassingly came to a grinding halt and sat down before properly answering the question put to him.

True, it was only a small thing... but you could easily argue that it was a microcosm of what has since transpired. I'm not against Mr Brown at all... I've always believed he's had a good agenda that was initially obscured by his predecessor's egomania and obsession with spin. Of course I've never really been a fan of Blair,but one thing you can argue... is that he had charisma in spades (but then it is not always a good quality). Following a man like that is always going to be difficult, it is even more the case if charisma does not come naturally.

I don't have a major problem with Mr Brown's big policy calls... nobody can doubt he's made some brave calls that other world leaders have responded to. My biggest problem is his inability to make the big leadership calls. He had a chance to validate his premiership right from the get go... he had the opportunity to call a somewhat risky general election which hindsight tells us he probably would have won. His response to the subsequent by-elections and local elections that Labour struggled in, was "We are listening and we will learn from this". This was churned out several times in succession and to my ears, it became a bit of a cliched mantra.

Then of course most recently, he finds ministers within his ranks who have played or abused the expenses system and chooses a long term strategy to deal with it. That is not how the real world deals with such matters. If something like that came up anywhere else, you would expect it to be dealt with immediacy. What was needed was not an independent inquiry riddled with red tape (that must follow only as a secondary measure), but a swift yet accurate self diagnosis of who was at fault followed by a case by case instant dismissal and by election.

People may still harbour anger, resentment and feelings of betrayal... but if they can at least see that you are taking genuinely hard steps to put your house in order, you are are likely to win their ears back.

If the stories are true, it would appear that Brown was not happy with Alastair Darling's performance as chancellor... and yet in the recent reshuffle, he backed off doing anything about it because Darling was rumoured to be digging his heels in and refusing to do any other job.

The tougher choice would have been to have called Darling out on that... put him somewhere you feel is better and see how he reacts. If he walks, he walks... but don't let one man's desire to retain a high profile job, rule how you feel the team should be structured.

I feel the only way for Gordon Brown to survive the oncoming storm, is to adapt his personality for the times ahead. He needs to be more bullish.

Should Labour go through with a plot to oust him, heaven help them... because I don't really see any pretenders to the throne. I don't get a strong sense of leadership from Alan Johnson or anyone else for that matter... and if someone should take the mantle from Brown, they are going to have justify the fact that they are the second successive Prime Minister to have not been directly elected.

If Brown goes... or is forced to take some kind of internal electoral action to secure his position, I honestly think a general election will have to be called. He needs to act before his own ministers adopt their own course of action that can only end in mutually assured destruction of Labour at the polls - Blairite or Brownite won't matter... their fate will be the same.

I'll be honest... I can't see any way that Labour is not going to be annihilated at the next general election- I believe that too much water has passed under the bridge. Now is not the time for fingers in the dame... now is the time for something spectacular.

An interesting week ahead of us I would say.

Poll Axe

So we won't be queuing out in the November rain to cast our votes after all. Gordon Brown has dismissed the idea of an Autumn election and probably also the prospect of a 2008 one too.

It's the right decision.

Think about it for a second. We've had a "New Labour" government for over 10 years... and a change of Prime Minister in only the last few months. If you are in favour of Gordon Brown's leadership... naturally you'll want to extend his reign for as long as possible. If you are against it, I don't think you should be so keen to risk giving him a four year mandate to make things worse.

There are some people who would vote against New Labour purely because they think 10 years under one party's rule is enough. However, change for the sake of change is one of the most erroneous choices a person can make. I have often spoken out against the policies of Tony Blair, so you might be mistaken for believing I'd like to see New Labour out as as soon as possible. In fact, my opinion is that we should give Gordon Brown an opportunity to see if he can keep and live up to his word - he has limited time... not a full term. He will have to hit the ground running to prove his salt... and by the time he is obliged to call an election, we - the voting public will be in a much better position to make an informed decision (for those of us who still believe in doing such things... rather than moronically voting on autopilot for any one party).

However,although we have arrived at what I believe is the right outcome... we have done so in a manner which I believe has damaged Gordon Brown's credibility.

I saw David Cameron's strong arm tactic of calling for an election, as primarily a bluff. It is a gamble that has paid off. Brown has seen a blip in the opinion polls and has been the first to blink. It has weakened his image as a strong leader... but in the long term view, he has given himself more time to prove himself - be that as a success or as a failure.

One of my strongest reasons for not wanting an election now, is that on the face of things we still have two centre right economical and authoritarian parties contending for Government. I want to see if Brown is going to temper Blair's reforms and bring in more laws favouring welfare and less that favour Orwellianism. There is precious little hope of that as it is... but an election would severely damage what hope does exist.

Lets wait and see what 2008 brings.

You can read more analysis and reaction on Nick Robinson's blog over at the BBC.