Lost Childhoods

It has been interesting to read the figures on teenage pregnancies in the light of the recent report commissioned by the Children’s Society.  In discussing childhood struggles today, A Good Childhood, Searching for Values in a Competitive Age had looked at aggressive consumerism, poverty and inequality and pinpointed the ‘excessive individualism’ of our culture. Its conclusions that ‘more young people are anxious and troubled’ and that children’s lives are ‘more difficult than in the past’ have been well reported.

Now, almost on cue, preliminary statistics released from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) give a graphic illustration of one aspect of these problems, teenage pregnancy. Figures for the first half of 2007 show conception rates for girls under 18 at 42 out of every 1000 girls. It is by far the highest rate in Western Europe- six or seven times higher than that of The Netherlands. In girls between 13 and 15 years, the conception rate is an alarming 8 out of every 1000.

The responses to these figures have been mixed. Some have insisted that they are a blip on an otherwise downward trend. But even if this is true, there is little in them to celebrate. One advisory agent commented with some satisfaction that, although the pregnancy rate was high, more than half of them did not result in motherhood. But since that means that large numbers of young girls are undergoing abortions it is barely a cause for congratulation.

We understand those who see the problem as one of morality, the rejection of the consequences of sexual behaviour by a ‘me’ generation. We hear the call for re-education in sexual attitudes and values. We also understand those who link the problem to poverty, for poverty in childhood is one of the most consistent predictors of disadvantage and social problems. Britain is the most unequal of rich countries in Europe, with 22% of our children categorised as poor. (In Sweden it is 8%.) Sexual experience often accompanies deprivation, for sex can provide a cheap and temporary distraction. As the Children’s Society report acknowledged, reducing child poverty itself could change lifestyles and empower more youngsters.

Yet if the research is right, we may need to go beyond both moral judgements and material solutions. We may need to address deep problems of disillusion and distrust, identity and emotional struggle in some teenage lives. We may need to ask why so many youngsters have little real sense of self-worth; why there is a deep unmet need for affection,  why many experience ‘skin hunger’ and sadness. Henri Nouwen once wondered what it must feel like to fear that no-one loves you without conditions and you can’t be vulnerable without being used. Without some experience of the love that God gives, it is no surprise that youngsters seek substitutes.

Perhaps, more than the rest of Europe, our particular form of spiritual malaise is tied up with material burnout. The Netherlands might not be any more Christian than the UK in its churchgoing, but the legacy of the faith remains in the way its children are nurtured and valued. Adult patterns identified by the Children’s Society of aggressive pursuit of personal success give us less energy to spend with young people, and less time to understand their world. It was St Paul who told us that when he was a child he spoke, understood and thought as a child, and not until he was an adult did he put away childish things. We may need to learn how to re-evaluate our time and give our young the space to be children.

March 2009

 

Prophets and Priests

This was written for the Church Times in January 2009.

The forecasters have been out in force for 2009. Predictably, what they see in store for us in the coming year is gloomy, whether we look at it on a national, global, or personal scale. Take the economic front. Not only are American car manufacturers,  financial institutions and the dollar all forecast to be under great pressure, causing inevitable global ripples, but the UK will suffer its own further losses. House prices will continue to fall, savings will yield little income and 600,000 jobs could go this year, leaving many more people in acute financial hardship.

To drive the consequences home, we also hear from the country’s lawyers that they are expecting a considerable rise in the divorce rate. As money crises push relationships to breaking point, couples are not finding the emotional and spiritual resources to enable them to stay together. The forecasters even offer us a date where they expect to see a great rush of new separations: January 12 – the first Monday after return to school from the family Christmas holiday.

Finally, climate scientists are assuring us that 2009 is likely to rank in the top five years of the earth’s temperature rise, and that from the end of this year the rise will be more accelerated and less reversible. It will take enormous international political will to put into effect the measures to prevent this.

So what do we make of these predictions?  Responses have varied from those who see them as inevitable and therefore unavoidable whatever we do, to those who dismiss them as the ranting of misery-mongers who simply hype incidents into trends. Yet  accurate forecasts are neither mechanistic inevitabilities nor mere scaremongering, but are in a strong part predicated on human action and attitudes. In this sense we could see them as prophetic, and those who make them as linking us to the prophets of old.

The Hebrew prophets might have been speaking into different times and situations, but their warnings were for people and nations, and when their words were heeded, disasters were averted. When Joseph prophesied a famine after seven years of plenty, people took note, and made the kinds of preparations which got them through the long crisis. When the people of Ninevah listened to the predictions of Jonah they repented and the disaster was averted. Our present-day forecasters are not claiming divine inspiration – their predictions are not prefaced by ‘Thus says the Lord’. Yet, God can and does speak through the most secular of prophets, and the call for people to weigh what is said and respond with humility and wisdom is always there.

It is therefore the church’s responsibility to make a response, especially in the public arena and to policy-makers. In the messages of both Archbishops was a critique of the government’s failure to respond adequately to the financial crisis; five further bishops have challenged the record on poverty, policy and distribution. Their words are biblically significant. We have often privileged the rich. As a nation we have not used the seven years of plenty to provide resources for the seven years of lean.

Yet our response as Christians goes beyond speaking out. We also need to be there, in active compassion, for those who face unemployment, struggle with debt, and need help to plan domestic finances. We need to be around for those who whose marriages can no longer take the strain, and whose children may face the sorrow of breakup for years to come. 2009 will challenge the church too- not least to look beyond its own issues and reach out in love.

Cambridge

January 2009

A Question of Access

This was written for the Church Times August 2008

Having spent a couple of months on crutches, after a ligament injury in my knee, I’ve been particularly tuned in to how people relate to those who are disabled.  Response to my situation has, understandably, been tempered by surprise and curiosity and has varied from jokes and hilarity (‘I bet the other person came off worse!’) to mildly patronizing concern (‘Are you sure you can make it to the door?’)

Media stories this week about attacks on the disabled have particularly grabbed my attention. Reporters have labelled these as ‘hate crimes’ which, they claim, show a deep-seated hatred within society towards disabled people. Dr (Sir )Tom Shakespeare, geneticist,  sociologist, and co-author of The Sexual Politics of Disability disagrees.  He sees this not as hatred but bullying; people who themselves are insecure and socially inadequate picking on the vulnerable because ‘it makes them feel better to put us down.’ Tom Shakespeare was recently intimidated and humiliated himself as schoolgirls on the metro jeered at his restricted growth. Yet rather than encourage excitement about ‘hate crime’ he challenges us to address the ordinary ways in which people with disabilities are treated.

I’m sure he’s right. It’s easy to be distracted by appalling extremes. A publication last month found plenty of material in the everyday realities of disability. The Report:  ‘The Experiences and Expectations of Disabled people’, commissioned by the Government Office for Disability Issues, interviewed nearly 2000 disabled people, and addressed  key policy areas including employment, education, transport, health and discrimination.  The results show that in spite of years of progress, people with disabilities still experience disadvantages in most of these areas. Restricted job opportunities, discrimination, housing problems, health concerns, difficulties with access and financial problems were all among the issues shared.  Because of the cumulative weight of these factors, half of those interviewed lived in a household with an income less than the national median. Worry about future finances was widespread.

The disadvantages reported in most of these areas were considerable, yet the needs expressed by those with disabilities were modest. Social inclusion, normality, participation, good health care, freedom of access were high on most people’s list.  Nearly half of disabled people felt that something as simple as improvement to public transport would make their lives better.

It’s sobering to reflect how our Churches respond to some of the issues in the Report. There are certainly problems of access and inclusion. But not just over lack of ramps in old buildings or services without disabled facilities. There can also be problems of access to full participation and access to God. We can turn disability into dependency, where those who are disabled become the special recipients of charity and concern, whilst their gifts remain unused. We can also romanticise disability – heralding it as a high calling, with the disabled as an inspiration to us all. We can even be embarrassed by people who are disabled, seeing disability and the Gospel as spiritually incompatible, for surely a loving God wants everybody to be healed? (I was told by someone, ‘put your crutches down and walk, trusting God.’ I do trust God- and  have proper respect for a torn ligament!).

Our theology of the incarnation ought to give us a firmer basis for Christian  attitudes and practice towards disability. God neither banished the pain and struggles of the world nor idealised them. He entered into them, becoming part of our ordinary human condition, facing its hardships and limitations. Experiencing God’s Spirit in each other can transform us into an inclusive community which accepts the needs of all, and allows unrestricted access to God.

August 2008

Dangerous Truth

This was written for the Church Times in June 2008

In the Church we have an ambivalent attitude towards journalists. Blame of the media is almost a mantra – especially for its obsession with sex in the vicarage and its appetite for lurid stories. I’ve listened for years to allegations of bias, distortion, sensationalism, and dumbing down, and agree that they’re not unfounded. I could produce as much evidence as the next woman.

But there is a very different side to journalism too, which is profoundly challenging to the Church. Two significant events over the last ten days have paid tribute to this. The first was the One World Awards which drew together NGOs and media companies to celebrate some outstanding global contributions to broadcast and print journalism over this last year. The second was the dedication of the new skylight sculpture, Breathing, erected on top of BBC Broadcasting House in London to commemorate journalists killed in the work of newsgathering.

It is appropriate that the two events came close together. In the award ceremony, we saw some amazing films produced by people whose commitment to telling the story on behalf of others took them into places of restricted access, hideouts and undercover reporting. Clips from the skilful short-listed programmes produced tears and laughter almost in equal proportion. Days later, the memorial inauguration reminded us of the costs of covering the news in these conditions, and the death toll of those who have been killed in an attempt to open up truths which the powerful want to hide.

The statistics are very sobering. According to Richard Sambrook, the BBC’s director of Global News, every week for the last ten years at least two journalists or news staff somewhere in the world have lost their lives, and numbers are increasing.  More than 200 were killed since the start of 2007, with 160 attacks on news people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone. Nearly 90% of the murders on journalists there were committed by military or other security services. The losses are both personal and global. Two young BBC reporters killed this last fortnight – Nasteh Dahir in Somalia and Abdul Samad Rohani in Afghanistan– were well-known voices to millions and admired for their fearlessness. They faced threats from Taleban, corrupt officials and ruthless drug lords for the murder of journalists is one of the cheapest forms of censorship, and intimidates others into repression and silence.

The sculpture which commemorates their bravery and commitment now projects a beam of light from Broadcasting House one kilometre into the night sky for thirty minutes every night. It is almost biblical in its symbolism. There is so much in the Gospels about exposure to the light, which penetrates the darkness with truth. And the light that beams from the new sculpture reminds us of all  journalists who have died refusing to be intimidated by blackouts, embargoes, cover-ups, deceptions, lies, and tyrants who suppress the truth.

Truth is from God wherever it operates and its very nature is to set people free. St John identifies Truth with Christ, and we cannot come to Christ without being prepared to face the truth and be freed from idolatry and self-delusion. Those who are called to be professional truth-tellers are on the front line of the battle for freedom. Open reporting of news is one of the greatest gifts which any culture can offer its citizens. For security will never come through those who stockpile weapons and trade in arms. It can only come through those who create open access to truth, hold others accountable, and are ready to expose wrongdoing whatever the cost.

Cambridge

June 2008

 

 

 

Loss of Trust

This was written for the Church Times in January 2008

Issues of trust are cropping up all over the place, mostly involving the lack of it. We fear we may not be able to trust banks with our deposits, or internet firms with our debit card numbers. We’re reluctant to trust world leaders and now it seems our own government cannot be trusted with our personal data. The loss of computer discs containing the entire child benefit records and the personal details of 25 million people is certainly very grave. It is grave because out there are others we cannot trust. They are ready to defraud us, even to steal our identity. All the time we are in danger of being fleeced and attacked. In fact, some kind of cosmic worry is emerging where we’re anxious about everything from the reliability of our health tests and the safety of our children, to the threat of terrorism. It seems that everything and everybody needs securing. This lack of trust is very costly. We’re told we need weapons to defend ourselves against rogue states, and security systems on homes, cars, computers, churches and mobile phones. Hundreds of thousands of employees, from retail security guards to club bouncers are taught to practice professional distrust. Distrust is big money, and of course, there are many people and companies who are happy to talk it up.

The main response seems to be to rely on surveillance and technology to meet the challenge. Lead is being stripped from church roofs, and so a dye will make the stuff unsaleable. Computers needs protecting against viruses, so sophisticated security systems are devised. Identity cards, or more accurately identification cards, are to be high-tech solutions to the problem of identifying one another. And in many ways this technological response seems inevitable; anonymous relations cannot easily be transformed into personal trusting relationships. The process of increasing distrust is inexorable.

Yet, perhaps this does not have to be the case. Actually, trust is a necessary part of human relationships and human economy. We trust the electrician, the surgeon, the mechanic, the teacher, the plumber and the babysitter. Today the vast majority of jobs are professional in the sense that we expect fellow workers to hold to standards for us: to examine our brakes on an MOT or do a breast scan correctly. We trust the postal system, the building society, the sewerage service. Our train and bus systems function on extraordinary levels of trust. In all of these situations what is good for the other is paramount, even when we do not know the person involved. Most of the time we trust that people will operate as good neighbours and we relate to them on the same basis.  In fact our society has long absorbed the necessity of the second great commandment; there is no real alternative to neighbour-love. It is the generator and guarantee of trust which we tend to take for granted until it breaks down.

When trust does break down criminal, unlawful or negligent activity must be held to account so that the principle of neighbour-love can be re-established. Institutions should also be trustworthy so government departments must be held to account. People are, in Alister Darling’s words ‘entitled to trust’ the government. Perhaps the greatest weakness of our present situation is not failure of technology, but failure to acknowledge the sheer centrality that trust and trustworthiness is to our lives. Its absence costs us billions, complicates life and destroys peace. Its presence sweetens the soul and allows a complex economy to flourish. Jesus’s summary of our responsibilities towards each other remains the bedrock of human society.

January 2008

 

Gathering the Resolve

This was written for the church times August 2007

Nearly 30,000 people were at the Big Green Gathering in Somerset. Coming by car was discouraged, parking charges were heavy, and the whole site was powered through sun and wind, apart from the odd camp fire. But there was a quiet resolve about the five day event. People were going to meet people, and have fun. A man in monk’s habit wandered past the tent selling relics and indulgences:  “Bits of the true cross, fingernail clippings from St Paul; earwax from St Ethelreda.” He did not seem to be expecting sales. “Life – not available on television” stretched across another punter’s chest.

More pointed were the gatherings in the campaigns field. Events from the previous week provided the urgency.  Floods in India, Bangladesh and England, heat waves and crop failure in Southern Europe demonstrated again the costs of global warming. A key document from the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) provided a focus for action. This study, Zero carbon Britain, sets out an integrated model for properly meeting global warming, and like George Monbiot’s Heat, addresses the full range of issues with thought, enthusiasm, and the substance of good answers. It is becoming clearer what should be done in each sector. The report’s suggested measures include: a move to greener eating patterns with less focus on meat production, housing insulation on a large scale, energy efficiencies across industry, use of coaches and electric vehicles, drastic changes in fuel taxation. The details underline a resolve to care for the planet and an awareness that we’re all in this together.

Our involvement was around transport, and we went to meet many groups involved with different aspects of transport action. Insights were passed on, new possibilities opened up; together we saw with some coherence the moves that must be made.  Yet even as little victories are won there is confrontation. CAT thinks contraction, while Brown thinks growth. Coalitions oppose road building, but motorways expand. Government will not do anything decisive about plane travel. Car use continues largely untouched and subsidised, whilst coach systems remain under-investigated. Global warming issues seem to stay at a low practical priority. One of the groups, ‘Plane Stupid’ offered careful and cogent arguments against air travel expansion. But opponents are already demonising them, treating them like terrorists because of their coalition’s planned demonstration at Heathrow. When vested commercial interests are threatened, proper debate goes out of the window. .

In this developing scene of climate change activity, Christian resolve seems barely evident. Sir John Houghton, the climate change scientist is, of course, solidly behind the CAT document, setting out the principles of action and affirming its direction. His own work in the area has been urgent and prophetic. The Bishop of London keeps the issue on the agenda, Christian individuals recycle, organisations like Arocha work at sustainable and meek living. Yet, we remain incoherent as a group and even though we’re a significant numerical presence, seem incapable of acting together. We might love our neighbour and seek to care for God’s planet, but in so many of our churches and organisations we have not begun to translate this even in the basic way we use energy. Christians could commit to cut our carbon footprints decisively. We could actively back energy-lean policies and oppose indulgent ones. We could eliminate waste. We could collectively work on greener living. But we don’t. And until we resolve to live out this Christian calling with definite policies and conviction, at least as urgently as these secular stewards, we will be remain part of the problem instead of deliberately embracing solutions.

Cambridge

August 2007

 

Death at Easter

This was written for the Church Times in March 2007

Murder has been very much in the news over the last weeks. A man stabbed in a flat in Rhyl, a beautiful young woman visiting Japan found dead in a bath of sand, violent street killings of teenagers. The stuff that nightmares are made of has left fathers weeping in front of television cameras, families in devastating grief, struggling to come to terms with loss. It isn’t just the shock and bereavement; it’s also the injustice of a precious life taken for nothing; the pointlessness of loss.

For these people, even the ones committed to the Christian faith, Easter may well seem particularly far off this year. For the news that ‘death is swallowed up in victory’ is hard to grasp when death is a very present reality and there is little of victory to celebrate. And those whose experience this week is only of suffering and spiritual emptiness, the Christian story with its happy Easter ending can sound like a distant and irrelevant fable.

Sometimes in the church we may, inadvertently, reinforce this. For in our worship and our prayers we can often give the impression that Good Friday is simply something we go through in order to get to Easter Sunday. I have listened to sermons which have focussed on Christ’s death more as a theological necessity than a brutal and isolating reality. Sometimes the implicit message has been that because the ultimate outcome is jubilant, we do not need to get too involved in the psychological details. We hear Christ’s prayer in the Garden, we read the account of his passion, we acknowledge the injustice and barbarity of the crucifixion, for these are all vital chapters of the plot. But then we must move on. For Christ himself cried ‘It is finished’ and our faith does not need to wallow in the pathos and despondency, but  rejoice in the triumph of resurrection.

Yet if we move too quickly we risk having a superficial faith, one which deludes itself that it is possible to taste the rich banquet without first drinking the cup of suffering. Even more, we deprive so many people outside the church of a vital route into the presence of God. For those who are not yet able to experience anything of resurrection may need to be brought first to the God who knows pain. Those whose experience is of bitter tears and unrelenting loss may need to find the God who has also experienced abandonment. For what Christ went through at Gethsemene was not play-acting. It was  agonising fear, a dread of what lay ahead and a longing for an alternative route. What Christ experienced at Calvary was not a temporary set-back, easily endurable because of the glory that lay ahead. It was nothing other than the sense of deepest desolation.

Good Friday brings us a story of crucifixion which is cosmic in its implications but very personal in its associations. It throws a lifeline to those people whose world falls apart, whose family and friendships are shattered by the coldness and evil they meet in hard places. It relates to those who know what it is to feel utterly Godforsaken, who know how dark it can get in the middle of the day. People who go through their own hour of emptiness and anguish need us to acknowledge the God of Good Friday before they can ever begin to experience Easter Day.  For it may be some time yet for them before the earth shakes, the rocks split open, and the grave is shown to be empty.

Cambridge

March 2007

 

Conflict in Thailand 

This was written for the Church Times in September 2006.

It was something of a coincidence that a trip to Thailand for an International Consultation on Conflict should end with a military coup. The Micah network had chosen Chiang Mai as a strategic and peaceful location for its large gathering of delegates from 52 countries. The consultation was open and stimulating, enhanced by free access to the global media. Two weeks later, those of us who were now in Bangkok saw tanks and guns on the streets and experienced a total blackout of all foreign television and broadcasting channels. It was a striking contrast. (It also seemed an extreme way to register dissatisfaction with a Prime Minister. What was wrong, I wondered, with a parliamentary vote of ‘no confidence’ and a general election?)

This experience of contrasts recurred throughout my time in Thailand. In the consultation, it had been there in the difference of perspectives between delegates from the South, and those from Europe, Australasia and America. We were fellow and sister Christians but our experiences of conflict differed hugely. Conflict in many African countries meant genocide, brutality and millions dead. Conflict in most ‘first world’ contexts meant irritation with governments or frustration at the limited outlook of churches. The Thai delegation was glad that their way of dealing with conflict had become the way of democracy and the ballot box. It is sad that General Sonthi Booyaratglin returned it to what the Jakarta Post called a ‘power grab through the use of force.’

After the consultation I travelled east to Mukdahan, near the border with Laos. We were visiting Siam Care, an organisation which offers home-based work amongst families affected by HIV/Aids. In fact, its medical and educational support to disadvantaged people within local communities has become a model adopted across many other countries. Here, I was to find another contrast. Sian Care’s foundation, aims and direction are explicitly Christian, yet the majority of its staff are Buddhist. Since they were also the ones visiting the families and offering the care, I wondered how this might work out without some sort of conflict.

We soon found out. The young Thai woman who had organised our visit explained we began the day with staff prayers. I was to give a Bible study: then there would be worship, and intercession. She was a Buddhist, but this was a key part of her week. All the staff were present, expressing delight that they had more Christians among them who would share a deeper knowledge of the Bible passages.

If this was a surprise there were bigger ones to come. Our Buddhist host had lined up visits to people who, in her view, needed prayer. A little girl, infected from birth with HIV, now brought up by grandfather, was afraid of leaving him and going to hospital; an elderly man with a rapidly deteriorating blood condition was terrified at the prospect of a leg amputation; a man recovering from cancer surgery on his large intestine wanted to find God and know forgiveness. Our host was convinced that Christians should pray with them. It didn’t matter that we spoke only English. She would translate.

I have always known that Christ is the Prince of Peace, but experiences in Thailand reinforced that in a new way. The humility of spirit which allows a Jesus-believing Buddhist to create space for Christ’s love to reach others is a humility already rooted in God’s grace. And it is this grace, in contrast to assertive displays of military might, that lays the foundation for resolving conflict, for grace alone allows flawed people to open up truth and give peace a chance.

Cambridge

Sept 2006

 

Not Forgiving Debts

This was written for the Church Times February 2005

The debt forgiveness campaign has taken a steady move forward this week with the G8 summit and its commitment in principle to cancel debts of the poorest countries. It is encouraging that Gordon Brown has led the way in addressing the issue amongst finance ministers, and the work to come will test the real strength of the resolutions. The campaign is now a broad one, but its roots were in the biblical principle of debt cancellation, echoed in the Scottish version of the Lord’s prayer: ‘forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Forgiving the debts of the poor, not least of poorest countries in Africa is a very high priority. The link between debt and poverty has long been clear. Currencies quickly become depressed by repayment burdens, and annual debt repayments can take half the export earnings in some countries. Nevertheless, the cancellation of three hundred billion dollars of debt is a substantial undertaking, and will need to be done with care about how the new resources are used. And debt forgiveness will not close down other issues of trade fairness and openness, or exploitation and global slavery. These all will have to be addressed if African and worldwide poverty is really to be cut in half.

There are some interesting economics which surround this kind of decision. The link with the Marshall Plan after 1945 is often drawn. Then, the United States gave help to the devastated countries of Europe which enabled them to rebuild and recover much more quickly. The trade benefits and export buoyancy also allowed the United States to enjoy a level of growth that would not have otherwise happened. Giving and writing off debt proved of benefit to the giver. This process is not some kind of magic. It grows from the interdependence of our economic activities. At the same time, the costs of debt forgiveness are real, and the decision has to be one of principle. The motive has to be concern for our neighbours and not self-interest.

The Marshall Plan was a long time ago, and this week the United States was in different  mood, deciding against participation in the process of cancelling debt. Given the size of the American economy, this is a major set-back.  There is also a deep irony embedded in this decision. For the United States is by far the world’s greatest debtor. Their debt is not directly owed to the IMF or other international agencies, but is the accumulated debt resulting from trade deficit. The figure is some $4 trillion and is running at an astounding annual rate of half a trillion dollars. This is big, resulting from the United States’ demand for goods and energy to support an affluent lifestyle. And although the dollar has lost about a sixth of its value recently, this kind of deficit will not easily shrink. As long as investors worldwide are prepared to hold their investments in US dollars the debt can be sustained. If they are not, the dollar will slide further and disinvestment in the United States could be considerable.

Jesus told a salutary story of a great debtor who refused to forgive the debt of small debtor when he himself was not having to pay anything back. The double standard brought condemnation and disaster. It’s a parable which has a frightening relevance. Where the richest nations are the world’s greatest debtors, and the richest of all is not prepared to forgive the debts of the needy and exploited, something seems amiss. And the effects of the decision could reverberate in world affairs for years to come.

Oxford

February 2005