If you mention "Prosperity Gospel" Christians will usually react badly, and perhaps they should because of the teaching of those who seem to think that Christianity is all about financial wealth. On the other hand I could say that the Bible is all about prosperity, in the sense that prosperity is about health and wellbeing - individual and corporate - in the broadest sense.
While not believing that being Christian necessarily results in financial wealth, there are Christian teachings which if followed are likely to result in a growth in wealth and prosperity for the whole community. One of these is the encouragement to be trustworthy and to seek to trust others. This is mentioned specificaly, and also encompassed in "Do to others as you would like them to do to you." The reason for this is that trust is necessary for trade to thrive, which is presumably why "my word is my bond" was once the motto successfully lived out by the City of London.
So it is with considerable sadness that I see greed and a lack of trust as underlying recent financial collapses (the "credit crunch"). As another example, I have heard of local farmers (in the UK) who have agreed prices for the sale of their grain to one of the trading at a certain time in the future. The price of grain has dropped and the traders seek to renege on their contracts as it will be difficult for them to sell on the grain. Of course they would not worry if their sale prices had gone up.
Trust takes time to build, and can be easily damaged. Perhaps the most important thing the business community can seek to do at the moment is to build trust, through being trustworthy. This is about a focus on relationships, not on solving a "financial problem."
Interestingly, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey speaks of the importance of trust, and how we need to start to build that by keeping the promises that we make to ourselves (individually). As is so often the case, we need to start with ourselves.
From time to time I receive newsletters from Revd Dr Clifford Hill, of C&M Ministries Trust, Moggerhanger Park, Bedfordshire. Formerly he was a pastor in East London, and has a challenging prophetic ministry drawing on his learning as a sociologist (it is in sociology that he has a PhD). He's written some interesting books, and he sees that much of what he foresaw is now coming to pass.
His latest newsletter draws attention to the way sociologists recognise five major social institutions, and that there is an invariable rule that when significant change takes place in any one of the five, all others are affected. They are:
The Economy
The Family
Education
Law and government
Religion
He speaks of how all these except the economy have undergone major change since the 1960's so today's financial problems were predictable. Since this is the result of a domino-effect to do with changing values, a solution based on just addressing financial issues will not be suffiicient. The full article is worth reading here. His home page here.
A while ago I wrote about leg room on Monarch Airlines flights. They wrote back to me on 8th December, in reply to my letter of 3rd September. They had acknowledged my letter, but it has taken them longer than they said they hoped (eight weeks I think they said) to reply to my letter.
I had commented that the leg room available seemed inadequate, and there seemed to be no system in place to ensure that the taller people who needed it had preferential access to the limited number of seats with more leg room. In their reply they don't seem to acknowledge the need, just to say they are "in line with the majority of UK carriers" and complying to "CAA and manufacturer's guidelines" and CAA "rigid safety criteria." What safety? I contend that a significant proportion of the population would find it physically impossible to adopt the advocated "brace position" in an emergency in the amount of space provided.
It saddens me when a company's idea of creativity and customer service is limited to not contravening rules and regulations and being in line with the "majority of" others who are presumably similarly unimaginative.
I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Following the advice of a friend I have tried on-line shopping - from Sainsbury's as that is where we usually shop.
I found it easier than I expected as I was able to find groceries by typing in a shopping list, choosing "aisles" or using a find facility. It remembers my orders for next time to make the next order easier. Somehow it seems more exciting when the goods just arrive at the door.
They were a bit late, so I gained a £10 voucher. Then we gained another one when they had to make a second trip to deliver omitted wine!
It's good that people continue to wonder about God, although what he thinks about us may be more important than what we think about him.
The British Humanist Association are the latest in the line-up to give God some publicity, according to a BBC News report. Aided by Prof Richard Dawkins they plan to run a poster campaign on London buses in January with the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
This is described as the Atheist Bus Campaign, and atheists don't believe in God - right? Yet unable to say, "God does not exist," they usethe motto above. I can only conclude that they're concerned that God may exist, and fearful of how he may react if they say he doesn't. This is despite the BHA's headline on its web site that "the humanist view of life is progressive and optimistic, in awe of human potential, living without fear of judgement and death." I'm not sure they've arrived yet, and I also find myself wondering whether God has an even bigger view of human potential than we humans ourselves do.
I am happy to announce that I do enjoy life, in the knowledge that God is very much alive!
This week I've been seeking to do more sales and marketing for the firm, which has included trying out networking meetings (with interesting speakers but we'll have to see how much business comes), and seeking to register with Train To Gain for their new Leadership and Management Advisory Service. The idea is that they will give grants to small businesses and charities to encourage top leaders to receive training - which may include coaching.
The idea is that as well as funding they connect clients and suppliers through their skill brokers. What seems strange to me is that it is very difficult to work out from their web site how to register as a provider, and when I phoned to find out I ended up following a chain of about six phone numbers that threatened to take me back to the one I started with. (In the end I did connect with a director, who knew what she was talking about.)
Maybe it's my fault for imagining that the process would be quick.
I enjoy looking at the BBC news website. There seems to be a curious mixture of the news everyone is talking about and random information. The latest piece of random information is the exciting news that if you are middle aged (or older) blogging is good for you, maybe even better than doing the Times Crossword. Take a look.
On the more general subject of intelligence, I've been reminded that it's not that simple - with IQ, EQ, and SQ. Different people have different perspectives, and it seems to me that much of what we call education encourages people to be numerate, literate etc. (all of which are important); these people see themselves as intelligent (which is true); and are often looked to in times of crisis ahead of those with other kinds of intelligence.
However, to give an example of the current "Credit Crunch" the intelligensia are number crunching to solve the economic problem (IQ), and it is important, but are they in touch with how the population are feeling (EQ) and their perspectives (EQ and IQ) to be able to communicate and motivate effectively? Are they, and all of us, in touch with what is most important (this is about values too) and have the strength of character to win out (largely all about SQ)?
My latest upset is Barclays Bank. Some years ago they closed down lots of branches in "small towns" including the one I live in. (Other banks did the same.) The main irritation of this to many people is the difficulty of paying in cheques. Once upon a time, when we lived a long way from a bank, Barclays gave us prepaid envelopes to do this. After a while they refused to do that anymore. Anyway, to lessen the blow to rural communities, they agreed to allow cheques to be paid in at Post Offices. This is useful, supports local Post Offices too (that's nice, because I'm not sure that the government want to support this useful social service) and - unsurprisingly - you have to obtain special envelopes to do this.
What happens if you keep ordering them and they do not arrive? Then you can't use the service anymore.
The system is that you phone a free number and get put through to a helpful person in Mumbai (I have nothing against that in principle.) He asks you for your address which he writes down and then faxes to an office in Britain. The office in Britain then posts the envelopes to my home. This seems a complicated system. Why not just use an online portal that automatically prints out the shipping documents? Why not use e-mail rather than fax?
When I phoned the same number and asked what the procedure was if the system worked, the reply was, "I can only send a fax." So he sent another fax, and the envelopes did not arrive again. Why should they? (Einstein quote!).
When I spoke to UK customer services on the phone, they said they could not help me as they had no "procedure" to do so. Helpfully the lady took ownership of the problem and phoned the same number to ask for some envelopes for me. She had to wait about quarter of an hour in the queuing system.
I'm sure you will await the next instalment with excitement!
I still have not heard from Monarch Airlines, after I wrote to them.
On a brighter note, when I made the effort to chat to my local councillors about some things that were winding me up, I started to understand their problems more, and feel that they are now more in touch with the needs of those they seek to serve. I am impressed by the dedication of people who serve as local councillors, often doing it pretty much full time without a salary.
I write as I reflect on dramatic stock market falls today, remembering newspaper headlines a few weeks ago which asked whether capitalism was collapsing.
When the Berlin wall collapsed in 1989 I remember people celebrating the collapse of communism, and I wondered what was so special about another "ism" - capitalism - that gave it the divine right to exist, as if it were flawless.
I can understand that banks may borrow money from some people to lend to others, and profit from the difference between interest rates. I can understand that a firm may want people to invest in it, and that the investor should receive regular income from dividends in return. I can understand the sense of creating a market for the trading of those stocks. What I cannot undersand is how it makes sense to seek to make money just from the short term buying and selling of those stocks in a way that seems little different from gambling.
Somewhere there is a boundary between sane and ethical investment, and the insane and unethical of the current trading of stocks (and perhaps commodities too). We need to identify that boundary and return to the correct side of it. The recent banning of "selling short" may be a move in the right direction, but probably not far enough.
This was the subtitle of a day by Revd Steve Chalke MBE entitled "Intimacy and Involvement" at Gloucester Cathedral yesterday. It was organised by the Spirituality Network for Gloucestershire. I was attracted to attend the day because of the reference in his title to Jesus' summary of the (Jewish) law - love God and love your neighbour as yourself - which seems to me to be about as good as it gets in any summary of how to live your life intelligently.
I'm not quite sure what I expected from the day, but usually days organised by Spirituality networks are "Quiet Days" and have a few short talks with lots of space for reflection. However this day involved a lot of listening to Steve (and he is an entertaining speaker) with a bit of group work so we could think about what we might do differently in Gloucester. (Someone pointed out that they were not from Gloucester but Gloucestershire, and I am from neither!) Steve's main point was that during the 20th century, partly because of the state takeover of social security and health care, the church became kind of ghetto of piety instead of being actively engaged in society. So maybe it was appropriate for him to attempt a more action-oriented day. Steve's own response to his own beliefs has been to set up various charities to help build community through schools, hostels, and medical care (Oasis Trust), encourage social action among churches (Faithworks) and now to fight against people trafficking (Stop the traffik).
He made many references to the Torah to make the point that the whole of life should be worship and the family at the centre of it, and not just some time in a church building on a Sunday. He movingly recounted how a Jewish friend, when asked where the worship happened in the sabbath meal, talked of how everything was worship from the hugs to the eating to the conversation. Yes, life should be worship, and there's not much to a religious faith that does not issue in action. However I felt that although his comments were informative and persuasive, his failiure to value the pietistic side of church life gave his comments a lack of balance. Maybe that was the stance he needed to take to encourage us to become more active!
I continue to be attracted by the balanced way in which the Cursillo movement encourages Christians to view their life by looking at piety, study, and action.
I learned some interesting things to do with Jesus' summary of the law, which gives new significanct to Jesus' comments about his yoke being light (Matthew 11:29), the way he invited disciples by saying "follow me" (Matthew 4:19 et al), and references to his authority (Matthew 7:29 et al).
According to Steve, Jewish rabbis (teachers) would be approached by men who wanted to be disciples. If they showed that they knew the scriptures, then they would be accepted by the rabbi with the words "follow me." The disciple knew the scriptures, so what he was to learn was the rabbi's particular interpretation. This was called their yoke. The way in which the teaching of the rabbi was passed on through the generations was through his disciples who were trained for three years and then became rabbis themselves. Some rabbi's passed on the yoke that they had received. Others developed their own interpretation and were said to speak with authority - so this phrase in the Bible is a technical term. When Jesus summarised the law he said (Matthew 22:37-40)
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments
The two parts of this were well known quotes from the scriptures, he says, however it was a new innovation by Jesus to pair them in this way.
Today I found myself wondering why I don't talk to my local councillor or MP about the things that I do not feel are right in our local area. Reflecting on this, I decided that it is because something in me does not believe that they can make a difference. So feeling that they are powerless, I allow myself to feel powerless too. Our local MP is a Conservative; we have a Labour Government. In these days when democracy in England seems to be about the Prime Minister telling MP's in his party how to vote, rather than ordinary MP's exercising collective influence, I am right to wonder how much influence an MP has - particularly one who is not in the ruling party. Reflecting further, it seems to me that my belief about powerlessness may be wrong, but that even if the belief is correct it is not helpful to accept it!
As I talk to people, it seems that many share a view that they can have little influence on the society that they live in. For example some think that the only influence they have on the world of politics is through voting in a General Election every five years or so. So we seem to have a culture of powerlessness.
If people feel powerless, who do they think calls the shots? As Margaret Mead, anthropologist, wrote: "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." Is she right?
The Bible develops a similar theme: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self control." (2 Timothy 1:7)
I find Stephen Covey helpful on this to, as he writes in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People about how we are concerned about many things, but need to focus on those which we can influence. He says this will not only result in us having influence in those areas, but discovering that the number of areas in which we have influence will grow. This contrasts with the common habit of moaning about things which we don't think we can do anything about!
One of the strengths of coaching, which I do, is that it leads people to discover the action that they can take to bring about the changes that they want.
So, I've decided not to collude with a culture of powerlessness.
Isn't it great when someone writes a really clever and incisive letter to a newspaper?
Miss Christine Gilbert recently said that schools were let down by too many satisfactory teachers. This resulted in a letter to the Telegraph from Nicholas Bielby of Bradford (which I read in The Week today).
He writes that just as everybody cannot be above average, a good system works with satisfactory people performing satisfactorily - producing good-enough outcomes. There is something wrong with the system if it only works with excellent staff.
Apparently "thinkers and politicians across the political spectrum are now trying to revive "character-talk" according to Richard Reeves in Prospect magazine (U.K.)
He writes that Baden Powell, founder of the Scouts, saw the movement as a character factory, and that the first headmaster of Stowe school, sought to turn out men whou would be "acceptable at a dance and invaluable at a shipwreck."
Is this the key to "resolving such vexed issues as obesity, welfare reform and social immobility"? politicians wonder.
Naomi Klein, famous for her book No Logo, has written another challenging piece called Shock Doctrine.
Go to her web site to find out more, and watch the short (six minute) film which summarises her important points, graphically.
She notes that following national and international catastrophes immediate changes are often, and that the general public is both amenable to this and expects change. What happens if leaders are unscrupulous, and the changes made have little to do with the event that has just happened, but instead they seek to use the opportunity to advance their own agendas?
This is what she explores, and it is fascinating. I have long felt that "gut-reactions" after major events can seem to "lose the plot" in ignoring the deeper priorities or values of society. For example action taken in fear of terrorism often restricts the freedom of the general population: values such as liberty and free speech should not be given away easily. The hope is that in a healthy society there will be a time of review of "emergency measures" when society reviews the deeper issues and appropriate adjustments can be made.
So Naomi develops this further, even wondering whether theory and practice of free market economics is not so much something that is for the public good as oppressive practice brought in by these methods. While I agree with her principles, or "doctrine," I'm not yet sure whether I fully agree with the way she applies it to the world of economics - but I haven't read the book yet. (It's logical, but are people really that unscrupulous?)
Go to her web site to find out more, and watch the short (six minute) film which summarises her important points, graphically.
If I were to write that the launch of the new terminal at London's Heathrow Airport seems a sad affair, as much reported in the news, that would not do justice to the inconvenience experienced by the many passengers who became separated from their luggage.
Being an engineer at heart, I felt I had to enquire how extensive the commissioning within the project had been of the luggage handling system. Before opening the terminial, to what extent had they tried to simulate the arrival of aeroplanes full of luggage?
I e-mailed British Airways to ask their "Corporate Responsibility" department. They suggested I contacted British Airports Authority (BAA) who had "responsibility for" the terminal. They did not reply to my e-mail.
Surely there are serious corporate responsibility issues here? On the one hand this is just a private project. On the other hand, quite apart from the cost to someone of reuniting baggage with passengers scattered across the world, the cost to the country of the wasted time of so many passengers stranded at the airport is mind-boggling. If this were due to negligent project management, would the guilty firm get fined for this kind of thing?
This has not been a perfect project (but whatever is?) however hopefully once it is working we shall have some national pride in the finished product. I hope too that there has been some pride among the engineering team - at least before opening day. That is why I am also surprised that I have not been able to find some chronicle of the project plans on the internet.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Right Reverend Rowan Williams, has kicked up a bit of a storm with his very public suggestion that Sharia law should be made more legitimate in the UK, in civil matters. This is a difficult position for the head of the world-wide Anglican Church to take when much of British law has been intentionally built on Christian principles, and many Christians are being harshly treated because of (as they understand it) Sharia law.There is a fascinating article by Prof. Mona Siddiqui, in the March edition of Third Way magazine, criticising the way in which the Qur'an has been used to propagate oppression.
It is interesting that so many comments have been extreme, and that Muslims in Britain are not united in their support of his ideas - some saying for example "Which Sharia?" Likewise much newspaper coverage has been biased, and I have been impressed with the very balanced one-pager on Sharia Law in the latest edition of The Week.
I perceive that, for example, many of the difficulties that Muslim women face in Britain (for example to do with forced marriages and "honour crimes") stem from attempts to implement Sharia Law - or at least Islamic culture - so I find it difficult to see how extending an Islamic legal system will improve matters. Would women's testimony be given the same weight as that of men? Would women be the judges?
Commenting on the response of politicians, one journalist commented that when politicians are "running scared" of debate it is a sure sign that a debate is needed. Since I too believe in the need for issues to be discussed openly, I have hope that the Archbishop's courage will bear good fruit. We'll have to wait to see what kind of fruit they are.
During the last week has been Britain ravaged by flooding such as has not been seen since the 1940's. I am thankful that we are on high ground, and can't imagine what it must be like to have a metre or more of water in one's home.
I heard on the radio that some people have criticised the government for not setting up a disaster fund, so that people can give money charitably to help those affected, because this is what would happen if the disaster was overseas.
If this had happened overseas, our response may have been through government, or through some of our charities that specialise in such relief. It is interesting to wonder why people perceive a lack of it here. When New Orleans was flooded in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, the President of the USA was much criticised for being slow and disorganised with the relief efforts.
My guess is that, more than complacency or poor administration, a big reason is that we like to think that we are a developed nation, which means that we do not think that we deserve to suffer natural disasters in the way that the developing world does.
Radio journalists have been trying to be creative in their coverage of this event. So I listened to an interview with an architect in Holland who builds riverside houses that will float. He talks of how they now seek to go with the flow of the river's movments rather than to fight it. A response on the BBC Radio 4 website (Michael Pemberton: #21) says that floating houses have also been built by the Thames. Maybe there should be more of them.
It is interesting that BBC News online today has a headline about the flooding, followed by "PM considers 56 day terror limit." Which has the capacity to cause more damage, the weather or terrorists? Or to look at that the other way up, maybe we need to thank God that on the whole our weather is reliable enough that we have some time to think about terrorists....? As the proverbial grandmother says: "Count your blessings."
While I've been thinking about this, my copy of The Week arrived with an extract from the article by Alice Miles in The Times. She too takes the line of "Count your blessings" as she says, "If this is a national disaster, I’m a tomato." (Does she look like a tomato?) So maybe the reason we don't have a disaster fund for Tewkesbury is because our floods are not on the scale of those that seem to happen regularly in Bangladesh.
Yet I would not wish on anybody the heartache and hassle of cleaning up a home after these floods, even if you have a good insurance company. Insufficient mention is given to those whose income has been wrecked by the deluge, such as farmers. So, even if floods are a natural event, I can understand the criticism of the government for failure to develop flood defences to cope with this level of flooding. Presumably somebody in government has made a choice that the probability of this level of pain and suffering does not justify the costs involved.
I enjoyed watching the last episode of the current series of Dr Who on t.v. at the weekend. Mankind, trillions of years hence, finds a disappointing Utopia and then travels back through time to today to kill off its ancestors. (Doesn't that mean that they kill themselves too? That's the paradox.) For them, chasing the dream of Utopia did not work.
So I was surprisingly interested by a radio interview* I found myself listening to yesterday morning. According to philospoher John Gray, the idea of Utopia derives from the Christian Myth that there is a better life hereafter. He sees much death having come from attempts to create Utopia - for example by seeking to enforce a particular democratic vision of Utopia on the people of Iraq. He sees the Enlightenment, a secular movement, dangerously colluding with religion by continuing with the idea of Utopia, which he also sees in Marxism. Instead of Utopia, John advocates his version of Realism: working in the present with the reality that we discover. Fascinating stuff!
In the past there has been debate amongst Christians about whether we should be trying to create Utopia. The usual Christian language is about whether we seek to build God's kingdom now, or whether we don't bother with that because all this will be burned up anyway to be replaced by the "new heaven and new earth." I believe that most Christians see a role in trying to improve the world we live in; but it seems that some are trying too hard by seeking to impose it on others.
All this misses out the perspective of the mystic (Christian and other). That perspective is less concerned with the future, and more concerned with attention to the present, and attention to God. The motto** "All is well" (from Julian of Norwich and others) encourages not the enforced change of others, but a desire to understand others. This sounds like John Gray's Realism to me. Maybe he is a modern mystic.
* BBC Radio 4 Start the Week with Andrew Marr 09:15 - interviewing John Gray with Eric Hobsbawm (historian) and Pat Barker (author). John's new book is Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death or Utopia (published by Allen Lane). For more detail see the review in The Independent. **A quote from Anthony de Mello in his book Awareness.
I found myself remembering today that William Wilberforce committed his life to two objects: "the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners." Manners in his language may translate better as moral values today.
This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade (although there is still work to be done). What about the second object?
I feel a call to this. In Britain today people moan about bad behaviour, such as "road rage" and "binge drinking" while at the same time struggling to reinvent values to improve British society. I don't see that we need to reinvent values: the core Christian values, that we once inherited and developed, seem to appeal to all "people of goodwill" regardless of what religion they claim. What is sometimes called the Golden Rule summarises part of this, the way that people should relate to one another: "do to others as you would like them to do to you."
It seems to me that when we note what is good manners, or bad manners, we are well in touch with our own values and the values that our society aspires to. So it would be a good way forward to share Wilberforce's second object as well as his first: the Reformation of Manners.
This is not a crusade to change others: like all good leadership it needs to start with "me" and the example that "I" set. Let's go for it!
The other day I turned on the radio while I was driving, and found myself listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4. It was about Florence Nightingale's work on hospital design in the 19th Century.
That's a good lesson to remember, and particularly important for organisations seeking to provide some kind of care for people. Today some people are worried about going into hospitals in Britain because they may catch a "superbug" (such as MRSA); and the government has just published statistics on death rates in hospitals. Organisations are encouraged to do risk assessment, but that is not the same.
When starting some new venture I tend, in a visionary kind of way, to think of all the good that I want to come out of it. Maybe I should spend more time thinking about how to avoid doing people harm at the same time!
