Category: Brexit

A ‘Low & Dishonest’ Decade?

by the Rt Revd Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool and Chair of the Ozanne Foundation

Just over 80 years ago W H Auden, in New York, wrote his poem “September 1 1939”:

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth…

That was then; but is it also now?

The decade just gone was certainly full of clever hopes – getting Brexit done, spending billions of pounds at no cost to you – which have not yet expired. They continue to be spun, and to dazzle many. And whether the last ten years formed ‘a low and dishonest decade’ depends on your view of what high life and truthfulness might look like. For me, overall, ‘low and dishonest’ says it pretty well.

Once again, though, just as in 1939 (or still earlier, in 1914) the complacent assumptions of a sunny liberalism have been shaken out. The shadows are in focus once again.

Clever hopes shine more brightly against a dark background; for this reason President Trump in his 2017 inaugural address referred to the “American carnage” from which only he could save his nation. The trouble with speaking like this is that the evocation of carnage, the summoning of dark spirits, can become unholy flesh, as we see almost weekly in the US, most recently in the shootings in a Texan church which ended when worshippers pulled their own guns and shot the shooter. Carnage indeed.

But it is not only in the USA that the evocations of darkness can be heard. And wherever they are heard the question follows: in such a time, a time of untruth, a time marked by anger and sudden violence, how can we live truthfully?

It is at least reassuring that this is not a new question.

When Pilate asked “What is truth? ” he spoke as a representative of Empire, and over the years Empires have learned that if they cannot define truth, they can at least devalue it. The New Testament can be read as the building of a community in the teeth of Empire, or to use its own imagery in the face of the Beast . The bright hope of the Eucharistic meal shines against the dark background of Judas leading the authorities, seeking the One whose table once included even him. How did our friends live truthfully, they who shared our faith in the crucified God; how did they live in a time of untruth? And for us, as one decade folds itself away and a new one begins, how should we live?

Living by a Rule

Here in Liverpool Diocese we aim to shape ourselves by the truth of Jesus Christ, by means of a Rule of Life. It is as simple as we can make it; we say that we are called by God and sent by God; called to pray, read and learn; sent to tell, serve and give. We speak of the inner journey of calling, and the outer journey of sending. We say that praying and reading and learning equip us to tell and serve and give, but we also say that speaking our faith, and struggling to see justice done, and offering and spending our lives, that these things deepen our prayer and our reading and our learning too. Public witness and private devotion form one undivided discipleship.

My colleagues and I hope that this Rule of Life produces a certain disposition in us, and in all those who seek to follow it, in a time of untruth. We know that our Rule is lived out by each disciple in very specific and concrete ways, but we hope that these ways have a family likeness; the likeness of the siblings of Jesus, together.

What are some of the marks of this family likeness? I only have space in this small piece to speak of two: of truthfulness and the courage it requires, and of gladness and the discipline it demands.

Truthfully and Gently

Several times in this piece I have spoken of “a time of untruth”. I do not only mean by this that our political leaders lie to us. They do, but this is not the worst of it. Worse than lying is the shamelessness that sees no sin in lying, that knows there will be no penalty to being caught lying, that pays no penalty, that systematically devalues truth in the pursuit of popular power.

In the face of this it is still possible to live as if truth matters. To do so is to live a life of resistance, which needs to be resourced.

A Rule of Life is merely a spiritual bauble if it does not resource God’s people in truthfulness. To choose to pray to the true God, and read truthfully, and learn the truth together; to tell the truth and to act with truth and if necessary to pay the price of telling the truth; these things matter when the gale of lies is blowing. As the new decade begins I honour those who live, or wish to live, as though these things matter.

In a time of untruth Christianity itself can be weaponised and distorted like everything else, made into a tool of national populism. The pictures below show how this is being done in our own nation.

The attempts of populist politicians to appropriate the Bible and the cross, for example in the USA, in Italy, in Hungary, are seen here also with increasing frequency. But this is not an inevitable thing. The excellent work of the group led by the Bishop of Truro on the world-wide persecution of Christians points to the reality of that persecution while resolutely turning its back on the sort of defensive Christian supremacy that is being used to stir up fear of the other, of other faiths, of other lives, of other human beings. Instead, Bishop Philip and his group had a quieter and more demanding aim: to tell the truth.

There is a price to be paid in telling the truth.

This applies to telling the truth within the family of God as well as “speaking truth to power”. The remarkable courage shown by victims and survivors of abuse in the Church exemplify this costly price, and I continue to honour their example of truthfulness.

The last thing that the world needs is a harrumphing self-righteousness from Christians who do not see the glass house in which they live. In its wider life – not only its treatment of victims and survivors – the Church has absolutely no reason to boast, except only to boast of the God of truth under whose judgement and mercy we all stand.

The Church is a fallen and a broken community, all too often caught up in its own contentions, treating living human beings as “issues” or as the objects of “debate”. This has been the fate of the marginal in the Church to this day. And it will remain so into the New Year unless the truth of human lives – living and breathing human beings – is honoured with the utmost vigilance.

To prefer abstract words to human breath is to give insufficient attention to the real world, and insufficient devotion to the true God. It is the true God in the real world whom we are to serve, the true God who loved the real world so much as to give the true God’s only begotten One – Jesus – for the real world’s life. To live courageously in a time of untruth is therefore to speak for truth from a place emptied of pride and defensiveness; a place of utter dependence on the Truth which is beyond us and will always be.

Gladly and Securely

Speaking the truth can be a hard thing, and too easily a hardening one. This is true for me. The last thing that the world needs is my own harrumphing self-righteousness, adding to and increasing the volume of noise instead of communicating the sound of the One who speaks softly in silence, the One whose yoke is easy and whose burden ls light.

The God whose truth is beyond us, and always will be, is the same God whose love sustains us, who will love us and the world into wholeness in the end. To live well as a Christian in a time of untruth is therefore to live truthfully and gently; but also to seek another gift from God – not only courage, then, but also an unquenchable gladness – a gladness which has, indeed, been promised.

Psalm 45 contains a vision of what it is for authority to be truthful and glad:

Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.
Your royal sceptre is a sceptre of equity;
you love righteousness and hate wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions…

This image is taken by the writer to the Hebrews and applied specifically and directly to the Lord Jesus . This same Jesus has breathed the Holy Spirit on his friends; this same Jesus has told us that we will know the truth and that the truth will make us free . In the spirit of this Jesus then, understanding who it is that holds and rules the Universe, we are to be glad, even as we speak the truth clearly and resist evil strongly.

There is no place in this Way for refusing the real world. There is no place in this Way for a furious and impotent anger that so easily turns inward and consumes our friends and ourselves. In short it is good to be clear-eyed, and with clear eyes to be glad.

In a world marked by a wilful embracing of lies and fantasy on the one hand, and an angry and self-righteousness shrilling of truth on the other, the Gospel of gentle gladness weaves its way. It is easily missed, and its insistence that we live without corrosive anger is easily refused. But to live as a Christian is to trust that the Gospel’s shuttle is weaving our lives too, making it possible for us to be an honest and gentle community in a time of untruth.

My hope then at the turn of the decade is that the Church will see this today, as Auden saw it 80 years ago:

… Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

A blessed, truthful, glad and happy New Year to all.

December 31, 2019
A Tale of Two Kitties

by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of Via Media and Director of the Ozanne Foundation

I have recently been adopted by two kittens – brothers born on September 27^th. I decided to resist the temptation of calling them Boris and Jeremy – to be fair, neither are good names for a cat – and have instead called them Oscar and Louie. One after my paternal grandfather, in memory of my late father who died in September, and the other after a giant LGBT+ hero of the faith, Louie Crew Clay, who died on November 27^th – the day I brought them home.

Despite being born just minutes apart they are strikingly different – just as I’m sure both Oscar Ozanne and Louie Crew Clay would have found themselves to be. These two kittens may be brothers, but that’s where the similarities end. They play with different toys, rest in different places, like different food. They chase each other endlessly around the house, lie in wait for each other, fight and go for each other’s jugulars. And then, when it’s all over, they lie down together, snuggle up and go to sleep. They won’t be separated – you see, they’re brothers.

Of course, it’s got me thinking.

They each seem to see the world very differently. Louie – who was taken away from his mother a little too early and was then returned because the owner decided she wanted a female rather than a male cat – is very cautious. He spent his first few days finding the best places to hide and wouldn’t let me anywhere near him. He’s come around, of course, as it’s amazing what love can do – along with a continual supply of his favourite cat food. Oscar on the other hand couldn’t have felt more at home from the moment he came out of the cat box – confident, strong and with a sense of entitled privilege, he immediately requisitioned my armchair and pillow.

So why am I sharing all this?

It strikes me that after a week which has torn so many within our nation apart, which has shocked and scared and wounded and surprised so many, it’s time we learnt how to live with each other a bit better – especially those who see things rather differently to the way we do.

It may be too soon to be reflecting on all of this, but I for one have been saddened at the way that people have jumped to see the worst rather than the best in each other. They have been quick to pass judgement, to impugn the motives of those they hardly know – on all sides. They have gone for the jugular, bitten deep and hard, with a hope that it would wound and hurt – and frequently it does. They have lain in wait ready to jump and pounce, but without the expectation that at the end of the day they will curl up together, finding support from each other as they share the same bed, our nation.

As it happens this is the first time in a long time that I’ve found myself in a mothering role, otherwise known as the “responsible adult”. I have reflected that it’s impossible to choose who I prefer between my two little men – I love them both equally. Yes, they show their love and affection to me in very differing ways – one will sit on my lap, the other will show me his tummy – but love me they undoubtedly do. To be honest, I don’t really mind how they choose to express this, the important thing is that it is completely natural and not forced – for the moment I try and make them do something they are unhappy with is the moment their purring ceases. The connection is lost.

Just like us – from Stanford in C to Matt Redmond’s Heart of Worship – we each connect differently with the way we seek to worship our Creator God. We all know this, but why are we so (excuse the pun) catty about it? Why do we take it out on those who prefer a different way of expressing their love and adoration for our God?

Wouldn’t it make life so much easier if we could just learn to accept that we are intrinsically different? That we see the world differently. That we interact with the world differently. That we worship and express our love for our Creator differently.

Could we not find a way of recognising the good in those around us, rather than lying in wait to jump on those who hold – in all good conscience – a different understanding of how we can each just “be”? Yes, we can of course disagree, we can argue, we can even go for the jugular at times. But at the end of the day, wouldn’t it be so much more peaceful if we all just could curl up together and go to sleep?

For we’ve brothers (well, and sisters of course) – born of the same flesh and sharing the same lineage.

And perhaps most importantly, loved equally and unconditionally by our Father/Mother God.

December 18, 2019
Nationalism, Patriotism and Glory…

by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s, Member of General Synod and Vice-Chair of the Ozanne Foundation

‘Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism is when hate of people other than your own comes first.’

So wrote the Lithuanian and French Jewish novelist Romain Gary, who knew about nationalism and being an outsider. We can patriotically love and support our country without hating or dominating others; which means that in times of election fever and division we can put the demands or promises of parties and leaders in their places.

100 years ago the Dean of St Paul’s, Dean Inge, wrote in his diary about a speech he gave in December 1917, in which he warned of the dangers of a post-war international settlement that would create ongoing conflict. His perceptive comments were met with a torrent of abusive news reports and letters; he wrote that ‘one good lady says: I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.’ This time the lady was unsuccessful; but Dean Inge ruefully noted at the end of his diary for 1917 that ‘our people, slow and reluctant to enter the war, are now mad with rage and hatred… It is indeed a terrible time.’

Nearly every day I worship in St Paul’s Cathedral, surrounded by statues and memorials intended to focus, not on the suffering and damage of war, but on national and individual glory. These monuments to men like Nelson, Wellington, Collingwood and Abercrombie, who lived or died ‘gloriously’ for their country, were erected at public expense so that their glory will be remembered by our nation, exalted heroes who built the Empire or defended the realm, held up as examples both of self-sacrifice for the nation and of the glory to be earned as a result.

But the lives of these heroes were more like ours than their monumental statues suggest. These were men with families, loves and betrayals, pride and anger, courage, vanity and endurance. They killed other people, and were responsible for the deaths of many under their command, as part of the human cost and moral ambiguity of war. Each one was a human being doing their duty as they understood it – but not peaceful martyrs for their faith, or humanitarians like Florence Nightingale whose memorial is downstairs in the Cathedral crypt.

Their memorials were erected by men like them who held power in uncertain and revolutionary times; men who wanted to avoid rebellion against themselves, men for whom gaining glory in the service of the nation was a useful distraction from the question of who and what the nation is for at all – and from the cost of the pursuit of national glory, the mentally and physically battle-scarred veterans, and the victims of conflict who are so often women and children and those unlike ‘us’, airbrushed out of the nationalistic narrative.

Like a promise of glory in time of conflict, Christian faith has been used to bolster those in power and keep the discontented masses quiet by promising future rewards for present suffering, as Karl Marx recognised. But true faith is subversive, because worship of God and allegiance to our Lord Jesus Christ comes first.

As Christians we have to put into their place the nation, our political or religious party, even our own self-interest, with our highest loyalties being to God and to the well-being of all humanity. Such subversion isn’t a destructive threat to a nation, but a threat to nationalism, which is the creed of those who use national loyalty in order to capture or keep hold of power. Having Christian values that can judge whether what we’re told is in truth for the good of the nation, and having a population able to reflect on politics and hold national leaders to account, is a sign of a nation’s maturity, not of disloyalty, recognising that populism and nationalism are perversions of something better.

In a febrile, binary and intolerant world we need to see ourselves from God’s perspective.

Surrounded by statues extolling human glory, I remember the words from John’s Gospel (12.23-33) where Jesus speaks about his glory and honour coming, not from victories on behalf of the nation, but from the glory God reveals in Jesus being nailed high on a cross. The glory of God is in self-giving, in loving, in dying that others might live. God’s glory doesn’t mean power for great men, but honour for those whom the world sees as weak and disposable. The glory of Christ is the cross, where Jesus carries our sorrows and suffers for us.

Empires and nations and their glories come and go, but God’s love for each one of us endures. Although some of their memorials remain, the ‘glorious dead’ are long gone; we remember their limitations, and our own, and see true glory in those who bear the mental and physical damage of conflict, whether due to war, or to the divisions and hatreds of our own society.

As Christians, we glory not in self or in power, but in loving service and working for the good of all; we long, not for glory, but for the day when war and conflict will be no more, when nations will serve each other, and love will have the final word.

November 29, 2019
A Call to “Take Sides”!
by the Rt Revd Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool and Chair of the Ozanne Foundation

In an increasingly polarised and angry West it may seem perverse to say that we need to be clear about taking sides. Surely the work of civilised people, and in particular of those who follow the Prince of Peace, is to avoid taking sides – to work instead at bringing all sides together and seeking consensus, agreement, emollience? Surely that would be the pastoral thing to do? And the Church is primarily a pastoral entity – isn’t it?

In “Liberating God”, his remarkable study of “Private care and public struggle”[1], Bishop Peter Selby has wise and prophetic things to say about this understanding. He writes of the default setting of our pastoral care, which is crystallised in words such as “attentiveness”, “empathy”, “caring”, “openness”, “a non-judgemental attitude” – and of course he knows and emphasises the value of all these things, especially as they apply to individual care for the hurting. But he also says that if this is all we do, and all we think we are for, then we may be missing a vital contribution to the public square.

We may indeed be missing something of what our Scripture and our tradition calls us to. And so he regrets that:

“The minimising of pain and the reduction of tension do not appear as one side of an argument, to be balanced against the possible value that disturbance may have.”

He continues:

“…we should at least consider a new aspect of the pastoral relationship. This aspect involves making pastoral care not only listening but also a taking of sides.”

This week a new biography of one of my predecessors as Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard, was published. Called “Batting for the Poor”, it is written by Professor Andrew Bradstock[2]. It tells the story of a privileged young man, a sporting hero, who was changed and indeed radicalised by his conversion to Christianity and by his immersion in Scripture and in the life of the underprivileged, first in East and South London and then here in Liverpool. In short it tells the story of a man who was led to take sides.

Despite the accusations which were laid against Bishop David of political naïveté and of flirting with Marxism, Andrew Bradstock writes: “Sheppard had carefully avoided direct involvement in party politics while in Woolwich and Liverpool…”. But he then goes on: “Sheppard said he ‘would certainly accept the label of Christian socialism – which doesn’t always mean commitment to one particular programme.’” [3]

As I read this I was led to consider how bishops speak today, how language has changed over the years since Bishop David lived in the house where I now live.

Times change.

Ours is an overheated climate in more ways than one, with every political party ready to throw accusations of partisanship at anyone who speaks into the public square. In such an election climate it’s all too easy for people to misspeak, throwing verbal fuel on a pretty hot fire, producing more heat than light.

It would be better then to look for the fruit of thought, or in another image to identify the political compass which people try to follow, and which they invite others to follow in the particular currents and channels of each person’s own life and commitments. And a powerful and relevant example is to hand.

In their excellent joint letter for the General Election, published earlier this week, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York speak strongly of the need for prayer and respect for our politicians, for unity and for courtesy in public discourse, and very rightly so.

But their letter is also crystal clear as to the Christian imperative:

“…we must put the vulnerable and those on the edges of society first … That includes justice for the oppressed, protection for the persecuted, and a commitment to combat climate change and adapt to its effects. It also includes a just economic system, open and encouraging to aspiration and ambition, supportive of those who struggle.”

It does not seem to me that Bishop David Sheppard would find anything here with which to disagree. Certainly I agree with it. The Church follows its Lord who took the side of the poor. Taking sides need not mean taking up labels, but it must surely mean taking Jesus seriously.

My own public statements on this election are few, and very brief, but I believe they stand in the tradition lived out by Bishop David decades ago, the tradition mapped out by our Archbishops this week.

For better or worse I have chosen to express them on Twitter, and they stretch to three tweets. They constitute a pale echo of the stand taken by Bishop David and by Archbishop Sentamu and Archbishop Justin. But here they are:

Let me say again what I say in every election: if you’re a Christian, then (after praying, reading and learning) cast your vote in the way that you believe will help the poorest most. ?#Election ?#ChooseLife

Electing: six suggestions in two tweets.
1. Pray, read and think before you choose.
2. Seek the truth. It can still be found, even if it is harder to find nowadays. Dig.
3. Vote. It’s not true that they’re all a shower, not true that your vote will make no difference. Vote.
1. Vote in such a way as to help the poorest most.
2. Vote for a government – it’s not a referendum, not a presidential election.
3. Resist those everywhere who stir up fear of others, Antisemitism, Islamophobia.
I commend these simple ideas to you – in the hope that they might help you at the moment when, whatever side you choose to take, you take sides; that is, for the moment when you vote.

© 2019 +Paul Liverpool

[1] SPCK 1983

[2] SPCK 2019

[3] “Batting for the Poor”, p.274
November 25, 2019
Remembrance, Inclusion & Identity

by Lord Ian Blair of Broughton, cross bench peer, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner and parishioner in the Diocese of Oxford

In this period of remembrance, I have been reflecting on the time-limited nature of memory. I was born after World War II in 1953 but my childhood was dominated by it, with poppies and remembrance services being as absolute a fixed part of the year as Christmas. My childhood games and comics were all about Gerries, Nazis and Brits.

This last decade has seen an outpouring of remembrance as the 100 year anniversaries of the First World War slipped past, followed by the 75 the anniversary of D Day this year and with the 75th anniversary of VE day still to come next year.

A number of issues have been striking me this weekend, two of them very strongly. The first is the question of how long the significance of these particular acts of remembrance will continue. The second is whether we are necessarily remembering things quite right.

The industrialised slaughter of 1914-8 and the loss of so many brilliant young lives is burned into British, German and French national memories. My uncle was killed in France in 1915.

We also now pretty much understand that the Second World War was effectively a continuation of the First and its victors’ peace. But if we look ahead 30 years, will people still be remembering the bravery and the futility of these events? And what will people be remembering?

The way in which a small pebble can start an avalanche caused me to think about this when I noticed a newspaper article to the effect that a number of police forces were no longer prepared to devote manpower to all the remembrance services in their particular region and were asking village events to be subsumed into larger city ones. Where does this lead?

Soon, all those with direct memory of these titanic struggles will be dead, with all respect to those mourning losses from more recent but thankfully smaller conflicts. What then?

Who knows what future generations will do but what it made me think is that those who do survive and those of us whose lives have been was so influenced by it need to make sure that the memory of all that sacrifice is accurate and comprehensive and not able to be twisted into a narrative of British or even English exceptionalism and nationalism.

The great 1940 cartoon by David Lowe entitled ‘Very Well, Alone’ pictures a single British Tommy standing on the white cliffs of Dover, fist raised aloft against German bombers streaming in overhead. It was published after the fall of France earlier that year. It was a wonderful piece of propaganda and those who come after should not disregard its significance.

The sheer raw courage of the Churchill-led government in refusing peace terms with Nazi Germany should never be discounted.

But even when Lowe’s cartoon was published, ‘Alone’ was rapidly becoming less true. Soldiers from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa were already steaming towards our shores. Resistance movements from Holland, Poland and France fought and flew with us. Then the Americans came in and eventually Germany was to be defeated by huge Soviet sacrifice. All this is compatible with my childhood memories – these were all people recognisably like us.

But people recognisably not like us, not like anyone in my entirely white Cheshire home town, came as well. And my childhood memories do not include any understanding that those who fought alongside the British included hundreds of thousands of non-white citizens of the British Empire and Commonwealth.

This was brought home to me sharply at a Remembrance event in Hounslow in west London, which I was attending in an official capacity sometime in the 2000’s. I met an elderly Sikh, with a slew of medals across his chest. I was very surprised indeed when he told me that he had been a Squadron Leader in the Battle of Britain. Where did this story fit in to my understanding of the past? Turbans among the Few?

Ever since, I have been tracing the stories of Black and Minority Ethnic contributions to the events Remembrance Day commemorates.

I am just going to take the example of India. One million Indian soldiers served in the First World War, as the magnificent Indian War Memorial in northern France makes clear: 75000 died, while 87000 died in the Second World War.

But their contribution is scarcely remembered in most of Britain.

I always see Jesus Christ as the epitome of diversity. Christ outraged the Jewish religious authorities of his time by mingling with tax-gatherers and sinners. He enjoyed the company of women not of his family, a very unusual course of action at the time, appeared first to one of those women after His Resurrection and protected an adulteress from being attacked.

He spoke at length to a Samaritan woman – regarded as an apostate by Jews at that time – at a well and then stayed in her village.

Jesus preached at and stayed on the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem. This was then the site of Jerusalem’s leper colony. He was inclusive above all.

The Temple in Jerusalem was divided into concentric courts, first the court of the Gentiles into which anyone could go, then the court of the Jews open to both men and women, then one only for Jewish men, then one only for priests and then the Holy of Holies, which could be entered only by the High Priest, only on one day a year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The deeds and words of Jesus challenge this exclusivity, as did His early followers in taking Christ’s teaching to the ends of the earth, offering Christianity to all the world.

We need to follow His example and ensure that, for future generations, the message of Remembrance Sunday is not only about – although certainly including – a British (Scottish, Welsh, Irish as well as English) triumph and sacrifice but a wonderful diverse achievement by all faiths and none against all the odds, against world-wide evil and brutality.

At the going down of the sun, we need to remember all of them. And that inclusive memory will help future generations combat the evils to come in their day, rather than allowing such a glorious moment in our national history to dwindle into a little Englander motif.

November 11, 2019
Remembering – An Active Choice?

by the Ven Peter Leonard, Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight, Chair of One Body One Faith and Member of General Synod

Shortly after the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union I had the privilege of attending a conference in Brussels. It was a gathering of clergy working in Cathedrals and focused a lot on the European Union and the church’s work with it.

We heard from a number of speakers who were connected with the European Parliament, but the highlight was a day spent in the Parliament buildings themselves. What struck us all very powerfully was the fact that everything we saw, heard and experienced that day had nothing to do with economics or farming and fishing quotas. It had nothing to do with European regulations or the movement of people. It was clearly, loudly and obviously about peace.

The European Union traces its origins to the 1950s with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbours, which culminated in the Second World War. From 1950 the European Coal and Steel Community began to unite European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace. And within the European Union that peace was achieved, and this success was clearly celebrated and seen as important and significant in Brussels.

As the UK continues in the uncertainty around Brexit, as we fast approach what will be a significant General Election, preceded I suspect by what will be a nasty, unpleasant and anything but peaceful campaign by all involved, I wonder where that vision of peace has gone? This seems an even more important question to ask as we approach the 11^th November. A day each year when we fall silent and remember. A day when we wear poppies and lay wreaths and remember.

My earliest memory of Remembrance is as a child being vaguely aware that we were remembering people who had fought in wars which seemed an impossibly long time ago to me.

I remember standing as still and as silent as I possibly could for what seemed like an eternity but in reality, of course was only two minutes.

I remember growing older and understanding a little more of the seriousness and importance of what I was doing. Trying to keep my mind focused on what I was remembering whilst my brain seemed to be firing off in all directions, distracting me from the purpose of standing still and silent.

A simple act of respectful silence, full of meaning and importance and yet it is clear to me that this remembering is not a passive activity but something very dynamic, very active.

Remembering is an act of respect – I can only begin to imagine what those who have fought in active service saw and experienced. I can only begin to imagine what a soldier in the First World War or the Second World War saw and experienced. Or a soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq or any number of wars that have occurred and still occur around the world today. I cannot even begin to know what it is like to return from fighting for your country with missing limbs, or no sight or severe mental health issues. I don’t know what it is like for the person you love most in the world to never return home because they paid the ultimate price in defending their friends and family, their country. Remembering is actively respecting their commitment, doing something to acknowledge their skill and expertise and their willingness to do a job that very many of us would balk at.

Remembering is an act of thanksgiving – A need to show our gratitude for all that these people have done and that our armed forces still do for us. This act brings together a whole nation to say ‘thank you’. Not in some trite, tokenistic nod but in real and heartfelt thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to those who died, those who have been injured and those who have lost loved worlds around the world and throughout time.

Remembering is an act of defiance – an act which says we will not give in to the state of the world around us but that we will seek justice and peace. We will challenge evil in all its forms wherever it is found. We won’t stand by while other peoples and nations are oppressed but will act.

Remembering is an act of hope – hope that the sacrifices made were not in vain. Hope that the world is in fact a better place than it was and it will be better yet one day. For the Christian this act of hope is not some vague philosophical airy-fairy thing but concrete and optimistic.

The prophet Isaiah writes – For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

We are clearly not in that place yet but the Christian hope is that God’s Kingdom is among us and wherever peace and justice is found that Kingdom is established. And those who bring about that peace and justice bring about God’s Kingdom.

For the Christian Church this hope is based on a God who doesn’t abandon us to our own devices despite how the world looks sometimes but enters our world, supremely in the person of Jesus Christ but in all times and in all places.

Jesus is always in the business of re:membering – bringing together those members of the human race who have become separated from one another because of political or geographical or religious disputes and differences.

Re:membering people of every tribe and nation and language and tongue.

Re:membering the people of the past and the present and the future.

The world remains divided. The nation is divided. The Church is divided.

And yet Jesus is in the business of re:membering. A bringing together of divided members. That doesn’t mean that disagreements don’t still exist or that we all have to live as a harmonious blob of identical people with identical views and no personality but it does mean that we come together and listen, that we seek to understand and that we choose to want the very best for others whether they are like us or different.

This is what is means to love your neighbour. Not some fluffy warm feeling but an active choice to want the very best for the other person.

Re:membering something we choose to do.

Seeking justice and peace is something we choose to do.

Loving is something we choose to do.

Will it be our choice?

November 8, 2019
The All-Seeing Eye

by Jayne Ozanne, Director of the Ozanne Foundation and Editor of Via Media

Some call it the ultimate Hunger Monster – the creature with the insatiable appetite.

Others liken it euphemistically to the apocalyptic beast depicted in Ezekiel and Revelation, whose multiple eyes look in all directions at the same time.

I myself just call it the “all-seeing eye” – the giant eye of Horus which hardly ever blinks, and certainly never sleeps.

I speak of course of our 24-hour media – the “free press”, that is a prize mark of a free democracy.

I’m beginning to fear however that history will show that this beast has shaped our culture and most certainly our political landscape far more than anything or anyone else over the past decade.

We all know the game by now.

Ambitious media outlet wants a scoop. It invites its prey (enter stage left a celebrity or a politician) into its lair where it tries to prize out of said prey a soundbite that can become the next major headline. Triumphantly, the outlet then claims they are “the first with the news”, that they can “exclusively reveal”, and that only they can be trusted to bring “the true story” to the public.

To achieve such a coup, an army of backroom researchers trawl through years of social media posts, or better still they find a soundbite from a speech (nearly always taken out of context) from a fellow politician, so as to try and find that precious proof that their latest victim is not to be trusted, that they don’t really mean what they say, or that there has now been some “major U-turn” in policy.

And so the dance begins…or should we say, the bear-baiting starts. The only contestants that survive are those who can win a near-perfect score in some virtual reality version of “Strictly Come Dancing”.

And I for one am sick of it.

I’m sick of the games. I’m sick of the tap dancing – which seems to come straight from a scene in Chicago, where lawyer Billy (one smooth fast-footed Richard Gere) deftly dances around (ie manipulates) the media to save his guilty client. It’s the ultimate dance-off in which some will survive, and others sadly don’t.

We now know the tune, inside out, and I myself know hardly anyone who wants to dance to it anymore, let alone listen to it.

It reminds me of Jesus saying that this generation is like children crying out: “We piped a tune for you and you did not dance, we sang a dirge for you and your did not mourn” (Matt 11:16-17)

You see, we’ve all seen through it now. We don’t trust it anymore. Indeed, we don’t seem to trust anyone at all anymore. It all seems so pointless. Mud-slinging, name calling, fact twisting, cat calling – it’s all there, and no one comes out of it with much dignity.

The 24-hour news service, which is meant to help us maintain our freedom has I fear begun to sew seeds that risk fundamentally undermining it. For we now take everything we hear with a very large pinch of salt, and we see the dance for the staged theatre that it is. The news frequently leaves us none the wiser, and more often than not results in us feeling even more frustrated and in the dark.

However, there is Good News afoot.

For there is one All-Seeing Eye, who knows all truth, and sees all truth. God knows what is going to happen. Quite literally. The source of truth can reveal all truth, and with the help of the Holy Spirit brings witness to that truth.

You see I believe that thanks to Holy Spirit, we can recognise when we hear truth spoken – even from those we disagree with politically. And when we recognise the integrity of what is being said, when there is a “witness in our spirit” to the voice of truth that seeks to cut through all the political posturing and point scoring, then we start to tentatively take steps towards rebuilding some trust and with it, some hope.

Such as when the new Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle spoke this week about the need to reform politics and remove the tarnish that has become such a stain on everybody.

Trust urgently needs to be re-established in our country, and that will only occur when the media start to play their part in enabling this. When they change the music and enable people to dance a different dance. When we move away from Tarantellas focused on the feverish foot stamping of individuals to ones that provide forums to model elegance and grace.

Until we’re able to do that, our hungry 24 hour media monster will continue to eat away at some of the foundations on which our society is based, rather than helping to strengthen the main pillars of truth and trust on which our communities can all flourish and grow.

Maybe its time for some eyes to sleep, to take a rest, and to wake refreshed in the morning?

November 5, 2019
Unity or Truth?

by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s, Member of General Synod and Vice-Chair of the Ozanne Foundation

I was talking with a church leader the other day who lamented that they kept getting criticised by Christians who accused them of valuing Unity above Truth.

This is a variant of the ‘good disagreement is bad disagreement’ argument, which goes:

as Christians we must agree on the Truth of the Christian Gospel –

but we don’t agree on what we think are fundamental Christian truths –

therefore we cannot be in Unity, and saying that we can disagree yet live together in Unity is dishonest.

One of the subtexts of this argument is the question of how Truth is defined and who defines it? The call to believe ‘biblical truth’ is a demand to share my particular view about ‘what the Bible says’; the call to ‘believe what the Church has believed in every place and time’ begs the question of how the Church is defined and who assesses its history; the call to use reason and experience requires defining what assumptions you start with and whose experience you’re talking about.

Another subtext is the question of belonging.

To adapt Grace Davie’s sociological question about faith: do you believe first and then find a group that you agree with, or do you find a group to belong to first and adopt the views of that particular group over against others? Can you change your mind and still stay in your group? How do individuals and the group check that what they believe is Truth, compared with the views of others and the realities around them?

These are all big questions, which politicians as well as religious believers are grappling with. How far can you follow your conscience, your view of the Truth, in politics or faith, without getting expelled from the party? Do you swallow hard and vote for what you don’t like because you think Unity is more important? Or do you exit on a point of principle?

If you have a propositional view of Truth, a binary and credal approach (‘true or false, believe or not?’) then you’ll want to know that you and others are in propositional step with each other as the basis for Unity, and expel others from your party.

But in Christian thinking, Unity is not uniformity, and the joy of the Christian Gospel is that it’s not propositional, but relational. It’s not about believing all the right things about God and salvation (‘even demons believe – and shudder’, James 2.19); it’s putting your trust in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and being his disciple.

The great diversity of the Christian Church is its strength: it requires us to look at ourselves through the eyes of other disciples, to help us answer the question as to whether we follow the one who is the Truth (the Way and the Life), or follow rather the gospel according to ourselves. We need one another’s criticisms and questions, in a spirit of openness and humility, in order to be faithful to the Word who is Truth. We aren’t made to be uniform, but to be united in Christ.

That’s why the Eucharist is central to Christian faith: we share the sacrament of Jesus Christ, and we are united to one another through him. Whatever boundaries we draw around Christ’s table are provisional, because they’re our boundaries not His. Our denomination may not be ‘in communion’ with other Christians or churches, but we’re all in communion with Jesus Christ nonetheless, and therefore with each other. Like it or not. Our Unity is based on the Truth of God’s saving love for us in Jesus Christ.

Unity or Truth? It’s both, of course; not as defined by us, but by God’s love for us in Christ.

In the words of the Percy Dearmer hymn I was singing in St Paul’s the day I wrote this:

Jesus, who our sorrows bearest, all our thoughts and hopes thou sharest,

thou to us the truth declarest; help us all thy truth to hear.

Lord, in all our doings guide us; pride and hate shall ne’er divide us;

We’ll go on with thee beside us, and with joy we’ll persevere!

October 25, 2019
On Brexit, Becket and Signs of the Times

by Lord Blair of Boughton, cross bench peer, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner and parishioner in the Diocese of Oxford

As a newcomer to this site, my task in writing a first post has not been made much easier by looking over some of the recent posts. I could not agree more with the Bishop of Manchester on the extraordinary outburst of unpleasant language in the Commons after the Supreme Court Verdict on prorogation. Then I found a fellow traveller in the post before that by Helen King, quoting from my favourite hymn, Faber’s ‘There is a wideness in God’s mercy’.

These posts cover just the kind of subject about which I thought I would be writing: pleas for decency and tolerance in a country more deeply divided than I have ever known it to be.

I am going to cover some of the same ground but thought I would do so perhaps from a slightly different and hopeful angle, although I particularly want to commend the Bishops and Archbishops for writing their letter of protest. I have no truck with any suggestion that the Church should not have a voice in politics in ordinary times, let alone these Brexit-filled days.

I want to reflect a bit on the nature of time, dividing it into those two Greek words, Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is what we think of as sequential time, with Kairos being a moment of indeterminate time in which something momentous happens.

These last few years have seen the breakup of many old certainties, whether of standards of behaviour in public life or the questioning of multi-national entities from the United Nations to the EU to NATO, together with the rise of populist leaders, irrespective of and sometimes not corresponding to left or right. Who would have dreamed of ministers of the Crown musing as to whether the Government needs to obey the Rule of Law: who would have dreamed of a US president allegedly pursuing a domestic political rival through the intervention of a foreign government?

And yet and yet, the Supreme Court did rule, unanimously, that the Prorogation was null and void, effectively had not happened. Impeachment proceedings against a sitting President have begun. In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party has lost the election and fallen out of government: ditto, Matteo Salvini and the Northern League in Italy. The refugee boats are landing again.

We live in Chronos but maybe, just maybe, there is some hope that a tide begins to turn. Maybe Kairos is just around the corner. This is a thought that has been growing on me since a visit my wife and I made to Canterbury Cathedral in August. We went to Morning Prayer at 8 am and then had a wonderful half hour, almost alone in the Cathedral, before the general public came in.

The Precentor very kindly guided us to the memorial altar to Thomas a Becket. I had not been there for years and it was a revelation – here is a photograph, with its crucifixes made of swords.

Murdered beside his altar, the death of Becket must have been the darkest of dark times for the Church and for people of good will. And yet. Thomas a Becket’s canonisation was one of the fastest in Christian history. Within two years, King Henry II, apparently responsible for Becket’s murder, had had to choose to walk barefoot into Canterbury and to suffer public and physical humiliation. The name of the saint was one of the most famous in Europe.

I am making no parallel between Becket and Brexit (probably the first time those two words have been put together!) but some parallel emerges between the feeling of helplessness in the 12^th century and now, as bad events and unpleasant behaviours seem to gather unrelentingly. However, we do not know what the future holds and what God’s purpose might be.

It seems to me that we need people of good will, including churchmen and churchwomen to be outspoken, not necessarily in support of one or other of Remain and Leave, but for the common weal, the common good, in support of decency and truthfulness and respect between us all. And that is on both sides.

In the great Commission at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that he is with them until the end of time. I know that he is in both chronological time and eternal time and that the outcome of our difficult issues may surprise us all. I can certainly conceive of it being surprisingly less bad than the outcomes to which the chronological sequence of events seems to be pointing. Pandora may emerge out of the box. The long history of British decency may prevail.

And those who appear ready to sacrifice decency in public life and language, may themselves not succeed. In the same chapel as the Becket memorial altar, the Dean and Chapter have placed four large ceramics, shaped rather like vases, to represent the four knights/tempters, who appear in TS Eliot’s ‘Murder in the Cathedral’. What transpired after the murder was the complete opposite of what the king hoped and the knights sought to accomplish. In that chapel, I noticed was it was difficult to tell whether the ceramics depicted knights or pawns. Who knows?

October 8, 2019
Power, Men & Politics

by the Ven Canon Peter Leonard, Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight, Chair of One Body One Faith and Member of General Synod

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.” So said Plato.

I have been reflecting on this statement a lot over the past week of so as I have watched the news. As I have seen politicians behaving like football hooligans and as I have seen grown men write disparaging tweets about a 16 year old girl attempting to do something about our climate emergency I have been wondering what it says about these particular men.

And it is men generally isn’t it?

I was going to start by excusing Plato’s blatant patriarchal approach to the world but on reflection is it mainly white middle-aged men in positions of power and privilege who have behaved in this way and been the reasons for my shock and reflection.

But why?

Why does any member of the UK government feel the need to use aggressive confrontational words? Words which they know will encourage others to behave in a similar fashion and indeed the threats against other members of Parliament is evidence of this. Why would any educated public servant think that sneering and laughing at another whilst lounging about in their place of work appropriate? What are these members of Parliament, usually white middle-aged men very keen on shouting down the women MPs, doing with their power? How are they displaying it to others?

I referred to them as public servants earlier on and indeed that is what they should be, but it occurs to me that there was very little going on in the Palace of Westminster which served the public. It seemed to be a fight about who had the real power, who was really in charge and pushing the boundaries as to how untouchable that power made them.

So back to my question why? It seems to be something about being challenged, about having the power questioned, or at least what they are doing with the power. And what happens when we are challenged? We react, we summon all the power we have to reassert ourselves as the powerful one. We shout, we’re rude, we use aggressive language. We try our very best to maintain our alpha male status like so many apes in a pack.

Alongside the scenes in Parliament we have seen the outrageous comments made on social media about Greta Thunberg. A 16 year old girl who is taking seriously the climate emergency facing us and trying to do something about it. That includes challenging others. It includes challenging the ‘adults’ who are in charge, leaders of nations, CEOs of multinationals and those of us who are so ingrained into the consumer society we can’t see what our actions are doing to the planet.

Once again those who hold power and privilege are challenged and they don’t like it. So they post criticisms, insults, sarcastic and unkind comments to try and reassert their power and regain their dominance. To ridicule the person making the challenge so that they are not taken seriously and written off by the masses.

When power is challenged it fights back, or rather those with the power fight back.

This is a story as old as humanity itself and we only have to read the Gospels to see that Jesus encountered it as well.

Jesus challenged those in positions of power, the Scribes and Pharisees and, much like those in the Houses of Parliament or venting on social media this last week, they didn’t like it. They argued back, they shouted, they ridiculed and attempted to make Jesus look stupid and eventually they incited others to do the same, ultimately convincing them to shout “Crucify, Crucify”.

It was amidst this, admittedly rather sad process of reflection, that I saw the following advert for The Guardian newspaper:

Change is possible. Hope is power.

In the gospels we see that the real power lay with the one who could not be defeated even by death. That real power lay in washing the feet of others, of riding on a donkey rather than in a grand parade, of a simple supper with friends and prayers in a garden, of a seemingly helpless man condemned to die yet forgives others as he does. Real power lays in the hope of making the world a better place and that change is possible.

Perhaps when it comes to the climate emergency the real power lays in the hands of a 16 year old Swedish girl who is persistent in raising the issue and taking action despite the resistance she encounters; perhaps the real power is not in the hands of the adults but in the hands of the school children who go on strike to highlight the crisis we find ourselves in which us adults seem to be doing so little about?

Real power lays in the hope of making the world a better place and that change is possible.

In Parliament maybe the real power lays in the hands of the many Members of Parliament who are fighting for a better world, who truly are public servants and who faithfully serve their constituents day by day? Does the real power exist in those who don’t resort to shouting and name calling, who retain their dignity rather than stoop to the lowest comment denominator? Is the power in those who believe change is possible and hope to play a part in making the world a better place?

For those of us who profess to be Christians we need to take Philippians 2:5-11 seriously:

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father

We need to consider carefully how people could measure us by what we do with power, as individuals and as Church institutions. Who challenges us and how do we react when they do? Are we on the right side of the power struggle? Do we believe change is possible?

Is our hope in Christ our real power?

October 4, 2019