Christmas Restored

Here’s something I got from a friend of a family member in Canada:

 *Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas – no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a ‘Holiday’.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears*
*You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, onClinton!*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream Tree’*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

 

Ugandan homophobic legislation

I have signed the petition being organised on behalf of Ekklesia, calling on church leaders to speak out against the proposed legislation in Uganda which would impose severe sanctions on gays, including long periods of imprisonment, or even death. I would encourage readers to sign up here.

Mizpah

A member of our congregation asked me on Sunday what this word meant: it occurs on one of the war memorials in our church. (In my ignorance, I had to go and look it up.) Apart from various references in the Hebrew Bible to Mizpah as a placename, the most relevant citation is Gen. 31:49, where the reference is to the stone set up as a sign of the covenant between Jacob and Laban. From there, it comes to mean a bond between people separated by distance or death, hence its use on funeral monuments.

By a wonderful piece of serendipity, I had the opportunity to experience this directly yesterday. I bumped into a former colleague and friend, who told me that another colleague was visiting, and would I join them for lunch. As a result, I found myself sitting with four former colleagues/old friends around a table in Glasgow University, including one who moved to the US more than 30 years ago, and whom I had only seen intermittently since then.

It reminded me, despite the challenges and stresses of academic life, to give thanks that I still belonged to a goodly fellowship, across decades, across oceans and across continents.

PS

I wish I’d read this sentence from Ron Ferguson’s Monday column in the Herald before I wrote the previous post:

‘The Trojan worm of racism, once downloaded, can infect the mental and moral hard disk.’

A victory for free speech?

There has been surprisingly little comment on the UK government’s acceptance of the amendment to the Public Order Act 1986 approved by the House of Lords last Thursday (12 November). This amendment is to that section of the Act which seeks to extend the definition of ‘hate crime’ to include attacks on people because of their sexual orientation (in addition to the existing provisions governing race and religion). The amendment has been welcomed in some quarters as a victory for free speech. I’m not at all sure that it is anything of the kind.

Clearly, there have been several instances lately of over-zealous and not very intelligent police interpreting legislation in a maximalist way, e.g., as reported in the New Internationalist, someone photographing a London bus was ordered to desist (information about transport, you see: could be passed to a terrorist organisation). There is something in the claim that over-explicit laws could lead to comedians being prosecuted for off-the-cuff remarks.

The problem is that any use of certain kinds of language creates a climate of tolerance which, while stopping short of incitement, intensifies and prolongs the stigmatisation of minorities as legitimate targets for contempt and abuse.

I include below the text of the relevant ‘exception’ clauses. 29JA sounds innocuous in isolation, but it has to be read in conjunction with 29J. Judge for yourselves.

‘29J Protection of freedom of expression
Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.

29JA Protection of freedom of expression (sexual orientation) The Waddington Amendment
In this Part, for the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.’

The empire strikes back

Immersed as I am in writing essays for a course on ‘The Bible and Diversity’, and reading the relevant literature, I have been apt to think that respect for diversity is more widespread than it is. But it’s hard to be optimistic when reading some of the stuff produced by the new bishop-elect of Peterborough, Donald Allister, who has written, among other things, that ‘Liberalism is one of Satan’s greatest weapons against the Church”, and who has scornfully dismissed ‘pantheist clergy and new age eco-theology. I wish I’d read that last bit before finishing my essay on ‘Christians and the Environment’. No wonder Giles Fraser had his head in his hands.

Tanks on the lawn

I never thought I’d find myself in agreement with Reform, but it’s hard to fault this statement:

“If priests really are out of sympathy with the C of E’s doctrine (as opposed to the battles we are having over women’s ministry and sexuality), then perhaps it is better they make a clean break and go to Rome. However, when they do, they will have to accommodate themselves to Rome’s top-down approach to church life, whereas the C of E has always stressed the importance of decision making at the level of the local church.”

Instead of the individual conversions envisaged by Reform, however, what we are being invited to contemplate is mass annexation, aptly summed up by Ruth Gledhill as the Vatican putting its tanks on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lawn.

How can any self-respecting Anglican, whether traditionalist or liberal, acquiesce in a situation which

·(a) has been brought about unilaterally  by the CDF, apparently  without consultation with the RC hierarchies of England and Wales, much less with the Church of England

·(b) has, according to the ABC, been sprung on him at short notice, precluding proper discussion within the CofE

·(c) will entail insult and humiliation to any ordained Anglican priest who joins the Romeward movement, as he (no she’s involved!) will have to undergo re-ordination, with the implication that his previous life as a priest has been a charade

·(d) will mean that any married Anglican priest who bows his head to re-ordination and who is subsequently widowed will not only be forbidden to re-marry without renouncing his orders, but will be precluded even from discussing the celibacy issue publicly?

If the arrangement goes ahead as it is apparently contemplated, it will be gall and wormwood to those fine men, some of whom I have been privileged to know, who were forced out of the RC priesthood because they wanted to marry.

I suppose it’s too much to expect that those who will make the move to Rome will worry unduly about the implications for attitudes towards women; but the signals that this development will send to the rest of the world mean that half the human race yet again has its humanity negated by an organisation calling itself Christian. This comment, by someone signing ‘palaeologos’ on the Thinking Anglicans website, really takes the biscuit:

‘The problem with women’s ordination is not that women are unqualified, but that they are not proper matter for the sacrament. You can’t marry your car, you can’t consecrate pizza for the Eucharist, and you can’t ordain women. It’s not a matter of an internal rule that prohibits something from happening, but an ontological impossibility.’

Those whom the gods wish to destroy…

…they first make mad.

Autumn

Seems as if we’re having a bit of an Indian Summer over the last few weeks, which compensates in part for a very soggy July and August. Nevertheless, we’ve reluctantly put away the garden furniture and accepted that it’s definitely autumn: we had our meal in the garden exactly twice this year. Hence the change to the seasonal header. It’s a picture of a cranberry harvest in British Columbia.

Shame!

…on Aberdeenshire Council, which has cravenly caved in to the unspeakable Donald Trump’s desire to take over large swathes of the county. In order to allow him to expand his colony even further, the Council has rejected an appeal against Compulsory Purchase Orders for four properties within its area, obliging long-term residents to leave their homes. It beggars description.