Why I am an Impassioned Moderate

I was struck by some words of  (Lord) Andrew Adonis today. In a speech in the House of Lords, he said: "It is because of Brexit obsessives that we are in this mess. It is time for obsessive moderates like myself to assert ourselves."

I pondered this for a while, then tweeted: *Obsessive moderate* says @Andrew_Adonis of himself today. Endorse the sentiment 100%. It’s what I am too. But *obsessive* sounds false. It suggests compulsion. How about this - “I am an *impassioned* moderate/remainer/social democrat/liberal...”? Yes, that sounds good.

This produced a swift response from an online Twitter colleague: I think there’s a big difference between you Michael! He really is an obsessive, ranging into dangerous conspiracy theory. I’d never say the same of you! I couldn't possibly comment on that. But yes, I'd like to think I was not a conspiracy theorist. Most misfortunes (though not all) happen as a result of cock-up, chaos and confusion. Even more would I like to think I wasn't obsessed. You'll have to tell me if you think I am.

Lord Adonis wants to contrast two kinds of behaviour, the obsessiveness (as he calls it) of the hard doctrinaire Brexiters, and the need for moderates to be just as fervent for what they believe in too. I think he is right about this. The challenge for remainers is not that we lack conviction, but that we won't emulate the violent and poisonous rhetoric that emanates from some of Brexit's fiercest advocates. We want to focus on issues rather than personalities, challenge dogma with evidence, try to be respectful to those on the other side of this debate, and if we don't concur, at least look for "good disagreement". But that can come over as lacking force in the febrile political environment we are in, so much milk and water at a time when stronger fare is called for.

But I don’t think the phrase obsessive moderate will do. To me obsession means the idea that takes over my mind to the exclusion of all else. It's a pathology that carries more than a hint of morbidity. An obsessive is out of control. You can't negotiate with such a person. He or she will never change their mind or be open to different insights. Obsessives live by what's called cognitive dissonance: tailoring evidence so that it fits their frame of reference, denying what seem to others to be facts on the ground, falsifying any logic that undermines their own axioms. This is the antithesis of what I understand by "moderate". I won't say that I haven't been guilty of it at times when arguing against Brexit. We all get caught up in our own echo-chambers thanks to the algorithms that decide what we see on social media. I’m also aware that “liberals” can sometimes be among the most illiberal of people when their own position is attacked. But I'm trying to be aware enough to keep a cool head, resist obsession and maintain my own judgment, however hard that can be when emotions run high.

Instead, as I said in my tweet, I'd like to go for the phrase impassioned moderate. Or impassioned remainer, or liberal, or democrat, whatever describes the position that refuses extremes and looks instead for a convinced, central, mainstream position whether it's in politics and religion.

I've seen enough of extremes in religion to want nothing to do with them: the fundamentalism whose dogmas refuse to consider the validity of female priests or assisted dying or same-sex marriage, that is so tied to rigidly-construed texts or traditions that it will not countenance the idea that God may disclose new wisdom to us as the ages pass. It’s the readiness to open up contentious questions for exploration that I’m concerned about, not necessarily the conclusions that are arrived at. Extremes in politics function in the same kind of way, whether it's the hard Brexiters of the Tory European Research Group on the right or their equally determined (that's to say entrenched) mirror images on the left. Yesterday's resignation of seven MPs from Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party was an eloquent protest against a politics that will not negotiate or seek consensus at a time when it's imperative that our nation comes together to determine the shape of its future.

Now, to embrace the via media, as Anglicans are famously supposed to do, doesn't mean cultivating blandness, the Victorian childhood ideal of "meek and mild". On the contrary. We who are moderates or liberals need to be all the more fervent in resisting the ideological nonsense that is hurled at us from every side. Political and religious liberalism as it developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth century were not lacking when it came to passion! The arguments that raged then over contested issues were deeply felt by liberals because so much was at stake: nothing less than the character of nation, society and church. They were battles for the soul of our institutions.

What's the essence of moderation? I think it's a deep suspicion of extremes of every kind, whether of ideas or behaviour. A suspicion too that the easy either-ors we are presented with and told to choose between are likely to mask the quest for a deeper wisdom and truth. Moderation is comfortable with complexity and ambiguity. Words like generosity, openness, tolerance, respect, inclusivity come to mind, to me, intrinsically good words. It's true that they needn't always be virtuous: we know from our own experience that they can mask cowardice or laziness, the reluctance to get involved, the refusal to test and challenge what is likely to be damaging, dangerous or just plain false.

But at their best, I believe that these behaviours are virtuous, ethical and life-giving. As a moderate I want to say: let's turn away from the either-ors that drive us apart from one another, and learn instead the way of both-and. To me, this is not some safe hiding-place from the debates and arguments that cause turbulence, raise emotions and even threaten our stability. On the contrary. I want to contribute to these debates out of my own fervently-held conviction that liberal moderation holds the key to embracing our differences in ways that respect integrity but don't result in damage to our communities and our relationships. I believe that in both religion and politics, the via media, "impassioned moderation", is an intellectually coherent position. And I want to claim that it could prove to be the key to our reconciliation and healing in the increasingly fractured environment in which we find ourselves today. I say this not least because of liberalism’s respect for the separation of powers, the checks and balances that put constraints on the powers of institutions and individuals. These are essential to the spiritual and moral wellbeing of every healthy society and faith community.

Our churches, our society, our national institutions are beset by strongly-held differences that pose real risks to their integrity. The threat of civil unrest should we crash out of the EU with no deal, or hold a people's vote should alarm us. That's not to direct policy, only to point out how serious our situation has become. At the eleventh hour of this tortuous Brexit journey, impassioned moderation has a lot to be said for it. The alternative, a future of political extremism, doesn’t bear thinking about.

Forty Days and Forty Nights - to Brexit

This isn't an early blog about Lent. Easter is late this year, so Ash Wednesday doesn't fall till the 6th March.

No, this is about the time that's left to us before Brexit Day on the 29th March, forty days and forty nights. That's the same length of time as Lent (if you take out the six Sundays of Lent which don't count towards the total as Sundays are always feast days). Less than six weeks. Or put it another way. In 1939, war was declared on the 3rd September. If that were Brexit Day, then by now it would already be 25th July.

That's frighteningly close to an event that is probably Britain's biggest crisis since the last war. By now, whatever your hopes or fears about leaving the European Union, you'd have thought that the shape of our nation's future after the end of March would be looking clear. But not at all. Thanks to Theresa May and her government, the past two and half years since the referendum have resulted in a negotiated deal that has twice been comprehensively voted down in Parliament. It is baffling beyond belief to Leavers and Remainers alike, not to mention our frustrated EU partners, that she persists with this fantasy. One EU negotiator speaking today put the likelihood of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal as around 90%. That would be terrible for trade and business, for police and security co-operation across Europe, for travel, for cultural and environmental collaboration and a whole lot else.

You don't need me to rehearse the litany of probable woes. Indeed, it's already a litany of actual woes. Each day it seems that another business announces that it's relocating its headquarters to the continent. Today Flybmi has gone into administration citing Brexit uncertainty. Here in the North East, the news that Nissan will not now be manufacturing the new X-Trail model at its Sunderland works has come as a heavy blow. The stockpiling of essential supplies including medicines has begun. There is talk of civil disorder, and plans to evacuate the Royal Family. The billions Brexit is already costing the nation are only part of the price we are paying. And our hapless Prime Minister and her cabinet hurl themselves like Gadarene swine towards the cliff edge dragging the nation in their slipstream. No wonder we are the laughing stock of Europe. It's hard not to feel ashamed of the way we have conducted ourselves since the vote.

Standing on this threshold of a Lent-length forty days' journey to Brexit, I ask myself what's to be done? I've nothing new to offer here, but I guess that the more people who try to challenge the Brexit groupthink and speak some sense into this bizarre and dangerous situation, the better.

The first thing is that we must defer Article 50. It is a nonsense to think we can safely depart from the EU at the end of March with no road-map even for the short-term future, no consensus about what our key relationship with the EU is going to look like after Brexit. You don't take off from the runway without knowing where your aircraft is taking you and how you are going to navigate the weather that lies ahead. You don't complete on a property purchase if the survey has thrown up matters that need resolving first. Or in the parables of Jesus, you check that you're building your house on rock, not on sand. You don't embark on a project without first counting the cost. Mrs May’s brinkmanship is making a hostage of this nation’s future. This close to B-Day, we must give ourselves more time. And while we are about it, Parliament must rule out no-deal as an option and get serious about negotiating realistically with the EU.

The second thing is that having deferred Brexit Day, we must go back to the electorate and hold a People's Vote to establish beyond doubt that leaving the European Union is what the nation wants. ,I've no patience for the riposte that says that having voted once on this subject, it would be a betrayal of democracy to do it again. On the contrary. Given the divided nation and Parliament that we are, it would be a betrayal of democracy not to check what the "will of the people" is now, in 2019. Democracy means that it is permitted to change our minds.

This is critically important when we all know so much more about what Brexit would entail than we did in 2016. There was so much that was wrong with the 2016 referendum, not least excluding 16 and 17 year olds from the vote, excluding UK citizens who had lived abroad in EU countries for more than 15 years, and not stipulating that a majority of 60% or two-thirds of votes cast would be needed to effect such a major constitutional change. A People's Vote would allow those mistakes to be corrected. One of the options on the ballot paper would obviously be to remain in the EU as we are, on the current terms. I've no idea whether it would secure a safe majority to reverse the disastrous 2016 vote. But it's important to find out. Democrats have nothing to fear from this. If Brexiters are convinced that the case has been made for leaving the EU, let the public endorse it if that is what it believes. Why are so many people, even MPs who voted Remain in 2016 (like my own elected member) afraid of doing this?

The third thing is that we should use these forty days to try to clear our heads. Groupthink is a dangerous mentality because you can never argue against it, never persuade anyone that there is another side to an issue. Our government has got it into its head that there is only one direction in which to travel, and that is out of the European Union. For all the counter-arguments, all the evidence that this would damage not only the UK economy but also its standing in the world and its networks of influence and collaboration, for all the threats that we face, this government has only one song to sing, which is that "the people have decided" and the referendum outcome is sacrosanct.

I want to ask, respectfully but plainly, what would it take to shift this government's mind, break out of this slanging-match we are in that becomes more hysterical by the day, and instead, get a grown-up conversation going? How dire do the threats have to be before Mrs May notices? What evidence would need to be presented for her to revisit her beloved red lines? What arguments would it take for her at least to contemplate changing her mind? If only she could show a modicum of self-doubt! If only she could think it possible that she was mistaken, could entertain the idea that our nation had misjudged things. If only she could admit that it's allowed to step back and think again. Prudence at a time of crisis is a virtue in leaders. This is just such a time.

If only... if only... Well, in the Bible, forty days and forty nights are often set aside as a period of preparation, self-examination and prayer. Think of Moses and Elijah on the mountain, think of Jesus himself in the desert. That's one of the reasons we observe Lent. Wouldn't it be a good idea for our elected representatives to try to do this in the spirit of a pre-Brexit Lent, to take time to ponder, reflect, and yes, in desperate times - if they can - to pray. And ask themselves if it doesn't make sense to step back from the brink while there is still time.

But what Lent is chiefly for is to prepare for Easter, for the commemoration of Jesus' death and resurrection. Right now, I can certainly see a death lying ahead on the other side of these forty days of Brexit. But no resurrection, I'm afraid, no new life or even the promise of it. Just a no-deal abyss into which we are destined to tumble if we do not come to our senses. It's utterly reprehensible that our leaders have allowed this nation to sleep-walk into disaster. Deferring Article 50 and holding a People's Vote seem to me to be the only way of averting it.

You can tell that I'm writing with some feeling. That's because I'm deeply afraid of the future that is rushing down the slipway towards us next month. In my view we have been badly let down by our leaders. I want to believe that it's not too late to change course. I wish my waters were telling me that it's likely to happen. Do I believe in miracles that can win minds and hearts? I suppose I must at least believe in the power of persuasion, for otherwise, why am I even bothering to write? I don’t believe in praying blindly that some deus ex machina will get us out of a mess for which we only have ourselves to blame.

I just can’t see how this can end well. I’m proud to be European. And I’m proud (on good days - there aren’t many of those just now) to be British. But I confess to sending this blog out into the world with a very heavy heart. If the lights go out at the end of March, my generation won’t see them lit again in our lifetime.

The Ten-Fifty to Newcastle: Clergy and the Railways

It's every schoolboy's dream, at least it was when I was that age - living by a railway. A few years ago we retired to Haydon Bridge, a village in South Tynedale midway between the North Sea and the Irish. In the 1830s, the first east-west railway line in Britain was constructed between Newcastle and Carlisle and brought trains into the valley. On 28 June 1836 Haydon Bridge station was opened. It is still open (unstaffed) and we are lucky enough to live opposite, near the level crossing. The original station-master's house survives as a private home.

You will have heard a lot about Northern Rail in the past few months. It runs a service every hour or so in each direction. Two-coach sprinters, or if you are unlucky, cordially disliked Pacer trains, get you to either end of the line in about three-quarters of an hour. There are even a few direct services that will take you to exotic destinations like Dumfries, Glasgow (thanks to Scotrail), Middlesbrough or Whitby. The railway passes through lovely valley and upland landscapes and runs close to the Roman Wall for most of its length (so it’s now marketed as the Hadrian's Wall Line).

Sometimes the East Coast or West Coast Main Lines through Newcastle or Carlisle are closed for engineering work, and then Inter-City 125s power along our railway, and even East Coast electrics ignominiously hauled by diesels. Steam specials bring sightseers and photographers to the lineside. When Flying Scotsman and Tornado (above) came through, the platforms were as thronged as a tube station in rush hour. The last train to stop at Haydon Bridge every weekday is the 22.50 to Newcastle. The roar of the Pacer as it sets out eastwards can clearly be heard from our house. That’s my signal for bedtime. It’s strangely reassuring to hear freight trains rumble through at night.

I blogged about the Line in 2017 so I won't repeat myself. What prompts me to write now is an assignment that is coming up next month. I have to speak to a local railway circle about why the clergy, or many of us, are famously fascinated by railways. It's been debated in church circles from time to time. "What draws clerics to railways?" asked David Self in the Church Times ten years ago or so. He discusses Bishop Eric Treacy, the distinguished railway photographer who died in 1978 on Appleby station photographing a steam special on the Settle to Carlisle line. I've yet to discover if the Bishop ever spoke or wrote about why he loved railways. I'd be surprised if he hadn't reflected on it.

The Reverend Wilbert Vere Audrey features of course, the begetter of Thomas the Tank Engine et al. I've got to know these stories all over again as a granddad, not just from the books but now from hundreds of YouTube videos. I have just read his biography by Brian Sibley. He draws attention to the moral world presided over by the Fat Controller where right and wrong are clearly delineated. Unlike our world, on the Island of Sodor there are no grey areas. On the last page he records a conversation with the author in which he asks how far these stories about railway engines are a statement of his personal philosophy. He quotes Audrey's reply. "This world is God's world. He makes the rules. We have a free choice, we can obey him or disobey him, but we cannot choose to disobey him and live happily our way....Like us humans, they go their own way and inevitably come to a sticky end. Then the offender has to show that he is sorry and accept his punishment. But the point is they are punished but they are NEVER scrapped." Sibley adds that "in the world depicted in the Railway Series, there is always redemption and forgiveness, another opportunity to try harder to become a Really Useful Engine". So Pelagianism is avoided. Just.

David Self's article is kind enough to see off the assumption that rail-loving clergy are necessarily anoraks, pedants, juvenile fantasists or just plain cranks (moi?). He does think that railways represent an ordered world that runs to schedule, and this appeals to clergy whose daily experience of the parish is of  setting where little if anything is predictable. And if railway modelling is their thing, as it was for The Reverend Teddy Boston, a friend of Audrey whose remarkable garden railway is described in Font to Footplate, then the satisfaction of creating and presiding over such an environment no doubt reflects a theology of creation. This theme is explored by Canon Bill Vanstone in his book Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense where precisely because of the infinite care the Creator invests in his creation, he becomes vulnerable to anything that would damage or spoil it. I well recall that feeling from childhood. Our oversized cat (Jupiter by name) trampled all over my beloved OOO layout and left a trail of destruction across my handiwork. I must have been ten or eleven and wept copiously.

I'm not sure I've yet answered the question of clergy and railways to my satisfaction. It's true that a proud moment in my time as Dean of Durham was when an East Coast Class 91 Electric was named Durham Cathedral. In its latest incarnation, 91114 still has my name on the driver door. But why should that bring immense pleasure? Perhaps the big railway stations are a bit like cathedrals. Yes, they are of course grand, imposing and often beautiful. St Pancras, King's Cross, Paddington, Liverpool Street, Bristol Temple Meads, York, Newcastle are among the great stations of England, cathedrals of the industrial era. I recall Euston being the best of them all until it was ignominiously demolished by wicked modernisers in the 1960s.

But architecture isn't all. It's what goes on in railway stations from the grandest to the humblest where the analogies are perhaps strongest. Stations are places of comings and goings, journeys begun, journeys ended, journeys that are still in progress. They are points of connection. They are liminal - locations where temporary communities come into being and thresholds are crossed. Here, people have to wait, surrender themselves to forms of control beyond themselves, embark on or conclude journeys that may bring them to unknown places or new experiences. They are places where the “other” is inchoate in the here and now, whether anticipated, hoped for or feared. That makes them suggestive of transcendence.

And they are also places of ceremony where rituals of greeting and farewell take place, where trains arrive and depart in accordance with well rehearsed rules and passengers (a much more suggestive word theologically than customers) understand the rules of engagement in relation to the rituals of buying tickets, negotiating barriers, locating the correct platform and time to catch a train. All this, I think, appeals to people who inhabit ceremonial worlds as clergy do when we preside at the liturgy and at the occasional offices, those rites of passage that mark the human journey and offer it to God.

Perhaps too, power comes into things. One of my tutors at theological college, Dr Jim Packer, a west country man, loved his native GWR and cheerfully joined in praise of "God's Wonderful Railway". My protestations in defence of the North Eastern Railway, its successor the LNER, Flying Scotsman and Mallard fell on deaf ears. I once heard him say that a steam locomotive was the quintessential expression of how enormous power is put to work through the discipline of its own engineering and of the rails that constrain it. Power that is purposeful was to him a way of speaking about God, an eloquent image of teleology, that which has direction and strives toward a clear end or telos. He put it more subtly than that, but you get the point.

I suspect that the precision with which railways have to operate carries an eschatological message for those who think in such ways. Divine order in which everything knows its place is what people of faith look for in the new creation that the gospel proclaims. A well-run railway could, perhaps, be a metaphor of what humanity longs for as the goal of creation. Could we call it the kingdom of God? I'm not talking about cold perfection, a chiselled, mechanised (and now digitised) but impersonal efficiency that cares nothing for flesh and blood. Rather, I mean that because railways at their best are a demonstration of how human beings flourish in a symbiotic relationship with their environment, they seem to epitomise a state of order that is both elegant and humane - beautiful even.

These analogies are far from perfect. But maybe they are worth exploring in a playful kind of way. Playfulness is a good quality to cultivate when we do theology. "The kingdom of heaven is like...the happiness of passengers when the trains run on time." Amen. Amen.