The Daily Mail's nightmare

I am amazed that the Daily Mail and the rest of their chums from the Fourth Estate don't run a campaign to ban Christmas. Consider the story for a moment: An unmarried teenage mother with distinctly dodgy anti-establishment views, a family of asylum seekers, plebs gatecrashing a royal birth, foreigners crossing borders... it's their worst nightmare and the means by which God chose to reveal himself to the world!

The shaming of our political class

What I hadn't counted on when posting yesterday about the free edition of The Sun, was the desperation with which our political leaders crave the support of Murdoch's press. All three leaders of the main parties were photographed holding up their copy of the freebie and the only reason can be that they are courting its support in the lead up to next year's general election. Not long ago we were being told that our politicians were ready to take on the vested interests in the press; it was time for them to be held to account and properly regulated. And yet, at a time when former News International employees, including editors, are on trial accused of various crimes connected with phone hacking, there are Dave, Nick and Ed gurning at the cameras clasping the newspaper. Business as usual then.

We will finish the race

This is the powerful front cover for Boston magazine put out within a few days of the Boston marathon bombing.



The shoes were collected from runners who took part in the race and the accompanying feature ‘The shoes we wore’ told the stories of fifteen owners of the shoes. Great job and great response.

Sun Rise service

I know it’s short notice but like most people I was caught unawares by Rupert’s latest wheeze and so I am announcing a special Sun Rise Service to be held tomorrow at our local shopping centre. We will meet at the church at 6.30am for a brief period of reflection as we remember the late lamentable News of the World. Then I will lead a procession to the local newsagent for the purchase of the Sun on Sunday, the latest publication to grace our culture from the Antipodean media mogul. This will be followed by a reading of the journal at the coffee shop. When the three minutes of looking at the pictures are up we will remain at the establishment to finish our beverages before returning home. Participants are then free to do what they usually do with products from News International; in my case it will be lining the floor of the rabbit hutch although our rabbit refuses to do his business on anything coming out of Wapping and Thomas More Square.

This little tweet of mine

I was getting ready for bed on Tuesday evening when I caught part of a news report that a vicar had been found dead under suspicious circumstances in the South West. Saddened, I offered up a prayer and then my wife asked if I knew who it was because the vicar had recently moved from Witham which is not far from Chelmsford. I asked if she had heard the name and Kate said it was John Suddards. My sadness tuned to shock because I had known John for quite a few years and we were colleagues on a particular diocesan working group. I tweeted a brief message about the news and then went to bed. Here’s the tweet:

Shocked and saddened to learn of the death of a friend and clergy colleague John Suddards on this evening's news bbcnews.

The next day I headed off to Norwich with the family for a few days break and on the way happened to phone the parish office to check on a couple of things. It was then that I discovered the national and regional press had been trying to get hold of me because of my tweet. I didn’t respond to any of the messages as I was on holiday and I didn’t want to discuss the matter with the press anyway. Over the rest of the week I’ve followed the story as it has gained prominence in the news but felt it unwise to comment further about the matter via social media.

So why have I put up a post about this on my blog? Simply as a reminder to me and my colleagues that everything we publish is out there, can be read by anyone and we need to be alert as to who might pick up on it.

I give thanks to God for John’s life and ministry and pray for all who mourn his death; especially his family, friends and brothers and sisters in the churches where he served so faithfully.

Christmas is not uncomplicated.

I came across an interesting comment piece on Christmas from Simon Jenkins in The Guardian titled Christmas is a shot of uncomplicated joy. Jenkins makes the following statement about Christmas:

My Christmas favourite is Christmas itself, its lit streets and decorated homes; its food, songs and music. For me it holds no religious import, but only the most hardened cynics could turn their back on this annual celebration of happiness. Christmas is the world's one moment of licensed pleasure, when custom requires us to behave, however briefly, as sociable human beings. A shot of uncomplicated joy is surely a social boon.

Jenkins continues:

Christmas carries little of the theological (or pagan) baggage of Easter. The myth of supernatural birth, common to many religions, focuses attention on children as gifted with unsullied virtue. It honours the sovereignty of childhood, yet of childhood in general, free of the pressures and strains that can come with the intimate rituals of family life, such as births, marriages and deaths.

What Christmas story has Jenkins been reading? The Gospel according to Charles Dickens as he explains:

Most Christmas ritual relies, to an extraordinary extent, on Charles Dickens. To him the event mattered not for its biblical significance but for how society treated it, indeed, seemed to crave it. His novella A Christmas Carol depicted a Manichean triumph of good over evil, warmth over coldness, generosity of spirit over meanness.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like A Christmas Carol. My son played Scrooge in his school’s production last week and great fun it was. However, Jenkins has completely missed the point and this is summed up by his conclusion:

Christmas breaks the harsh rhythm of life, offering an interlude when contact is re-established with neighbours, home and hearth. Hence the curious iconography of a "white Christmas", when reality is blotted out with snow and people are driven indoors to find warmth and reassurance round the fireside. I wouldn't be without it.

‘Reality is blotted out’ says Jenkins. If we go back not to Dickens but to the Gospels this claim couldn’t be further from the truth about Christmas. God is not offering an escape route from reality, he is demanding full engagement with reality. The Word became Flesh is the great acclamation of the Church at this time of year. God in the person of his Son entered our world as a flesh and blood human being. He engaged with a world of teenage pregnancy, occupation, oppression, persecution, homelessness, asylum seeking and mass murder. We might want to skip over these bits of Christmas because they don’t fit with the sanitised version of the story which features in so many of our school and church nativity plays. Christmas IS about ‘the harsh rhythm of life’ not an ‘interlude’ from it.

I know which I prefer. We don’t need a few days to anaesthetise ourselves to the realities of everyday life, usually at the price of getting further into debt and a stinking hangover. And for how many is Christmas an ‘annual celebration of happiness’ anyway?

We need to hear and receive the Good News that God invites us to share with him in transforming this world; experiencing abundant life in the midst of the dung and straw of this beautiful yet deeply scarred creation. This is the message that enables me to echo Jenkins’ final words about Christmas:

‘I wouldn’t be without it.’

Update: Check out this report from Theos on The politics of Christmas. h/t Sam Tomlin

#SPOTY blokes

So there I was lying in bed late last night listening to the news when the nominations for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2011 were announced. Something didn’t sound quite right so I double checked the list and discovered I hadn’t misheard it. Surely there must be some mistake, I thought, this can’t be right, what on earth are the BBC playing at?

Out of the ten nominations for SPOTY not one, NOT ONE, is a Manchester United footballer. What’s going on? This is the team which won the Premiership for a record breaking NINETEENTH time. The team that beat Arsenal 8-2 in the autumn of Arsene Whinger’s discontent. The team that guaranteed the final expulsion of Carlos Tevez from English shores by granting their noisy neighbours victory in the Manchester derby. The team that is helping supply the new ‘golden generation’ of England players to replace the last gilt or guilt ridden crew.

Oh, it’s also worth noting that there are no women in the shortlist. Despite Britain having several female champions in 2011 including: Sarah Stevenson (3 time Taekwondo world champion); Keri-Anne Payne & Rebecca Adlington (both Gold at the World Aquatic Championships); Kath Grainger (Gold rowing world championships for the sixth time); Chrissie Wellington (World Iron Woman champion 4th time); as well as assorted successful female footballers and cricketers. For those who claim they haven't heard of these sports women, I think that speaks volumes about the pathetic coverage these women receive in the media.

We shouldn’t be surprised that no women were nominated for SPOTY given that the BBC decided to entrust the nominations for their award to such enlightened publications as Nuts and Zoo. For those of you who have never heard of these magazines, Nuts is the one that promotes female sports like topless bread making.

Perhaps our female sports women should be grateful they were ignored by the BBC; it saves them the cringe making experience of listening to Sue Barker and Gazza Lineker trotting out crude jokes, double entendre and smutty innuendos in a pathetic attempt at what the Beeb no doubt regards as laddish sporting humour. I’m surprised the Beeb haven’t brought in Andy Gray and the other former Sky Sports clown Richard Keys to pep up the banter. Why not get in Ron Atkinson and Sepp Blatter, that will really wow the viewers?

I’ll leave the last word to Gabby Logan former gymnast and BBC sports presenter:

I can't think of anything to say about there being NO women on #SPOTY top 10 list that is positive so I won't say anything.

Not me guv’.

I received an enquiry from a Twitter friend, Ronnie, asking if a newspaper story referred to me. The story was about a Rev Phil Ritchie who had come up with an idea to increase his congregation. The Argus reported as follows:

A vicar saw his Sunday congregation go up by half after warning on Facebook he would give it all up and become a window cleaner if he didn't boost numbers. The tongue in cheek threat made by Reverend Phil Ritchie turned out to be a holy success when 207 people turned up -seven more than his target.

Rev Ritchie normally sees up to 140 people at All Saints Church in The Drive, Hove, but wanted to get the numbers up on the national annual Back to Church Sunday. As well as telling parishioners at the church to ask one at least one other person to come and join them, he also posted a message on Facebook. He said: “I urged people to come along and then said if I don't get at least 200 I would give it up and become a window cleaner- during the summer months only of course!"

“At first I was quite confident and sure that enough people would come along but when it got closer to the day I started to think I was going to end up with a lot of egg on my face. In all seriousness, I would not have gone for a change in career although obviously I've nothing against taking up window cleaning. It would be a great job and I love being in the outdoors. I'm certainly used to cleaning the lead windows of the vicarage so I've had some practice. I also told the congregation about the window cleaning comment and I thought some of them might think that was a good idea and stay away but everyone came along.”

Rev Ritchie, who has been at the church for three years, says he is keen to get the wider community involved. He said: “This was obviously a little bit of fun but there is a serious message behind it. The church is an important part of the community and I would like to reach out to as many people as possible.”

There are a couple of simple reasons for ruling me out of being the brains behind this wizard wheeze. Firstly, I don’t live in Hove and secondly, and more significantly, I don’t like heights so window cleaning is one of the last jobs I would consider. I urge the good folk of our parish not to get any ideas.

By the way, we still haven’t contracted the services of a window cleaner for The Rectory so if Rev Phil Ritchie, All Saint’s Hove, fancies supplementing his stipend…

Avin a larf

Looks like the gloves may be coming off in comedy circles over faith and atheism. The issue has been around for a while with various familiar names lining up to identify publicly with the atheist cause including established comedians David Baddiel and Dara Ó Briain. Ricky Gervais caused a bit of a stir with his mock crucifixion pose on the front of The New Humanist magazine.

The ante was upped by Frank Skinner in an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury in which he spoke about his faith and commented on comedians who speak about their atheism in order to establish their credentials as a ‘cool modern comic’.

On the back of the Skinner interview Christine Odone wrote a piece in The Telegraph called Subversive believers will have the last laugh. In the article Odone is really complaining about what she perceives to be an anti-religious bias at the heart of the liberal establishment, including the BBC. Odone goes on to identify various Christians operating in the media as a ‘subversive’ group. There is very little in the article about what Frank Skinner and Rowan Williams actually discussed as she uses a couple of brief quotes to hang a rather vague and meandering argument together.

On Saturday The Times magazine published an interview with Rowan Atkinson in which he made a disparaging remark about Church of England clergy being smug, arrogant and conceited. The comment was picked up by Ruth Gledhill, The Times religious correspondent (no link as it’s behind the paywall), who tried to spin the brief remark into a news story. If you read the original piece it was little more than a throw away line as Atkinson reflected on how he had portrayed clergy in sketches and on film. I found Atkinson’s portrayal of a vicar in the film Keeping Mum sympathetic and endearing. I do, however, find it ironic that an established member of the Oxbridge comedian set dismisses others as being smug and conceited.

Today, Brian Logan, comedy critic for The Guardian, has written a piece Divine comedy: how sacred is standup? in which he challenges the notion that there is an ‘atheist establishment’ in comedy. His article is as much a critique of Odone as of Skinner and Logan lists a variety of comedians and shows where faith is portrayed in positive terms. Logan’s own stance is clear as he argues: ‘In the bigger picture, religion remains, overwhelmingly, the establishment, and atheism a still-revolutionary challenge to that, which needs constant reassertion’.

It will be interesting to see how the debate develops. My suggestion would be a Mock the Week style face off in which Christian comedians are lined up against atheist colleagues to riff on a variety of topics. Personally, I think the combination of Frank Skinner and Tim Vine would be a hard act to beat and if they found themselves up against Ricky Gervais then on current form there would be no contest.

Chronicle – sign of the times (12)

Caught sight of this piece of publicity from our local rag the Essex Chronicle yesterday and burst out laughing.



I think I can guess one site council staff won’t be looking at or following.

Whistleblowing – A lose, lose situation?

The following is a guest post from my wife Kate who is an Associate Lecturer with the Open University.

When I was a child we had a dog who, from time to time, would take himself off on jaunts. We would watch, with a mixture of amusement and frustration, as he would trot past the lounge window, his head turned firmly in the opposite direction, presumably in the vain hope that if he could not see us, we could not see him.

It would appear, judging by the recent phone hacking scandal, that News International have been operating with the same level of blinkered denial – keep looking the wrong way and so will everyone else. Unfortunately that policy is now crashing fairly spectacularly on the buffers. This is not due, however, to any whistle blowing (i.e. revelations of malpractice) by NI staff, but because, initially, of a fairly innocuous story about Prince William having a knee injury.

In a recent article by Nick Cohen in the Observer he notes that not one member of NI’s staff challenged the management and wryly comments that had they done so, “their editor would have fired them and in all likelihood they would never have worked in the media again.” This conclusion does not appear to be without foundation. Cohen points, for example, to the case of Paul Moore, a risk manager for HBOS, who raised concerns about the level of lending in advance of the banking crisis. His reward was to be made redundant and to be ostracised by the banking community ever since.

Cohen makes a plea for the ‘law to save whistleblowers, not silence them’, but theoretically the law does that already. The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (“PIDA”) offers protection for employees making qualifying disclosures from victimisation. It has been recognised for some time that whistle blowing might have averted, for example, the Clapham rail crash or the Ziebrugge ferry disaster, and the enactment of PIDA was an attempt to empower and encourage constructive whistle blowing. Efforts have also increasingly been directed at encouraging corporate bodies to develop transparent policies on whistle blowing and a culture which values early disclosure of malpractice.

Despite this, many employees appear to remain ignorant of the protection available and frightened of reprisals if they raise concerns, perhaps with good cause. Public Concern at Work, (‘PCAW’) a charity set up to advise potential whistleblowers and promote greater awareness of the role and value of whistle blowing, has recently published a report on its website assessing the effectiveness of whistle blowing in the Care Sector. One of its key conclusions is that more proactive promotion of ‘best practice whistle blowing arrangements’ is required, with more transparency and clarity in the process to ensure that it is sufficiently safe and straightforward for employees.

According to Nick Cohen, the Commons Health Committee is suggesting a different emphasis – the imposition by the General Medical Council, and other regulators of the NHS, of punishment where clinicians have failed to speak out. I wrote an article some years ago for the Veterinarian Nursing Journal on the implications of similar requirements under a proposed new Code of Conduct for their profession. My conclusions then were that this could lead to employees being caught in a ‘damned if I do, damned if don’t’ situation: if they did not report suspected malpractice, they risked being in breach of their contracts and, if they did, they risked victimisation, both in the immediate and long term.

Cohen views the need to consider obligatory measures as a sad indictment on a cowardly society, but I have some sympathy with those caught in such a predicament. It seems to me that legal compulsion of care sector employees can only be justified if it is accompanied by clear and supportive guidance and protection for employees and a shift in the mindset of their employers towards whistle blowing.  I suspect this will only happen if further resources are invested in the activities of organisations, such as PCAW, to educate and inform.  Ideally employees should report concerns, not because they have to but because they feel empowered and encouraged to do so in a culture which values public interest disclosure and is not, like my dog, determined to look the other way.     



Article first published on the Open University blog Legal Verdict.

Prophetic painting

This picture was painted by Alan Storkey over a year ago and the background to it is described by Alan’s son Caleb on his blog. I love Caleb’s description of the way his dad would turn the tables on Sky spam callers. I doubt if Alan, like most of us, can believe the speed with which the whole empire has begun to come crashing down around the feet of this latter day Ozymandias and his clan.

I posted some reflections on the News International and phone hacking scandal a few days ago in a post entitled The Thunderer Whimpers.

With thanks to Caleb for permission to post the painting.

The Thunderer whimpers

I was wound up about the News of the World phone hacking story long before the latest acts of gross indecency erupted from the stinking sewers of the fourth estate. One reason was the apparent indifference of the media, with a few honourable exceptions, and the police towards blatant illegality until they could bury their heads no longer. Now everyone is suddenly appalled and journalists who laughed the whole thing off as part of the job have come to realise what a loathsome spectacle colleagues have made of their profession.

Earlier today one journalist tweeted a quote from an editorial in her paper which seemed to claim some kind of moral high ground over the whole squalid #hackgate affair. Here’s the tweet:

'Beyond reprehensible.' Leader article in The Times today #notw and Milly Dowler.

I happened to have read the Leader in The Times and ‘beyond reprehensible’ just about sums it up, the Leader that is not the overall scandal. I ought to put on record that I don't buy The Times or pay its tariff to view on line and the same goes for the rest of News International’s nasty empire of sleaze ridden rags. Like many football fans I remember the Hillsborough tragedy, The Sun’s disgraceful trampling over the bodies of the dead and I despised its commercially driven faux apology a couple of years later.

Back to that Leader: What a miserable piece of disingenuous self- serving apologetic it is. Here’s a taste:

Before today, The Times, which, like the News of the World, is owned by News International, has taken the view that it ought not to comment on the issue of phone hacking. We have sought to report the story straight, in good faith, without taking any editorial view…

The only thing that has a scintilla of sincerity about it in this statement is that The Times is a sister paper of the News of the World. The Times, along with the rest of the Murdoch owned press, has kept as far away from this story as possible, with the briefest of coverage deposited well inside the paper. Only when the story began to lead on bulletins across the networks and the globe did News International’s stable of British papers begin to grudgingly give it some prominence, but you still couldn’t find it on their front pages. At every stage these papers, including The Times, have parroted the party line about the odd ‘rogue journalist’ and there being nothing else to know. They assured us that internal investigations had been rigorous and all wrongdoing exposed. Their assurances were about as worthy as the initial statements spouted by the Metropolitan Police, whose woeful investigation has set back their reputation for decades. In short The Times didn’t report the story, wasn’t straight about it and showed as much good faith as a FIFA executive promising to support England’s bid to host the World Cup.

The rest of the leader is a pile of sanctimonious nonsense going on about how the truth must out and the police investigation be rigorous, though everything is tempered with the reminder that ‘these are all only allegations’. Yes, they are only allegations, but when has that ever stopped News International’s scandal sheets trashing someone’s reputation? And those allegations are coming thick and fast with virtually no repudiation from NI HQ, save for the pathetic utterances of a hapless chap called Greenberg who is a walking PR disaster every time he appears in front of the cameras.

The focus of the Leader is entirely on the journalists. Not one word about those in positions of oversight or management including Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. No mention of the culture engendered in the News International organisation that allowed or encouraged the disgraceful behaviour the Leader now fulminates against. Extraordinarily, Brooks has been put in charge of investigating the affair, in other words she has been asked to investigate herself and her colleagues. Can you imagine how The Times would thunder if any other body operated in such away? You don’t need to imagine, read their coverage of the MPs expenses scandal or the FIFA ethics committee.

‘Beyond reprehensible’ doesn’t only sum up the activities of the journalists and investigators who hacked the phones of the abducted and the grieving. The phrase applies to the newspapers who employed them, the editors who oversaw and funded their exploits, those who failed to investigate them, the politicians who turned a blind eye and cocked a deaf ear to evidence of illegality and the owners whose only concern is to sell their product whatever it takes.

Love at the frontline

John Harris has written an excellent article in The Guardian and concludes with a challenging question:

A question soon pops into my head. How does a militant secularist weigh up the choice between a cleaned-up believer and an ungodly crack addict? Back at my hotel I search the atheistic postings on the original Comment is free thread for even the hint of an answer, but I can't find one anywhere.

Read the article and check out John’s video of his visit to a church engaged in outreach amongst those living on the edge of society in Liverpool.

 

Muslims - compare and contrast

I was appalled at the attack on MP Stephen Timms by Roshonara Choudhry during a constituency surgery earlier this year. This week Ms Choudhry was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 15 years. Mr Timms is MP for East Ham in the Chelmsford Diocese and is well known for his Christian faith as well as being a hard working MP and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the last Labour government.

I’ve followed the events around the stabbing and subsequent trial with interest, not least because of the sensitive issues the case touches on with regard to faith and community relations in East London. Many of my friends and colleagues work very hard as ministers to foster good relations and positive dialogue against a backdrop of incessant rabble rousing by the BNP and other extremist groups. They are not naive about the problems associated with the radicalisation of young Muslims, however, they are greatly disturbed by the stereotyping and scape-goating that would characterise Muslims as the cause of all the ills facing local communities.

Today the papers and blogs are full of details and comments about the case and the content is all too predictable. To highlight the problem here are two examples of blogs commenting on the case and how it has been handled.

Cranmer has been clear about his reading of both the trial and the behaviour of Ms Choudhry and her supporters. Here is a flavour of his comments:

At the sentencing of Roshonara Choudhry, the trainee teacher who attempted to murder Stephen Timms MP, the public gallery erupted with cries of 'Allahu akbar' ('God is great'), 'British go to hell' and 'Curse the judge'.

Quite why they were not immediately arrested for contempt of court is unknown.

Praising their God in a court of law?
Just about acceptable.

Passing opinion on the limited soteriological options of the British?
Well, it might be ‘racist’, but we’ll call it ‘freedom of expression’.

But ‘Curse the judge’? How did that pass without immediate intervention by the Judge?

Miss Choudhry appeared by video-link because she 'refused to accept the jurisdiction of the court'. Why was this permitted? Are all ‘citizens’ of the UK granted this option? Are we not all subjects of Her Majesty, and therefore all subject to the Crown in Court, on whose behalf the Judge presides and dispenses the Queen’s Justice for the maintenance of the Queen's Peace? More 

Contrast Cranmer’s account with that of Minority Thought commenting on press coverage of the same events:

The front page and main story of today's Daily Express is a clear and unsubtle attempt at maintaining the "us and them" mentality which is so often levelled by that paper against Muslims:

MUSLIMS TELL BRITISH: GO TO HELL

The headline refers to the shouts from "a group of men" (according to the Mail) who were sitting in the public gallery during the trial of Roshonara Choudhry, the woman convicted of stabbing Stephen Timms MP earlier this year.

Rather than leading with the story at hand, the sentencing of Choudhry to "life" imprisonment, the Express has chosen to focus on the deranged rantings of a few nutcases in a courtroom instead. Both the Daily Mail and The Sun have also gone with this angle, but neither has chosen to put it across in as brazen a way as the Express.

That there are Muslim extremists who say such things is beyond a doubt. However, the Express' decision to make this the key focus of the story, along with the language used in the headline, is an attempt to imply that these shouts are in some way an expression of what every Muslims thinks about the British.

Can you imagine, for example, what the Express would have done if the men who broke into shouts of "Go to hell, Britain" were Christians? Would the Express have replaced "Muslims" with "Christians" in the headline? Would they even have mentioned it so prominently in the first place? More

Now I am not for a moment dismissing or diminishing the real problems of extremism, violence and terrorism. My family come from Belfast; I grew up there in the mid 1960s and regularly visited family there throughout the troubles. Yet, despite the generalised picture created by media coverage of blood splattered streets, I learnt from personal experience that not all Catholics were out to murder me in my bed and not all Protestants were frothing at the mouth preachers of hate.

What concerns me is the narrative slant that commentators choose to give to particular stories concerning matters of great sensitivity like the Choudhry case. What is it that these commentators are hoping to achieve? What attitudes are they seeking to foster in their readers? What reaction are they hoping to elicit? What values underpin the choice of their words and presentation of the story?

In recent years we have run a course in the diocese as part of our Lent and Eastertide Schools. Living With Other Faiths helps people explore why we should engage with other faith communities and how we can go about doing so. The course objectives are to identify biblical principles for engaging with other faith communities; to develop an understanding of the beliefs and sensitivity to the practises of other faiths; to consider a range of ways of engaging with other faith communities and to identify particular approaches appropriate to participants’ situations.

Approaches like Living With Other Faiths may be dismissed by some, sadly including some Christians, as a typical P.C. response to the issues raised by our multi-faith society. I prefer to see it as just one of many positive responses to our calling as Christians to seek the common good.

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so
move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the
people of this land], that barriers which divide us may
crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our
divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hypocrites

Those hoping that the General Election would herald a change in the political culture after the long drawn out saga of MPs expenses have been sadly mistaken. No sooner had the ballot boxes been stored, the new ConDem coalition sealed in blood, the Browns moved out of No. 10 and the Camerons in, than we were treated to our first full blown scandal. David Laws, appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was forced out of office before he’d even had his headed note paper printed, by revelations about his expenses and private life.

This weekend the self appointed guardians of the nation’s morality have revealed that Chris Huhne, another Liberal Democrat member of the government, has been having an affair and he has announced that he is leaving his wife. Cue the predictable discussions about whether Huhne should be required to resign. I had the misfortune to catch part of a conversation between Lembit Opik and Edwina Currie on BBC Radio 5 Live late Saturday night as they considered the matter; informed comment it was not.

One of the charges levelled against both men is that they have acted hypocritically. Laws made great play of his financial probity over the expenses issue in the run up to the election. The MP has now had to pay back a considerable sum claimed on expenses that he may not have been entitled to. Huhne during the election portrayed himself as a family man and the revelations about his family life suggest that he has been engaged in an affair for some time.

It may be that Laws and Huhne are hypocrites. I don’t know, but here’s the thing; I’m pretty certain that many of those who spend their time exposing the hypocrisy of others are themselves hypocrites. I was very impressed with a recent interview given by David Yelland, editor of The Sun from 1998 to 2003, on Radio 4 at the end of May. Yelland was speaking about his alcoholism during that period and commented that the hypocrisy involved in running front page stories exposing the lives of others was a key factor in his addiction. He wrote in The Observer: ‘The Sun was a dangerous place for me to be, because my addictive traits were big box office. I was actually paid to rush to judgement, paid to lash out and attack - it was perfect territory for the drunk.’

As I said, I don’t know if Laws and Huhne are hypocrites, however, I do know that I am. It’s one of the truths I’ve had to face up to as a Christian; I claim to be a follower of Christ and yet again and again I fail to live up to that calling. Every time I say the Lord’s Prayer I am reminded of the times I fail to forgive others and fail to trust God for my needs. The only thing that helps me to face up to the truth of my hypocrisy and to strive to overcome it is the knowledge that God knows me and loves me as I am; hypocrite that I am.

One of the big criticisms levelled against the church is that it is full of hypocrites and you don’t have to spend long reading the church press or in church to know that it is true. It’s not something to be proud of, but we do need to be honest about it. This means we need to be slow to criticise the hypocrisy of others. That is not to ignore when others have done wrong, though we do need to avoid being quick to judge and to condemn. It also means we need to reach out to those who our society has branded as hypocrites; sharing with them the generous welcome, forgiveness and love that God has shown to us.

Whenever someone says to me that the church is full of hypocrites I have a simple reply: You’re quite right, the church is full of hypocrites and there is always room for one more so why not join us?

De-Pressing

A work of genius in praise of The Daily Mail with a nod to the great Robert Zimmerman.

h/t The Media Blog and echurchwebsites.