bishops - what they do and what it costs

Here it is then, the statement of the Church of England House of Bishops' office and working costs for the year ending 2008. The document starts with a summary of the role and responsibilities of the bishops, before giving a breakdown of the costs for each diocese and the individual expenses for each bishop.

Don't hold your breath if you are looking for details of moat cleaning, duck houses or house flipping, though heating, lighting and cleaning costs are included. Not easy to glance through and compare costs unless one is prepared to research which posts had a vacancy during the period.

Anyway, looking at the figures I'm not expecting any Telegraph front page splashes, though you can never tell with the press. MPs will be sad to learn that attention is unlikely to be deflected from their ongoing travails over this issue.

le Carre – a most wanted man

There are a few fiction writers who have the gift for giving global issues a human face; Graham Greene was one such author and John le Carre is another. Le Carre’s brilliant explorations of the Cold War through the eyes of George Smiley are peerless and I recently watched again the T.V. series based on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Alec Guiness is masterful as Smiley and the cast are a roll call of British theatre’s finest, but it is the author’s labyrinthine plot and understated characterisation that make it a work of genius.

I read le Carre’s The Little Drummer Girl in the early 1980s and remember finding myself mirroring the sympathies of the young English actress Charlie, as first she is swayed one way by the arguments of her Israeli intelligence controller Kurtz and then the other by her Palestinian terrorist lover Khalil. Sadly, the film starring Diane Keaton hardly did the Israeli Palestinian conflict or the book justice.

I’ve just finished le Carre’s latest book A Most Wanted Man and was pleased to discover that the master of political intrigue is on his usual great form. The story teases out the ambiguities and contradictions of the ‘war on terror’ through the eyes of a British banker with dubious accounts, a human rights lawyer and her client, a Chechen illegal immigrant. Based in Germany, the plot is beautifully paced, redolent with treachery and a damning indictment of the moral bankruptcy of terrorism and extraordinary rendition. I’m reluctant to give anything away, but the denouement is heartrending and left me seething at the injustice of what may well turn out to be one of the United States most shameful and counterproductive criminal acts of this century.

I’ll be interested to see if the book makes it onto the big screen, but my suspicion is that it will be some time before any film maker will be able to attract the sort of financial backing the story merits. With A Most Wanted Man le Carre has again proved that the subtlety of his pen is more powerful than raging polemic.

guitar praise

I thought this had to be a wind up but it looks like there really is a Christian version of Guitar Hero being marketed called Guitar Praise. Check out the video and then check out Peter Banks’s superb devastating critique of the product entitled ‘The Devil Inside…’ You may also be interested in David Keen’s observations on these 'Christian' products entitled Markets need Morals 2.

Every time I think Christian sub culture marketing gurus can’t get any worse they prove me wrong.

h/t Memorybanks

celebrating Fairtrade

The Fairtrade Foundation celebrates its 15th birthday and to mark the occasion the UK Government has announced it will be investing £12 million in the enterprise. Fairtrade has come a long way since those early days when drinking their endorsed range of tea and coffee was a triumph of hope over experience for the taste buds. The UK is the biggest market for Fairtrade and this is something we should be proud of in the midst of all the talk about ‘broken Britain’; their range of products, while still limited, are nevertheless very good quality. There is still a very long way to go and Fairtrade is not without its critics, but we should celebrate the great strides Fairtrade has already made and remember the people whose lives have been transformed by their endeavours.

At the Chelmsford Diocesan Office we try and use only Fairtrade products where possible, though at times it has been something of a struggle. I remember sitting in a Diocesan Pastoral Committee meeting when someone complained that we were using Nestle coffee rather than Fairtrade. On further enquiry it turned out that because the Fairtrade coffee came in large tins someone was transferring the coffee to smaller empty jars for convenience; the smaller jars were labelled Nescafe!

By the way, were you aware that Nestle have been sourcing their milk from farms owned by Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace; farms that have been confiscated from their owners under his odious regime.

Update: In an earlier earlier version of this post I wrongly implied that Spring Harvest don't supply Fairtrade coffee; they do and I apologise for any misunderstanding.

is faith a sign of dementia?

I’m lecturing on Theology and Experience in a couple of weeks time and so a recent article in the New York Times caught my attention. The piece is about Dr Francis Collins the new Director of the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Collins is no mug; he was in charge of the Human Genome Project, but his appointment seems to have caused some concern because as well as being a prominent scientist he is also a committed Christian. This has led to some questioning in the scientific community as to whether Collins is an appropriate choice for director. Gardiner Harris writing in the NYT comments:

First, there is the God issue. Dr. Collins believes in him. Passionately. And he preaches about his belief in churches and a best-selling book. For some presidential appointees, that might not be a problem, but many scientists view such outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.

Collins describes his journey to faith in his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. In the book Collins relates how he was challenged by a patient who asked what he believed and he found himself flushed and stammering in response to the question. This incident caused Collins to explore the possible existence of God and he concluded that He does exist. Some critics have dismissed the experience as an easily explained medical condition, a hormonal rush, suggesting that Collins’s failure to recognise this and willingness to give it a higher significance was cause for concern. Others have been worried that there might be a conflict between Collins’s faith and, for example, developments in therapeutic cloning which will fall under his remit. Collins has assured colleagues that he is committed to therapeutic cloning and sees no conflict with his religious beliefs.

The story is reminiscent of Michael Reiss who was forced to resign as director of science education at the Royal Society earlier this year. Dr Reiss is a priest and some Fellows of the Royal Society claimed his faith was incompatible with his role. One notable critic was Richard Dawkins who described Reiss’s appointment as a Monty Python sketch. The accusation against Reiss was that he was a Creationist and, even though he denied this, there were some in the scientific community who just couldn’t understand how his faith was not in conflict with his commitment to evolutionary biology.

When I hear of these incidents I find myself asking a question; who are the real fundamentalists? Who are the people so locked into their world view, their belief system, that they can’t allow for any experience or understanding of that experience outside their framework? On the evidence of these stories the real fundamentalists are not the Christians.

it’s Rio

Rio de Janeiro has been chosen to host the Olympic games in 2016; cue lots of gratuitous close up shots of bikini clad women sambaing to Santana’s greatest hits. Not that I’m complaining and to get you in the mood here’s some classic Santana – you’ll have to wait for the other bit.

sign of the times (6) - st francis

This lovely bird bath sculpture of St. Francis resides in the Diocesan Office garden. I walk past it nearly every day and occasionally stop for a moment to contemplate. One thing struck me recently; I can't remember the last time I saw any water in the bowl or any birds bathing or drinking from it. Although the weather wasn't great this summer, the autumn has been warm and sunny and there has been hardly any rain for ages. On the up side it means I haven't had to worry about cutting the grass and on the down side, well that's obvious. So St Francis stands as another Sign of the Times.

The sculpture is by Catharni Stern and was originally displayed as part of a Cathedral Festival.

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26