Jono Peatman CD release

On Friday we had a family get-together over in Lancaster for the launch of Jono's first CD. It contains two worship tracks that he has written and recorded with assistance from friends at St Thomas' and other churches.

The tracks are also on Spotify, Amazon Music and iTunes. They are starting to pick up interest on Spotify in a surprising variety of places around the world, so good work by the boy.

Here's one of them via Youtube.

Big Sing with Alison Adam. Sunday May 17th at 3pm

This is just a shameless plug for the fact that we have Alison Adam coming to lead a Big Sing at Morecambe Parish Church on Sunday 17th May at 3pm. Alison is a long-standing member of the Iona Community, and has worked with John Bell with the Wild Goose Resource Group,

Come along and learn new songs from the Iona community and from around the world. You'll find yourself making more music than you thought possible. No previous musical experience required!

If you would like to come, please register, either by signing up in church, or by using the Eventbrite button below. You can also use Eventbrite to register for a number of people at once, so why not get a group together.

Greenbelt 2013

Greenbelt reached it 40th edition this year. If you're not familiar with Greenbelt, it's an arts festival at Cheltenham race course, with a Christian background, but by no means limited to Christian input. Music, drama, literature, and talks addressing matters of faith and justice all feature, along with a good dose of silliness and fun. There are always several venues functioning, so there is plenty of choice as to how to spend the time. There are also plenty of stalls, (organic/fair trade/responsibly sourced) catering vans and displays to browse if you want to take a bit of time out. So what were my picks for 2013?

Jazz Church

Andy Flannagan and friends

There is usually some opening worship so we went along to Jazz Church in the Big Top. Some classic hymns to new arrangements mixed with a jazz take on more contemporary ones, including "Heaven" by Gungor. Not something you could sustain very often, but a great idea and a fresh take on some familiar tunes. I also got along to Ben Cantelon on Sunday doing set of contemporary worship songs in a (dare I say) more conventional way. Andy Flannagan closed things off on Monday with an interesting mix of him, a DJ and a man on a trombone. Somehow it worked.

Other options over the weekend, apart from the main worship on Sunday morning included eucharists from Blessed, an alt-worship sacramental community, another used music from Les Miserables, there was a U2charist and a goth mass. You could get close to nature with Forest Church, of you prefer it quiet, Quakers and Franciscans offer alternatives!

The range of music on offer is always a highlight for me. You can usually find a good selection of singer-songwriters around the place at the Performance Cafe (this year changed to a venue not a cafe!), the CD tent, the Christian Aid tent and the Shed - the youth venue. Martyn Joseph is usually on the list and he also hosts a session (The Rising) with musicians each day to talk about their work and share songs. We caught him talking to old-timer Garth Hewitt and two newer artists, Carrie Rodriguez and Blair Dunlop. The latter 2 were so good we spent 2 hours sitting on the floor of the Performance cafe for their afternoon sets. Blair Dunlop is a great guitarist and writes interesting songs; Carrie Rodriguez is more country influenced but avoids the country cliches. Ably assisted by Luke Jacobs on guitar and sometimes singing and playing the violin at the same time, she had real quality. Also caught Stylusboy from Coventry and Andy Howie from Scotland, but missed plenty more.

The Boxettes at The Performance Cafe

The word 'box' seemed to dominate music on Saturday. Boxes is a solo project by Carey Willetts of the band Athlete (who headlined our first Greenbelt in 2009). Playing solo with a variety of backing effects he did a good set. Later The Boxettes appeared. 4 singers and world champion beat boxer Bellatrix with no instrumentation or backing track, they delivered a great energetic set. More followed at the Performance Cafe, including an improvisation using three words from the audience. They're still unsigned and have far more talent than most 'girl groups', so somebody get them a contract! Also caught Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for some serious rock.

Panel discussion featuring Jim Wallis
and Richard Coles

The talks programme is always interesting, usually challenging, often inspiring and rarely without something controversial in there somewhere. Caught a nice little session with Martyn Joseph speaking about songwriting. Graham Cray spoke about what kind of church seems to be emerging for the future. Maybe I've been to too many sessions and read too many books on this, but I didn't find this very inspiring. However, Jim Wallis gave a very challenging, inspiring and yet very accessible address on 10 personal decisions you can make for the common good. I missed most of Steve Chalke, but I gather he was very good, but I did catch Rachel Mann on being a trans lesbian priest in the church today. that's not a talk I'd heard before, and it had a lot of insights.

Comedy from Paul Kerensa

The Christian Aid tent had a comprehensive programme. regular live music from Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies, Paul Field and others. Interviews and panel discussions took place throughout and we also got some poetry from Harry Baker and comedy from Paul Kerensa, who writes for Miranda and other radio and TV shows. Meanwhile the cafe team made it a place to take a break and get some refreshment.

What else? Well there's always something going on. Giant puppets, a stage where anyone can have a go at a song, art installations, book launches, a beer tent (The Jesus Arms) and bumping into people you haven't seen for years.

This year there was little rain, no mud, and a new layout to avoid the quagmire of 2012. They did well, given the constraints, and we're sure to be back in future years.

Here are the questions; what is the answer?

A little while back I went to a lecture by Professor Linda Woodhead at Lancaster Priory about the future of the Church of England. She was at an early stage in looking at the results of a survey of views and attitudes of people and the relation of that to their belief background.

Linda has now put a Powerpoint presentation online which she shared with the Faith in Research 2013 conference. You can download it here. There is no accompanying text at this location, but here's a quick first reflection.

1) The gap between the declared positions of churches on issues and the prevailing attitudes of their members is striking. Attitudes of Anglicans and Catholics to same-sex marriage was very interesting in the present climate.

2) When asked what was negative about the C of E in society, younger people said it was bigoted; older (over 60s) said it was stuffy and out of touch. My generation tended towards saying it was hypocritical.

3) It was striking how little church (or faith group) was an influence on people's attitudes at all.

It would be interesting to see a text of her presentation, and I'm still taking in what it all means. Interesting stuff.

Rob Halligan in Concert

On Friday it was great to welcome back singer-songwriter Rob Halligan to Morecambe. Rob had shared the billing with friend and musician Gareth Davies-Jones for his last visit, but he loved Morecambe so much he offered a solo gig. We hosted it at the new West End Impact premises just off the Promenade near the Battery. He was on great form, with stories, jokes and a great set of songs. Most of the audience were hearing him for the first time, and he won them over quickly. He even roped in Michael Kohl, the pastor of Morecambe Community Church to help with a song:

Great fun. Hopefully we'll see him again before too long

Is theism getting a bad press?

I'm not very sure how to phrase this post correctly. I have been musing for a while about a change I've observed over the time I have been ordained. It seems that there are now significantly more atheist voices who are more vocal and critical of belief in God, especially in the media and in public life. The question is: why?

Looking at the kinds of digs atheists make online, they're not always very sophisticated or original. Some atheists even seem to mirror religious fundamentalists in their absolutism. Even when the critique is more considered, it's usually the case that Christians have been struggling with the same issues for centuries. Suffering, theodicy, Old Testament wrath vs New testament compassion, etc are all there in theology textbooks (but not any neat answers). Maybe that's the problem: people who want neat answers find a messy God difficult.

If there is a trend, my first hunch is that the percentage of people who don't believe in God may not have changed as much as we think; it's just that their presence is felt more now. It's not as if atheism was invented when Richard Dawkins started selling books about it - people who didn't believe have been around for a long time.

I also suspect that quite a lot of the British never really believed in God in any very specific way, if at all. However, at most they described themselves as agnostic. Not a few of them probably went along to church, because it was a 'good thing' and saw it as supporting community and family. The 'supernatural' bit passed them by, and there are still churchgoers for whom that is true. The stronger  tag  of atheist probably seemed a bit definite for those 20th century sensibilities.

What's become clear in recent years is that attitudes to organised faith/religion have changed. The Church of England was once seen as basically benign, if rather odd, eccentric, ineffectual and from a different era. Church of England schools and colleges would be seen as 'nice' places to study, even by those who didn't practise the faith in any committed way. There is now a debate as to whether these institutions should receive any public support at all, or even whether churches and faith groups qualify as charities.

So why isn't theism seen as benign for wider society any more? Religious conflicts must be part of the picture. These aren't new, either, and nor is sectarian terrorism. There was plenty of that during the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland. However, more recent developments such as suicide bombing and the description of such as martyrdoms has pointed to a difficult question. If it is believed that human existence doesn't depend on this material world, but upon a relationship with the divine, then someone can acquire an attitude that says this life doesn't really matter. And in case Christians start getting superior at this point, that tradition is there in our faith too. It hasn't worked itself out in suicide bombing, but in medieval times, being killed on the Crusades was regarded as tantamount to martyrdom. How do we hold that 'this isn't everything', yet still value the material world as real and precious?

Ethics and values have changed the goalposts too. Churches are often seen as maintaining sexist and homophobic values in an era when society's norms and the laws of the land have moved on from traditional standpoints. If the perception out there is growing that theism = prejudice and discrimination, then it's hardly surprising to hear a more vocal critique from theosceptics. (Have I just invented that word? Must look it up later)

If my hunches bear any relation to reality, I'm not particularly worried about these shifts in attitude. One the one hand, Christians should expect opposition if they are being true to the teaching of Jesus - it certainly came his way. I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't be a lot more unpopular about poverty, economic exploitation and injustice.

On the other hand, we also need to listen. The Bible and the Christian tradition are complex, and it's easy to confirm our own pet prejudices with careful selection of our sources. Sometimes a radical challenge from outside our comfortable circle of like-minded can jolt us into re-examining what we think and why we think it.

Perhaps most of all we need to be more willing to live more radical lives. Maybe the reason more people openly say they don't believe any more is that they can see precious little reason for belief in the lives of those who say they do.

Don't get too excited

The recent news about the speed of light being possibly exceeded by neutrinos is bound to set off lots of silly speculation. If I remember the little bit of the theory of special relativity that I ever learned, an object's mass moves to infinity as the speed of light is approached, and ever-increasing amounts of energy are required. I think time slows down too. So you wonder how light ever gets there - those photons know a thing or two.

One line of argument that religious fundamentalists use is that all science is unproven theory - hence evolution is only an unproven theory, alongside (they would allege) creationism, which they find altogether more convincing. I suspect we'll see people suggesting that if the speed of light (or the constant, "c") isn't what science thought it was, then how can we believe archaeology and carbon dating. Well, I guess it needs some honesty on both sides.

Of course all scientific understanding is based on ideas developed from experiments, which have been refined (and on occasion overthrown) by new data or results. However, that doesn't mean all scientific results are wildly removed from the truth; they may correct, they may just be 0.001% out, or the error may be larger. So the scientific establishment always has to have some degree of humility and openness, although it's usually broadly correct. Otherwise the technology on which we all depend would be completely unavailable, (instead of a little erratic).

But the religious who are anti-scientific have to ask themselves why they are so keen to discredit those who work so hard to understand the universe we live in. There is a strong Christian tradition of exploring and scientific investigation, which saw that endeavour as godly activity. So when science first challenged what appeared to be the Bible's chronology, the obvious thing to do was ask whether we were reading the Bible correctly, or were we asking it to yield data it was never intended to impart?

In a sense the same question is relevant to the scientific method. When scientists become obsessed with a result, they can 'read' the material world in a way that suits their purpose - personal pride has been known to taint objectivity even in a laboratory. We may have to review how constant the speed of light is, or it may be folks at CERN making mistakes or even someone wanting a headline. There may not be as much dark matter as they used to think, either.

Whatever the consensus that emerges, I hope that Christians and others with religious faith don't start to see it as some sort of 'victory' over science, because it isn't. This is an exciting moment. Science may have made an important discovery that affects how we understand the Universe, and if that is a better understanding, then we are all winners.

Familiarity breeds what?

It's always a challenge to think of something new to do with the big festivals in the church year ( and I don't mean Greenbelt ). This is my 21st Christmas as a 'Rev' and I'm not someone who thrives on doing the same thing in the same way year after year. On 'normal' Sundays the readings go on a 3 year cycle, so that maintains the variety, but Christmas is, well, Christmas. And I have always held the view that if you only meet people's expectations in your programme, you're never able to challenge or stretch them.

This year we're looking to take part in Lancashire Sings Christmas, so that will be something new to put energy into. It's an interactive carol service, in partnership with BBC Radio Lancashire, to be held at venues that aren't church buildings. If you're in Lancashire, there's still time to get organised and join in (or if you're in Leicestershire, the original Sing Christmas will also be taking place).

Sometimes I've inserted a more challenging reading, such as a poem or meditation into carol services. I think it's good to stimulate thinking or even be provocative, and not just tell the predictable story in the way they expect. The problem is, of course, that you get complaints. in my experience they have always come from non-regulars who come to church at Christmas. I well remember using a resource from TEAR Fund when I was a curate. A few days later we received a letter from a parishioner, who only came occasionally to things like carol services, complaining about the sketch and its script and referring to this 'outfit' who wrote the material. We replied politely, gently pointing out that the Bishop of Southwell was a prominent supporter.

So whilst I won't be using it in our carol service this year (as it's already planned), I fully recommend reading a reflection on Christmas by Martin Wroe, which is on the Ship of Fools website. SoF is best known for its satirical monitoring of the Christian world, but it has a more serious side, and I thought this piece was excellent. If you're feeling brave and you haven't planned your carol services in detail yet...

The Christian Vote

I was interested to see the BBC web page on the effect Christians can have on an election outcome. The power of the religious right in the USA is well documented, but politicians are generally a bit more shy about their faith over here. The New Labour "we don't do God" story is well known, as was Tony Blair's Christian affiliation, but it's an interesting question as to whether the Christian community has any significant effect.

Apparently Christians are more likely to vote than the population in general. It's believed around 80% of practising Christian vote; however they are only a minority of the overall population. It would be interesting to know what the equivalent statistics for other faith communities and also for atheists would be. I suspect that anyone with a commitment to a world-view, rather than being generally 'agnostic' or 'lapsed' has a greater motivation to vote. The exceptions might be those who see extremism as the only way out, or in a very different way, those whose faith means that they are suspicious of engaging with anything 'wordly' like politics.

There are some declarations around to rally Christian interest. Westminster 2010 bills itself a "declaration of Christian conscience". I have sympathy with some of the statements made, such as the stated concern about the poor, the vulnerable and victims of human trafficking. However, it seems to be an alliance of people with a variety of concerns, which also includes some quite socially conservative (with a small 'c') attitudes on family etc. There is a tacit assumption that if you're properly Christian, then you will sign up to it all. I haven't

More open-ended in its aims is the Faithworks declaration, which simply seeks to uphold the positive contribution of Christians and Christian agencies to society in general. Whilst I think that's largely (but not exclusively or uniquely) true, I do wonder why it needs a Declaration? If Christian voluntary activity is good news for local communities, shouldn't that speak for itself? Or maybe we need to be more canny with the media, rather than sign declarations?

Perhaps more generally helpful is the fact that Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) have been assisting churches to get together and organise General Election hustings meetings. Some have happened already, but you can find out if there is one in your area here. These offer an opportunity to question candidates and meet them. In my experience, the question raised in these meetings can be be very different from the Paxman interviews on TV. Issues of overseas aid, millennium development goals and more haven't had a lot of press recently.

CTBI also have something you can sign up to - the Sanctuary Pledge. Supported by major faith groups and denominations, it asks candidates to be committed to using positive language and attitudes towards those seeking asylum or sanctuary in the UK. The website has a facility to email candidates, and the commitments don't require you or the candidates to hold any religious faith.

Responses (or lack of them) could be revealing.

Lent Blog 1: Ash Wednesday

Had to do this a bit late, owing to being away, but am aiming to do a blog entry for each day of Lent. I will soon catch up and be writing in 'real time'.

It's been the strangest start to Lent I can remember, as I actually took this week off, as it was half-term and soon after all the turmoil we have recently been through. Perhaps it was the best thing for us just for once.

Debbie and I visited Nottingham this week, and part of Ash Wed was spent helping Dad sort some things out in the house and also complete some paperwork. We helped him to sort through the contents of a few cupboards, simplify their contents and organise them in a way that was more suitable for him on his own.

It struck me at the time that Lent was about that - sorting, sifting, simplfying and re-setting priorities. There was no ash this time around, and yet the experience of working through those things and their memories felt as if we were engaging with something very real.

400 years of the Authorized Version

On May 2, 2011 it will be 400 years since the Authorized Version (often referred to as the King James Version) of the Bible was first published. To mark this, you can even get a widget to add to blogs and websites to give you a countdown to the anniversary. An odd juxtaposition of high tech and heritage.

The AV wasn't the first translation of the Bible into the common tongue of people living in England (calling it English might be a bit misleading!) Parts of the Bible had been translated into vernacular going back to the time of the Venerable Bede, and the first full translation into English was completed by Wyclif in the 14th century. The first printed Bible in English was the Coverdale Bible of 1535, which in turn drew on Tyndale's earlier translation work. In fact Tyndale's Bible is regarded as the main foundation for what became known as the AV.

What distinguishes the AV is that it not only had official sanction (earlier versions had also received that), it was the widespread acceptance as the definitive translation of its era. Along with the Book of Common Prayer and the plays of Shakespeare, it shaped the English language, and gave us many phrases that continue to be used to this day. It also shaped the style and form of English used in subsequent translations, such as the Revised Standard Version and New International Version.

More recent translations have access to older manuscripts and greater scope of scholarship, and are certainly more understandable for the modern-day reader in English. However, even if you regard it as a piece of English literature and no more, it has to be acknowledged that it is a tremendous piece of work.

Read more about the celebrations here http://www.2011trust.org/

I've been thinking...

Dangerous, I know, but couldn't help it the other day. We're in the middle of a Week of Accompanied Prayer at Uni. That doesn't mean someone walks round with you all day praying. It's a week when people commit to taking some time out to pray and then having a 1-to-1 conversation about how it went each day. Facilitated by Steve Hoyland from Loyola Hall. Fully recommended for Universities, College and parishes.

What got me thinking was a prayer exercise Steve led on one of the Christmas passages, and it led me to consider again how many Christians from my background often don't really believe in the Incarnation - that Jesus was fully human and divine. The theological significance of Christmas is often relegated to being the necessary pre-amble for the adult Jesus being who he said he was, but isn't seen as significant in itself.

Health warning: Mike gets a bit theological in the next bit.

As an example, consider a typical evangelist's presentation of the Christian message. It will start with human rebellion against God, and our flaws and falling short of what we should be. That contrasts with the holiness and purity of God. God is holy, and therefore a) he judges those who are sinners, and b) nothing flawed can live in his presence. Sometimes the phrase "God can't look on or have anything to do with sin" is added.

But do the logic. If you believe that Jesus is genuinely divine. (For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form Col 2:9. NIV) then the entry of Jesus into the world is a breaking of that partition by God himself. What is Jesus eating with "sinners", having a prostitute anoint him and inviting himself round to a tax-collector if it isn't God "having something to do with" sin? Either it is precisely that, or Jesus isn't God incarnate. You can't have it both ways. And if this is true, then the reconciliation of the world to God by Jesus isn't isolated to a few hours on Good Friday; it's a lifetime's work.

Of course, some presentations put a little distance between "Jesus" and "God", especially when talking about the crucifixion. One common account is that "God" punishes "Jesus" instead of us, so that we don't have to serve that sentence on account of our wrongdoing. That would be a logical consequence of a theology that under the surface views Jesus as a special, pure man, rather than fully divine. But it's clearly much more complicated than that.

Christmas is actually an inconvenient truth - that a holy and almighty God enters the world and lives with and alongside "sinners" - talking, working, eating and drinking with them. Maybe we all need to see the baby, perhaps even hold him in our mind's eye and think what difference does that make.

Forgive and Forget

I've often thought about this saying over the years, and I've now come to the conclusion that it's un-Christian. I think proper forgiveness and reconciliation is about remembering everything that has gone before and deciding that it won't continue to control you, create bitterness and perpetuate a conflict. If we forget, how do we learn?

Forgive and forget sounds like a strategy that means things catch up with you in the end.

Evangelism presentation

Not my snappiest title, but I thought it might attract some attention. Picked up this presentation on Brian McLaren's website. It's a pdf file made out of a Powerpoint presentation, if you see what I mean.

It's just a very good and simple way of thinking sensibly about evangelism.

Loose Ends

Just clearing stuff from the desk at the end of the week, and cam across sundry things from more liberal end of the theological spectrum. Often the evangelicals make a bigger noise and splash, but I think it's good to be stretched, so if you're curious / suspicious / interested in more liberal thinking, why not dare to have a click or two? The worst that can happen is that you disagree.

The Student Christian Movement is the alternative to UCCF, which is the umbrella body for most student Christian Unions. They have recently published a really interesting guide to reading the Bible, bringing in good scholarship, but also input from a variety of traditions. I mentioned it a few months ago on the blog.

Inclusive Church are a liberal network committed to a church that's more, well, inclusive. Features a petition, but not at all obvious what you would be signing up to, unless you click "Register your support" on the home page. If you click petition, you just get a list of signatories. A lot of emphasis is on gender and sexuality issues on this site.

Accepting Evangelicals is a slightly different take, in that it is a not a liberal site but run for evangelicals who support committed same sex relationships. There is an option to be a member and (sadly) an option for that membership to be confidential or public.

Modern Churchpeople's Union exists to promote a more inclusive church, but also to promote theological debate in the centre ground of the Church of England. As well as sexuality, they cover issues of war/peace, the future of Anglicanism, media, politics and lots of other stuff. Theological journal, Modern Believing, published quarterly (included in the higher rate sub of £30)

CU, SU and all that Jazz

It's been an interesting time for Christian Unions and their relationship with Student Unions. Our CU at SMC is great - they are flexible, collaborative and good fun. I know it's not always like that, and Chaplaincy-CU relations are not always good. Of course, that's sometimes the Chaplain's fault, and sometimes the CU's. However, times are a-changing, and life may become more difficult for any organisation that wants to retain distinctiveness by insisting that its leadership are signed up to certain values, beliefs or principles.

Ekklesia have proposed some principles for a way forward, which you can read here . The response from the NUS is reported here. A full version of the report is available as a pdf download. When I've had a chance to digest it, I'll say more.

I must admit, I can't quite see how you can have a student Labour society without socialists on the committee - then again the national party manage it without any in Cabinet...

Anyway, here's some light relief whilst you meditate on the dilemmas

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Pentecost revisited

Just to say that my best suggestion for a Pentecost song would be 'Fire' by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. You can view it here!! How good is that?

Particularly excellent entry by my good friend Steve Tilley on Pentecost

Mustard Seed Shavings: All Night Party

Redemption

Have been a bit quiet this week on the blogging front. Not quite sure what caused all the distractions.

Enjoy is not quite the right word to describe the experience of watching the drama based on the story of the Moors murder screened last week on ITV. It was, however, both gripping and harrowing viewing. Apparently they received quite a lot of cooperation from the families of the victims, as well as from Myra Hindley's brother-in-law, who reported them to the police, but was also held under suspicion for a period.

The story raises a whole variety of issues. The obvious one is the question of forgiveness. I quite understand that all the families cannot forgive Hindley and Brady for what happened. The question for me is whether I believe that they could be forgiven. This is especially relevant for Hindley, who became a practising Catholic again in prison. One way of seeing this is that it was a cynical attempt to get parole, but what if she was sincere? Do I believe that she should be forgiven? Do I believe in a God who would forgive her under those circumstances? I expect for many the response would be that she should "rot in in hell", but that can't ultimately be a Christian reaction. If we start putting limits on God's grace and forgiveness, where's the threshold - how bad is too bad? And it starts to make God limited in what he can do - who he can redeem. If some redemption jobs are too big for God (assuming penitence, genuine intent, etc), he can't still be God?

The second one for me was the iconic nature of Hindley. Over the decades since, plenty of people have been cruel and sadistic to children (sometimes even their own children), yet haven't become a photo that the tabloids print at every available opportunity. Maybe it was something about being a woman involved in all that stuff, maybe she was the first in a TV/media age. Maybe it was something about that bleached hair in the police mugshot. It's not that I want to mitigate anything that she did - it's just she wasn't the first woman to be cruel to children or the last. She may not even have been the worst.

It would be a tough sermon to preach: "I believe in a God who would forgive Myra Hindley if she genuinely turned back to Christ". Trouble is, it's what the Christian gospel has been for 2000 years. Not sure the Uk's ready for it yet

Burning cross

Just drove past the church where our Roman Catholic chaplain is also parish priest. The crucifix outside the church was burned the other day. Here are a couple of images I took as I was passing.

It's obviously an awful thing to have happened, and I'm sure the people at the church are quite distressed, but there was something strangely powerful about the brokenness of the image

Back to work (inclusively)

Just back from holiday - a week just up the road in the Lake District. A friend has a wonderful place called Salamat in the village of Threlkeld near Keswick. No computer, dodgy mobile signal, open fires, fantastic views. Brilliant! Technology can become very stressful, and it's so liberating to be out of it all for a bit.

I've come back to an interesting question. Our College has a Christian foundation, and it also has a commitment to equality and diversity. Are these contradictory? If the Christian tradition isn't in some way preferenced in the way the College works, the Christian foundation is meaningless; if it is, then we could be accused of contravening E & D policy.

I suppose that ties in with my misgivings about the fashion to celebrate diversity - even in explicitly Christian circles. How diverse? Obviously some views and ideologies are excluded, but why and on what grounds? We instinctively know why we don't celebrate Nazism, but should we celebrate other ideologies and on what grounds are lines drawn?