 |
| with Catherine, Moses and Roger (Dean of Mission and Ministry) |
This judgment is an important victory for everyone who wants a secular society, one that neither advantages nor disadvantages people because of their religion or lack of it. This is particularly important for activities which are part of public life, such as council meetings.
There is no longer a respectable argument that Britain is a solely Christian nation or even a religious one. An increasing proportion of people are not practising any religion and minority faiths are growing in number and influence. This underlines the need for shared civic spaces to be secular and available to all, believers and non-believers alike, on an equal basis.In fact the NSS hit the track so fast that one wonders whether they had made a false start. Certainly more considered reflection on the judgement tends to suggest that their perceived victory may not turn out to be all they have led themselves to believe.
Mr Justice Ouseley rejected the main part of the NSS case, that incorporating prayers into its order of business the council was unlawfully discriminating against Councillor Bone and abusing his human rights…
The decision to "ban" prayers was a narrow one, resting on what many would consider a point of pedantry: whether the prayers could be tabled as part of the formal agenda, in which case they had to be integral to the council's business, or whether they had to take place informally before the meeting was called to order. The case turned on the interpretation s.111 of the 1972 Local Government Act, which by coincidence has today been superseded by the Localism Act.The piece went on to comment that the NSS’s intentions had been frustrated:
What the NSS plainly wanted was a declaration that council prayers violated the human rights of non-believing councillors. That would have provided them with ammunition to continue their battle against other manifestations of public religiosity. By confining his decision to a narrow point of statutory construction the judge denied them anything more than a symbolic victory.The Heresiarch developed the point that the Act on which the judgement was based has already been superseded:
The second reason why today's decision may not mean anything is that (as I mentioned above) the Local Government Act has now been superseded by the Localism Act. Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, today criticised what he thought was the decision (it was an instant reaction) on the grounds that "we are a Christian country" and that "the right to worship is a fundamental and hard-fought British liberty." But he also mentioned that under the new legislation councils have "a general power of competence - which allows them to undertake any general action that an individual could do unless it is specifically prohibited by law. Logically, this includes prayers before meetings."Jonathan Chaplin writing in The Guardian has also pointed out that the implications of the High Court ruling may not have been as the NSS would have liked.
The quality of comfort that the National Secular Society (NSS) can take from the ruling that Bideford council prayers are unlawful can perhaps be summed up in Alan Hansen's familiar comment about top Premier League football clubs going through a rough patch: "It's important to get a result even when you're not playing well." NSS certainly takes home a point, but their lead arguments – that such prayers, lasting about three minutes and allowing an opt-out, are so imposing upon nonbelievers as to violate their human rights – didn't make it past the halfway line at this particular meeting. Mr Justice Ouseley concluded that the mere fact that non-religious councillors like Clive Bone might feel "uncomfortable" during council prayers did not constitute a discriminatory disadvantage serious enough to warrant the protective intervention of the state. When a senior judge acknowledges that mere temporary subjective discomfort in the presence of religious or other beliefs or practices we happen to dislike isn't enough to justify the blunt instrument of legal proscription, religious freedom is strengthened.However, Chaplin also posted a warning for Christians anxious to retain the place of religious practice in formal civic process.
But Christians who have backed Bideford council on this occasion would be well advised to get to work now preparing their counter-arguments for the time when a local authority in an area like Tower Hamlets makes what might then be an entirely lawful majority decision to open its meetings with readings from the Qur'an – from which, of course, Christians would be accorded an opt-out. Christians who have hastily leapt to the defence of Christian Britain and denounced the ruling as yet further evidence of the marginalisation of Christianity from the public realm should perhaps be careful what they wish for.I can’t help feeling that in all the fuss over this ruling and other cases perceived to be hostile to Christianity we are missing something very important. A few weeks ago I was involved in a diocesan conference for about 1,000 people focusing on our vision Transforming Presence. Overall it was an excellent day and you can read a summary of the outcome here. However, early on in the discussions on my table of 10 people we quickly became side tracked. One person commented about the way Political Correctness was preventing Christians witnessing effectively and before I knew what was happening several people had launched into perceived PC anti Christian anecdotes drawn from local situations and well known stories in the national press.
It’s not the Church of England I care about, it’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Saturday was a bit less active but in some ways more exhausting than anything we have done so far. We attended a music festival / choir competition in Kaburu. Treated as honoured guests we were seated on a pew to the side at the front of church right next to where the choirs would perform in full view of a packed building. However, no one had warned us what the format of the competition was. There were 21 choirs in our section of the competition and each performed four pieces. The first piece by the first choir was pleasant enough but after the third choir I thought the song sounded familiar. It turned out that in the first competition each choir sings the same piece and after two and a half hours I decided that if I never heard 'Jesus comes with power to gladden' in Swahili again it will be too soon. The pews were painful and I kept falling asleep in the heat. On Sunday we were to discover that the cathedral choir had won.
Eventually we headed to the vicarage (no green guide for clergy houses in Kenya!) for a pleasant lunch and then it was back into the church for more choral singing. After about half an hour the choirs began to perform traditional Kikuyu folk songs and these were highly entertaining. One song in particular accompanied by traditional instruments and a vuvuzela was brilliantly performed and afterwards we were informed that it was a song against the evils of drink. At this point I decided not too mention I was hankering after a long cool Tusker beer. Two days on and I think my rear end has just about recovered. The toilets were the usual fare though one of our group was caught out when she went in the wrong shed and found herself confronted by some angry chickens. The phrase 'going to see the chickens' has now been employed as a suitable euphemism for the rest of the trip.
The late afternoon included a brief stop back at the cathedral for some tea and a chat with some of the Church Council. The focus of the short discussion was how we might develop ways of partnering in mission between our parishes and this is a very exciting prospect. The council were amazed to discover that our young people had self funded their visit in the summer through months of hard work. The assumption had been that the young people were very wealthy and had been given the money to come to Kenya. We assured the council members that our youth group had been transformed by their experiences on the trip and this in part was why some of our party, which included three parents, had wanted to visit.
Back to the hotel for dinner and to catch up on the footie results and then I spent the rest of the evening preparing my sermon for Sunday morning in the cathedral. Sunday would prove to be an amazing day but the battery on the iPad is running low and there is no power in our game lodge during the day so more about that in the next post.
- posted on iPad using Blogsy from Samburu Game Lodge.
It's raining heavily as I write this post before getting some sleep. Thursday afternoon was taken up with a visit to St Andrew's School (see previous post) and St Andrew's Theological College in Kabare. The college serves the five dioceses that formed what was previously known as Mt Kenya East. Most ordinands from these dioceses train at the college and there are also business studies and secretarial courses. These are the dioceses that Chelmsford Diocese is formerly linked with and the five diocesan bishops along with the Bishop of Chelmsford met together at St Andrew's to renew their partnership agreement. There was a short, simple signing of papers and prayer but behind this ceremony lies a real commitment to share in partnership in mission for the sake of the gospel.
Later in the afternoon we joined the students and staff at St Andrew's for their Thursday evening Holy Communion. This turned out to be a communion like no other I have experienced, though I suspect Sunday morning in the cathedral at Kerugoya might be just as amazing. Ostensibly the liturgy is not unlike a Common Worship service but with 'value added'. In part this took the form of various groups of students presenting songs and hymns of worship, some traditional and in English, others in Kikuyu and Swahili. The Clash once rocked the Casbah but these students rocked the chapel to its foundations. Bishop Stephen preached another captivating and challenging sermon on the resurrection words of Jesus from John's Gospel and every time it seemed like the worship was coming to an end the students broke into singing and dancing again. The one downside to the worship was the accompaniment by a rather dodgy out of tune guitar, unless there is an African form of tuning I had never encountered before.
Following the communion service we headed for the refectory led by students again singing and dancing. The food was the usual fare of beef stew and rice. At the end of our time the students stood and sang an African blessing to us which included throwing God's blessing at us. I have a segment of the blessing recorded and will post it when I am back in the U.K. I cannot get over the passion and enthusiasm of the students in worship and it was wonderful to experience a community of diverse tribes and tongues committed to studying together for the ministry of the gospel.
Friday morning began with a trip to the slopes of Mt Kenya to visit tea plantations and a tea production centre. Unfortunately the factory was undergoing refurbishment so we were unable to visit inside and therefore didn't get to do the tasting we had been promised. However, we did get to spend time at a tea research facility and were given some insights into new types of specialist teas, including white tea now marketing at $70 per kg. which is not bad considering a normal variety is sold at about $4 per kg. The head of the research centre has also published on the impact of climate change on the tea growers, pest control and the environment around Mt Kenya.
After lunch back at the cathedral we headed to Utugi to see the work of one of the Christian Community Service centres. These centres around the dioceses of Kenya are self financing and seek to help the poor and marginalised in communities develop self sustainable forms of enterprise. It is an exciting initiative developed by the church as a practical expression of the gospel and the centre we visited is having a profound impact on the local community.
Finally, and much later than planned, we moved on to the Utugi Boys Children's Home on the outskirts of the town. This home, again sponsored by the church, works with street children from across Kenya and seeks to provide them with a place of safety, love and learning. The head of the home, Revd Phyllis, is a remarkably lady who has given her life to serve the boys of the home. Of all the children's places we have visited this was most noticeably different because so many of the boys came from such challenging circumstances. When we arrived we were each invited to plant a tree by the staff and boys and then we gave them some sports equipment that we had taken to Kenya. This was another place where young people from St. Mary's had worked and it was particularly good to see that the football pitch they had created a couple of years ago had been put to such good use. The home is still being developed and the hope is that it will house its own school. I would say this visit has had the biggest impact on the group so far.
Another packed couple of days, full of memorable visits and encounters that will take some time to process and reflect upon. So many things to give thanks to God for as we have seen people's lives transformed by the witness and ministry of the church in this part of Kenya.
Time to finish as we have a power cut and the mosquitos are coming out to play.
Asante Sana Jesus.
- posted with Blogsy on my iPad from the Isaak Walton Hotel in Embu.
It's been a busy two days and I wanted to post a brief summary before I lose track of some of the events and experiences.
Wednesday morning began with a meeting at St Thomas' Cathedral, Kerugoya the church with which we are exploring a possible parish link. This visit was for 'a cup of tea' but I hadn't realised a Kenyan cup of tea includes much more, basically a second breakfast within an hour of the first! Great for Hobbits, not so good for someone hoping to decrease their waist line during the visit. However, this is just one example of the generous hospitality offered wherever we go.
We then headed for Mutira and a visit to the Mission Church which is preparing to celebrate it's centenary. Interesting to discover the present Bishop of Kirinyaga Diocese, Daniel Ngoru, was vicar there. From this small and unassuming church 108 other churches have been planted so the title 'mission' is born out in the history of the church. The church supports a hospital, small but well equipped with pharmacy and laboratory. I chatted with a couple of mums. One had a two year old daughter with suspected Malaria and she was waiting the result of tests. The other mum had brought her young son to be wormed, a regular treatment for adults and children in the area. I smiled when I saw the little boy was wearing trousers with 'England 1966' written on them. There are also two church schools, a primary and the recently opened Canon Njumbi Mutira Secondary School. These schools are linked to Great Baddow High School from our home parish and it was encouraging to see the use to which equipment provided by the link school had been put. Conditions in the classrooms were very basic and a few of the children were without shoes, yet, it was clear the children took great pride in their school, their work and that they had a hunger to lean. The set up in Mutira reflects the outreach approach of the Christians in building churches, hospitals and schools to serve the local community.
Next to the church schools is Mutira Secondary Girls boarding school and the contrast in facilities with the neighbouring schools was dramatic. There was time to look round and chat with staff and pupils and again it was impressive to see and hear the pride that all involved in the school took in education. A couple of facts stick in the mind. Teachers in the state system are paid the same whatever their position. The head is paid the same as other members of staff and the emphasis is on distinction of role and responsibility but not reflected in salary. Teachers are also deployed by the Ministry of Education and are expected to go where they are sent, including the Head. The girls start at 5am and the day goes through until lights out at 9.30pm. Along with the studies they are expected to do the cleaning and their laundry and all the other tasks required to keep the school running. In general the schools are all very results orientated and there is strong competition between schools and celebration of academic achievement. Walls are covered with internal and external tables of performance and certificates of achievement.
The afternoon was taken up with lunch back at the cathedral and informal conversations with members of the ministry team before a tour of Kerugoya. The Provost Winifred Munene is a very gracious host who has worked hard to provide us with an interesting and varied programme of visits and we will be exploring links between our churches more formally later in the visit.
Thursday was a long day. It began with a visit to the recently opened Kirinyaga Diocesan Office and then attendance at the diocesan clergy chapter held in St Paul's church next door. St.Paul's is a massive building still under construction and when completed will seat 2,500 worshippers. There is much work to be done but the walls and roof and initial internal construction of the church is complete. There are no windows or doors and the floor is still bare earth but the church was a good venue for the gathering. After a Eucharist and welcome to visiting bishops, curates and our party from St. Mary's the chapter meeting centred around a powerful Bible study on Luke 24 led by Bishop Stephen (Chelmsford). The study drew out the shared challenges facing the church in mission in both Kenya and Chelmsford. There was also some excellent exuberant singing and I worried at one point that the worship might bring the walls of the new church down.
The afternoon was split between visiting St Andrews School and the Theological College in Kabare. The girls school is where the young people from our church worked in the early summer and it was a real joy to see the impact their time there had made on the school. As soon as we mentioned the team from St Mary's the children's faces lit up and when three of our party explained they were parents of members of the team the children became very excited. Our young people had helped create the playing field facilities and provided resources for a play area. We managed to get the Head teacher sitting on the playground roundabout and the deputy head on the see-saw for some photos which the children found highly amusing. Each of us had just over half an hour in a class with the students and I spent an enjoyable time chatting with a year 8 class (13) who will be taking their key exams in a few days. We prayed for the girls as they approach this crucial time and as they prepare to leave the school in November. The girls sang to us at various times during the visit and when they shared with us the songs they had learnt from our young people it was a very moving experience.
During the visit to St Andrew's School we presented a few gifts of stationary and were taken aback by the response from the children. The gratitude for being given what most English children would take for granted in school was just one more reminder of the contrast in facilities and available equipment. The most challenging reminder, however, was the group of old small huts at the end of the sports field which turned out to be the student toilets. About eight of these long drop toilets served all the children at this residential school and the staff toilets were not much better.
It was a real privilege to visit the school which has had such an impact on the young people from our church. This is but one example of the way in which our diocesan and parish links with the churches and schools in this area of Kenya are greatly enriching our understanding of ministry and mission.
The rest of Thursday was spent at St Andrews Theological College in Kabare, however, that experience will require a separate post along with our trip to a tea plantation and visit to Utugi Children's Home today.
The only down side to the visit so far is that the television channels seem to have Man Utd's match against their noisy neighbours from last weekend running on a loop. The excellent Tusker beer is scant consolation.
Asante Sana Jesus!
- posted using Blogsy on iPad from the Isaak Walton Hotel Embu.
Arrived yesterday in Nairobi after an uneventful eight hour flight from Heathrow. I'm with a group of six others from our church, along with +Stephen, Bishop of Chelmsford, Canon Dr Roger Matthews (Bishop's adviser for mission and ministry) and Rob Fox (Diocesan Director of Education). A group of curates from Chelmsford Diocese also flew out with us as part of their CMD programme. News on arrival was not very good. I was already aware of an explosion in Nairobi before our departure and our driver in Nairobi informed us there had since been a second explosion. I've been wondering how much attention this has received on the news back home.
We spent the night at the ACK Guesthouse in Nairobi and then earlier today transferred to Embu where much of our visit will be based. Lunch and early afternoon has been taken up meeting the Provost of St Thomas' Cathedral Kerugoya, Winifred Munene, who has been planning our itinerary for some time. We have a packed and very interesting programme of visits line up. Part of the purpose of the visit is to explore how we develop our links at St Mary's with the church in this part of Kenya and with St Thomas' in particular. Our young people have been out to Kenya to work on various schools based projects in the last couple of years and I'm looking forward to seeing at first hand the work they have been involved with.
A few brief initial thoughts and reflections:
1. Driving through Nairobi in the morning rush hour is not an experience I wish to repeat in a hurry!
2. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is every bit as bad as Mayo & Kermode warned me it would be.
3. I was surprised at the large number of churches, chapels and other places of worship on the side of the road on our route from Nairobi to Embu.
4. I have discovered my camera isn't working which put me in a bad mood. Then I thought about the poverty I'd glimpsed during our journey north and felt rather pathetic. I'm grateful to my friend Roger who has lent me his camera for the duration.
A good start to the trip with no hitches or problems so far. I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing about the work of the church in this part of God's world and am also open to the unexpected ways he might encourage and challenge us during our time in Kenya.
On Saturday I was back to the cathedral for the St Mellitus College graduation service and my final public act as former Director of Lay Ministry Studies at SMC. It was a real joy to see our graduating students receive their awards from Middlesex University (SMC’s validating body) and especially the Chelmsford Readers for whom I had particular oversight. I estimate that I have overseen the training of well over 150 Readers in the diocese during my tenure. Again it has been a real privilege to work with such dedicated lay people serving God in ministry and mission as preachers, teachers, evangelists and pastors across the diocese."That this Synod approve the proposals embodied in the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure and in draft Amending Canon No. 30."A following motion calling for more provisions for those unable on theological grounds to accept the ministry of women bishops was rejected.
But before the debate begins properly, let me finish by mentioning something even more important than this. Whatever the outcome of today’s debate and of the debate in General Synod next year, we will almost certainly be left without complete agreement, though make no mistake about it, complete agreement and consensus is what I am praying for. Therefore the question for each of us as we go home today is this: what shall I do with my disagreement? How we answer this question is of fundamental spiritual significance, because it demands of us two things: great love of our neighbour, a Christ like love that is willing to go the second mile; and also great trust. Do I trust that those with whom I disagree are still my brothers and sisters in Christ who in faithfully reading the same scriptures as me and inhabiting the same Anglican patrimony, have reached, in conscience, different conclusions? If I can see Christ in them and honour the decisions our synods come to, then there will be hope not just for the Church of England, but for the world. For our world is more divided and fearful and confused than ever; and it might be that in our day God is calling us to show, by the way we handle our disagreements, the love of Christ who is, says the letter to the Ephesians, “Our peace”. In his flesh he is breaking down the barriers between us (Ephesians 2. 14). May this be so today: for our church and for our world.To which I can only add Amen.
provocative and challenging insights but the comment that particularly stuck in my mind was +Stephen’s reminder that Christianity was story before it was doctrine. He went on to challenge us to allow ourselves to be drawn into the stories of the Gospel and to recapture the art of story telling in sharing the Gospel with others.
s a leaving lunch in the Cathedral Chapter house where I was joined by nearly a hundred friends and colleagues from around the diocese who I’ve been privileged to work with over the last ten years. It was great to catch up with people and to say thank you for their encouragement and support for lay education and training. I’m particularly grateful to my administrator Liz Watson who worked so hard to put the lunch together and to Canon Dr Roger Matthews and Bishop Stephen Cottrell who spoke at the lunch.
Along with the very enjoyable food and drink were some great surprises in the form of gifts for both the family and me and a card with many lovely messages. The gifts included a bottle of champagne (for Easter), a copy of Sir Alex Ferguson’s autobiography with a message from the great man and a cheque for an iPad 2! 
I have to confess to feeling slightly irritated by the Radio 4 insistence that the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible is an important cultural event. You know, all that stuff about the incomparable prose of the Authorised Version, its indelible mark upon the English language. Well, all that is true. It is impossible to understand European literature and art without some familiarity with the Bible. It has indeed shaped our culture and our laws.
But the reason we are celebrating this anniversary is not primarily about the form of the Bible, however beautiful, but its content. The Bible is vital and central because it is God’s word, not faxed down from heaven, but inspired by the Spirit, the indispensable record of God’s dealings with his people, written by the people themselves, a record of God’s activity in history, God’s ways and God’s heart and supremely God’s revelation of his self in Jesus Christ who is God’s word made flesh and then the beginnings of the Christian church and the story of how we are formed as God’s people today.
The Bible, which is a great library, a collection of books within a book, enables us to meet with God and to know God. That is what we are celebrating in this year of the Bible. That is the reason we are encouraging people to open their Bibles. And here it doesn’t really matter which translation you are using. What matters is letting the word of God into our lives and through us into our world. The word that was made flesh in Jesus Christ is made available to us through the written word of scripture and now God wants to write that same word in our hearts.
Sometimes I rather provocatively say to people, I would like to make a change to the Bible. It is this, a simple addition, right at the very end: ‘To be continued until that great day when we see the Lord face to face.’ The great promise of scripture, the great Christian hope is that God wants to write his word in our hearts, and we need to listen and brood upon that word so that we can learn to be his people. What was revolutionary about the King James Bible 400 years ago was that it put the scriptures into everyday language and into the ears and hearts and hands of ordinary people. That is also the challenge for us today.Further details about Bible Year 2011 in the Diocese of Chelmsford can be found here.
