Au revoir

After yesterdays post I thought that I was going to spend some time thinking about whether I wanted to continue blogging at the present.  However, my reaction to the idea of stopping - at least temporarily - was such that I know that it is something that I want to do.  And once the decision is made...

It has been fun sharing with you all, but for the time being, as Jimmy Young (Jeremy Vine to you younger types) used to say on the JY prog TTFN.

One parting thought!  If George Osborne wants to know where to start cutting then he could try the MoD - why do we need the 4th largest military spend in the world, why do we need nuclear, even if we just paid the soldiers and military contractors to sit at home we would save the hardware costs.  And shouldn't matters of war now be a UN issue?

Whether you are French or not...   Time for another break.  Back soon.

And now for something completely different!

With any luck I shall not be seen for the next week.  I am at the annual curates' conference following which I am going to have my post Easter break.  This time I am not going to write posts ahead of time, so for the next week or so this will be a silent space.  Enjoy!

Happy Easter!

Two stories that would have made it into a sermon if I were preaching today!

The first came in an assembly I attended at the local secondary school to see how it was done.  Duncan Dyason of Streetkidsdirect was speaking and spoke of the power of the resurrection to change the perspective from which things were seen, quoting from his personal life, but using as an example the time he was upgraded to business class, and how while in economy he had wanted to go and see what was in business class, but once there resented the person from economy who came in to do just that!

The other was Richard Rohr via my Bishop talking about how blessings follow suffering.  He talked about how in primitive cultures boys become men by going through some form of initiation which involves some form of suffering, and which means that they recognise that they are not in control, and not the centre of the universe (how many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb - one, they hold it and the universe revolves around them).  In western society men can remain teenagers forever - or at least until their business fails, or they are made redundant, or their marriage fails - believing that they are in control and there is no need for suffering.

Happy Easter.

So what might happen?

So what will the Pope and Archbishop do with their job swap?  (H/T Bosco Peters for the story).

Lets assume that Rowan realises that he has to act fast.  Under the imprimatur of Papal infallibility he could approve married, women and gay priests and women bishops and popes.  He could then authorise the sharing of the sacraments with other denominations.  This of course would leave a number of quite conservative Roman Catholics feeling a bit disgruntled.

Pope Benedict on the other hand would find that he wasn't able to do anything - everyone would just stick two fingers up at him (one if you are reading this in America).  However, after he realised that he didn't want to go back (and nor would Rowan) he could settle in - approve the Anglican Covenant and offer a special welcome to those in the RC Church who were disgruntled with the direction that had been taken - forgetting that obedience means when you don't like the outcome as well as when you do.

Many of the more liberal CofE would of course now convert, and lo and behold problem solved...  Well not quite - I doubt that Anglican Mainstream would be too happy, but of course they could separate off and join an evangelical grouping.  At least if we are going to have separate denominations it would help if everyone shared more of their beliefs than at present!

Even the Lutherans might be happy - a spokesman, Loof Lirpa, welcomed the  suggestion and expressed a desire to be in Communion with a Rowan led RC Church.

Well, I can dream - but I am not even sure that this is my dream!  After all, the next pope could be Peter Akinola!

Evolution and Faith - Dawkins Dilemma

The theory of evolution suggests that natural selection favours traits that aid survival.  So how has religion survived for so long?  It would appear that perhaps it aids survival - although the fact that religious belief aids survival does not prove that it is true.

However, what I want to look at is more the change in religious belief, something which Richard Dawkins seems to want to deny, suggesting that only fundamentalist views of faith are "true".  For example his suggestion in the Times that:

Loathsome as Robertson’s views undoubtedly are, he is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition.

when commenting on Robertson's comments on the Haitian earthquake.

If you accept that there is an interventionist God then given the plethora of interpretations of faith out there you would expect the "right" one to come out on top.  If you do not accept that there is an interventionist God then the one that was most likely to aid survival would "triumph", whether it was true or not!

So if Dawkins wants to take fundamentalist religion as the only true faith he has to accept an interventionist God.  If he doesn't like an interventionist God but wants to claim that fundamentalist faith is most predominant then he has to accept that it is because it aids survival.  Horns of a dilemma or what J

But the implications are... ?

Divine intervention may have played a part in the change in fortune for Grimsby Town FC – after the club received the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/blog_post.asp?id=90804

 Do you think he looks worried that praying for Grimsby to win was frivolous?

Fascinating story.  Now what I want to know is has he been praying for the future of the Anglican Communion and God hasn't been giving the answer he wanted, or has he not been praying for it?

Alternatively of course it might just be a fluke that Grimsby won J

England is too narrow for Christianity!

Churchgoing in the US has recently been reported by Gallup (h/t http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/).  After considerable statistical analysis (cor - look at those low numbers on the West and North East coasts) I have come to the conclusion that Christians are averse to the sea - at least on East and West coasts - so with England being such a narrow country in that respect it is perhaps no surprise that churchgoing is so low here!

Just compare - 15% of the English got to church monthly - 22% in London (pages 5 & 6 http://www.tearfund.org/webdocs/Website/News/Final%20churchgoing%20report.pdf) whereas in America Vermont, with fewest (mostly) weekly attendees has 23%.

[We are ignoring the fact that only 5% of French people are estimated to attend church on the grounds that it doesn't fit our thesis!  Much as ACNA supporters claimed General Synod support which was not in fact there http://anglicanfuture.blogspot.com/2010/02/general-synod-member-brian-lewis-on.html]

Man Flu!

I have just been recovering from a bout of something or other.  No idea what it was, but it left me feeling distinctly dodgy for a few days.

It reminded me of this video - I wish!!!

It also led onto and argument with a friend of mine (female as you might well guess when you read it).  I speculated that for evolutionary reasons it is better for men to have very bad health for a short period of time, rather than something less bad for longer - if you are out hunting dangerous animals you don't want to be below par at all - so you just take a few days off.  Whereas women can gather berries whilst under the weather.  

This was not well received and it was suggested that if men had to get up and get the children breakfast they wouldn't succumb either (it really didn't help when I pointed out that my 17 year old had been shopping and cooking for me).

The funny thing is that although I was sympathetic to the idea as I have written this I have discovered the following article which suggests that there may be something to it - and just as I was getting excited this one which probably debunked the first (well, I'm not well enough to read all that text)!

Thoughts on Blogging

I blog for me, not for anyone else!  That is the main thing that I have learnt after blogging daily for a couple of months.

Plenty of other people have given their thoughts on blogging ( Lesley's Blog 1, Lesley's Blog 2, Naked Pastor), so I thought I would join the party.

1. Who is it for?  I go through a regular round of is it worth it - the time spent blogging - and yet when I dig really deep I find that it helps me.  There were a few posts (here and here) on working practices which changed the way that I see things - for the better, and that has not been a unique experience.
2. Frequency - I started the blog over a year ago posting about weekly, but life got busy and the frequency drifted and then almost dried up.  For the past two months I have been blogging daily and suspect that if I reduced the frequency I would find it drying up again (that is more a comment about me than necessarily about blogging!)
3. Stress - I don't like tight deadlines.  When I started blogging I was writing each post and posting it.  That put a big strain on me to find the time and the ideas each day.  I have now settled into a routine of preparing blogs ahead of time, and having some generic ones up my sleeve for emergencies.  If something topical crops up I can post there and then and use one of the others later.
4. Holidays - Or more correctly time away.  I have a residential coming up - should I write a load of blogs ahead of time and post them automatically each day, or should I shut up shop as my bishop does when he is away?  I have yet to work this one out, so any thoughts from those with more experience would be welcome.  Given points 1 and 3 I am leaning towards shutting up shop!
5. Statistics - Having said that I blog for me I do look at the statistics, although I am contemplating stopping that!  What is obvious is that if someone well read references or tweets me then I get more hits - but it doesn't seem to convert into more readers on a regular basis.  However, if I am writing for myself why do I care about the stats (anyone out there convinced? J).
6. Why do people always have 10 thoughts?  When I worked with Management Consultants they told me that they always started a presentation saying that there were three points - even if they didn't know what they were at the time.

Cynicism - The Covenant & Women Bishops

Is the Covenant falling apart?  The resignation of Mouneer Anis from the Anglican Communion Standing Committee (ACSC) (story here) because "there is no desire... to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion" (resignation letter) comes as a short introduction to a 5 page letter (anyone else ever written a 5 page resignation letter?) in which he makes a lot of personal points.  In addition the Anglican Communion Institute have started suggesting that the existing ACSC isn't the body to carry out the work that the Covenant allocates to them.  Episcopal Cafe aren't impressed!

Am I alone in seeing a connection between the response to the idea of a Covenant and the Women Bishops issue?  The Drafting Committee decided to look at something that Synod had not charged them to look at - yippee say those wanting legal protection - but then comes the rub - nothing can be agreed, so the legal protection falls (Church Times report here) whilst those in charge can wash their hands and say not our fault.  Now look at the Covenant - no synods voted to set it up, but those who want one have been happily engaged for months/years writing it, and of course those writing it are writing something that will prove unacceptable to several provinces.  So what will happen?  They will bring forward a Covenant and it will fail to get adopted (ever the optimist me J) whilst those in charge can wash their hands and say not our fault.

It reminds me of government, or business - when something unpleasant and difficult is suggested they set up a committee - even better they rig it so that the committee cannot succeed on the contentious issues.  Ring any bells?

Fundamentalism

The Pope has spoken and suggested that:

Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth. (I got this off the Mad Priest)

Which I interpret as "telling people what they can and cannot do does not restrict their freedom, because it is good for them" - or am I being unduly argumentative?

He goes on (talking about Roman Catholic laity):

it is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate.

I read this on the same day that I read Brian McLaren's blog on fundamentalism:

Quiz:
When I am presented with a new idea or proposal, my first question is more likely to be ...
___A. Is it acceptable to my religious/ideological community or belief system?
___B. Is it possibly true, valuable, and worth exploring?

Guess which answer Brian defines as fundamentalist J, and guess who seems to be encouraging people to give answer A?

Sydney reinvents Vestments

What is requiring clergy to dress smartly in services other than a reinvention of vestments?  After all the chasuble, alb and other vestments originated as posh wear in their day.

An article in the Church Times said that a Bishop in Sydney was complaining about the standards of priestly attire:

He believed that ministers should dress appropriately to the congregation style, “perhaps just a tad slightly higher, appropriate for their leader ship role, neither standing out at the top nor at the bottom”

[I thought of illustrating this with a picture of a scruffy cleric, but apart from self portraits was unable to find one; I was also wary of causing offence J]

Blokey Christianity

A friend has blogged on "Being a Bloke"and that set me thinking.  If I take his thesis that blokes (and I think here we are talking a different species to just men - there are other qualifications) don't like the "frilly bits" in life (except around the bottom of their cottas), then how as a church are we going to market ourselves to "blokes"?  (Irony intended)

There is a more serious issue, and another friend has blogged on it here, and there was an article in the Church Times a while back about it with a critique in the letters the following week.  Then there was the story of the Welsh vicar who resigned, apparently for swearing - I say apparently because if every vicar who swore got sacked I don't think there would be many left - certainly few of my acquaintance - and that would also apply to at least some of the bench of Bishops - I was told of one who used the f word twice in a confirmation sermon, though I wasn't told the context.  I was also present at a sermon when the now Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman preached that the f word wasn't used enough in church, although he went on to clarify that for him f was for "fun".

But I digress, the church does give the impression that it isn't for "blokes", for me the question is whether that is because "bloke" culture is incompatible with the church, or because we have fallen into bad ways.  If we want to help bring about the Kingdom (which I rather think is what Jesus wanted), then some of the blokey attributes might just help us with that.

As an afterthought...  Do we think Jesus would be more at home in church or with blokes?

I recently saw a great video parable (h/t Jonny Baker) - Wild Thing (and I love Elvis was good too) which might speak into this space.

How to Paint a Flugel Horn

Can you paint an infinite area with a finite amount of paint?  I am posting this for two reasons - firstly I just love playing with the idea of infinity, and secondly because I want to blog more about infinity in relation to eschatology and faith, and I want to use this as a footnote!  If you really do not like maths please look away now :)

An unwound flugel horn is made by rotating the graph of y=1/x around the x axis from 1 to infinity.

This gives it the unusual property that it has an infinite area, but a finite volume.  Therefore whilst it would require an infinite amount of paint to paint it, which can't be done, you can pour a finite amount of paint into it and tip it out to paint the flugel horn!

Similar logic applies to the problem of the tortoise and the hare.  If the tortoise has a head start then whenever the hare reaches the point at which tortoise was when the hare started then the tortoise has moved further on - so the hare can never overtake the tortoise.  http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/Tortoise/

For serious anoraks the maths is below.  All others look away now :)

The area of a flugel horn is the integral of 2π 1/x from 1 to infinity.  This is 2π ln(x) which is infinite.

The volume is the integral of π (1/x)² from 1 to infinity.  This is -π/x which is finite because the infinity is a divisor.

The thing about the tortoise and the hare is that the infinite number of iterations take place in a finite time and distance.  It is a little like the fact that the sum of 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 .... tends towards 2.

What is the best present you have given or received?

Today we celebrated Epiphany and I preached based on a sermon I found on the web. It makes reference to the O Henry story "The Gift of the Magi" (whilst searching for a picture I found the following cartoon which amused me - if you are offended by rude language please do not click through to David Mamets Gift of the Magi). What struck me was how the three questions: what is the best present you have received, what is the best present you have given, and why? seemed to stir up great interest.

So what are the best presents you have given or received, and why?

Pi=3?

The other day I found myself writing a sermon and wanting to quote the story of the American state which legislated that Pi was 3 on the basis of II Chronicles 4:2, 5. It is a long story, but I was trying to demonstrate Foucault's power/knowledge albeit trivially (probably just digging myself in deeper here!). What I found was that it started as an internet spoof in 1998 (and there was I thinking I had heard of it years ago). However, what I did find was that a law was debated in Illinois which proposed at least 3 different values for Pi! The text of the law is here for real anoraks.

Talented Artist

What do you make of this image? How long do you think they have been painting? The full story can be found in the Guardian. The artist is 7 years old and has been painting for a couple of years. His pictures sell for upwards of £900. How wonderful to have found his talent so early in life.

Maya Angelou

I get a daily email from Sojourners and today it had this great quote in it

I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed.
- Maya Angelou
from her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Grrrr - Press overreact again

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/5423736/Microsofts-Bing-under-fire-for-porn-video-access.html

That is blaming the messenger - there are porn videos out there - if you don't want to watch them don't search and don't hover over them - is the feature that delivers this a useful feature - yes - when I am searching for videos it will make my life easier - if I don't want porn then I will leave the safety search setting on. So the Telegraph are complaining that this makes it easier to search for videos - durr! Perhaps they should complain about moving pictures and get them banned because they enable porn - no motion pictures = no porn.