On Books, Waves and Not Getting Angry with Rascals

“I have taken so kindly to idleness that I can’t tear myself away from it. So either I amuse myself with books, of which I have a good stock here at Antium, or I count the waves - the weather is unsuitable for mackerel fishing... And my sole form of political activity is to hate the rascals, and even that I do without anger.”

This is Cicero in 59BCE. He had retired from his year as consul with more time to read, write and ponder. If only we had his Secret History, published posthumously because of its fierce denunciations of his enemies. This famous book is lost to us. It would have had much to say about the turbulent times he was living through as his cherished Roman Republic entered its death-throes. The waves he watched were not only those that lapped the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. There were political waves aplenty to watch, and despair at, and try not to get angry with the rascals who were making them.

Remind me of anyone?

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the Sunday my wife and I said goodbye to Durham Cathedral. I had been Dean there for nearly thirteen years. The historic Deanery was home to us for a lot longer than anywhere else we had lived as a couple and a family. It was a poignant day as I wrote at the time. But we soon settled into our new home in the Tyne Valley, and to the gentler rhythms of retirement in the countryside. I’ve blogged from the “front line” of retirement from time to time here, here, and recently (particularly significant for me, this one), here.

Cicero’s self-deprecating take on retirement (amid the demands of his legal practice and speech-making) rings bells for me. We have a good stock of books here at Haydon Bridge, and I’ve fulfilled a lifelong ambition to work in a bookshop (as a volunteer every Wednesday afternoon in the local Oxfam bookshop). I can’t tell you how marvellous it is to indulge a love of reading without feeling guilty.

I could write a whole blog - perhaps I shall one day - about some of the books I’ve enjoyed in the past four years - biography, railways, art, religion, poetry, politics, literature, classical history, music, the life and landscapes of North East England - and whatever else looks interesting. Retirement has demonstrated what I always thought was true of me, that I am a born dilettante. I take comfort from the Italian origin of that word, which means someone who “takes delight”, just as amateur literally means “a lover” (of activities).

“Counting the waves”: well, we don’t have many of those here in upstream Haydon Bridge, though the South Tyne creates an impressive standing wave as it sweeps over the weir below the eponymous old bridge. When the river is in spate, there are always plenty of us on the bridge contemplating this wave (and hoping that the Tyne knows its place and doesn’t invade our cellars, as Storm Desmond drove it to do just three months after we had retired here).

And contemplation comes into things in retirement. Cicero evidently enjoyed his mackerel fishing, perhaps because it made for enjoyable hours in the open air, and encouraged a reflective outlook on life, something that Izaak Walton was to write winsomely about in his classic book The Compleat Angler. For me, not an angler, there are the pleasures of walking in the Northumberland Hills, pottering round the Roman sites along Hadrian’s Wall, and other delights on offer in the beautiful environment of the Tyne Valley.

The ancient philosophers wrote about the dichotomy between the active and contemplative aspects of healthy human living. The spiritual tradition found emblems of these two sides of life in the gospel figures of Mary and Martha: Martha, busy caring for the home and managing its hospitality, frustrated at Mary whom she resented sitting and listening to Jesus when there were jobs to do. If we are lucky enough to have worked, the chances are that we have invested heavily in the active life. But retirement, with its invitation to lay activity aside at least to an extent, offers the opportunity to develop a more reflective outlook, nurture our contemplative side. I would go as far as to say that a healthy retirement requires us to do this, and learn how to quieten our spirits by being present and attentive to the moment. After all, what is contemplation but purposeful idleness? This seems to me to be the kind of spirituality we should cultivate in older age.

This is the clue to Cicero’s final point about observing politics, hating rascals but not getting angry. I hadn’t expected retirement to be so dominated by national politics and the antics of rascals. Within three months of retiring, the EU Referendum was called. I found myself writing, speaking and blogging about it, spending many waking hours reading news reports and commentary, immersing myself in it as a matter of very personal concern. (You’ll find all my blogs on this website - just trawl through the content dating from 2016 onwards.) Why was I lying awake worrying about it? Because as a child of Anglo-German parentage, Europeanism was instilled in me at a very early age. I could not bear the thought that the UK might leave the European Union, this project inaugurated by people of vision who wanted to secure peace in our continent for the sake of future generations. I still can’t.

I confess that all my life, I’ve never felt so angry about British politics as I have done in these years of retirement. “Rascals” is a benign word to describe the kind of deceit and chicanery we’ve witnessed from hard Brexiters since the campaign was launched. And yes, a propensity for hatred comes into things if you are a man or woman who believes in something passionately and wants to safeguard it against those who would wilfully dismantle it. I’m not defending myself by pointing to those Psalms where the author puts into words his visceral hatred towards those whom he talks about as his, and God’s, enemies. Yes, it can soon collapse into an ugly self-righteousness. I can be prone to that. But I simply want to notice that anger and hatred are present in the experience of the people of God. It’s not edited out of their prayer.

Dealing with anger is a spiritual issue. I really do not want to be angry in my spirit as I grow old. In Psalm 37, the Psalmist advises: “fret not thyself because of the ungodly”. The secret is, I think, the contemplative spirit Cicero exhibits. Stoic teaching (which he admired) and the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible are at one here. A quiet eye inculcates a quiet spirit - not without feelings and passions, but not ruled by them, especially the negative ones. “They who are run away with by their lust or anger have quoted the command over themselves” writes Cicero in a piece called “On Grief of Mind”. A contemplative take on politics, even the politics of madness - this is what I’m trying to cultivate. This means channelling anger towards rascals into positive action, discovering how hatred can be transcended, if not by love, then at least by what R. S. Thomas called in one of his poems, “willed gentleness”. And try to respect and to disagree well, even when we differ so profoundly.

How am I getting on? Fitfully, I think. Brexit is a big test of my Christianity. But wisdom, with its insights into who and what I am, and why human behaviour (including mine) is so wayward and liable to corruption, comes to the rescue. Contemplation brings a larger perspective. And this bigger picture is an essential spiritual aspect of ageing if our lives are not to be narrowed as we face our mortality. Today’s anniversary is an opportunity to pause and take stock.

So books, waves and not getting angry are all part of the same picture. Perhaps it’s time I took up fishing?

Preaching the Cross in the Shadow of Brexit

This year I'm preaching Holy Week in Southwark Cathedral. Once again, I've chosen to give a series of addresses on St John's Gospel. Its passion narrative has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration throughout my life. Indeed, I owe my Christianity to it, something I blogged about a few years ago. This is perhaps the sixth Holy Week I've preached when I’ve focused on St John's Gospel. Far from repeating myself year after year, I've been amazed at the fresh insights it has to offer, this profoundest of stories that seems forever new.

However, this is the first year in which I'm aware of proclaiming the cross in the shadow of such momentous events. I mean, of course, Brexit. It's possible, though I think unlikely, that the UK could crash out of the European Union on 12 April, two days before Palm Sunday. But even if we are still EU members as Holy Week begins, the air of crisis and panicked uncertainty will almost certainly still be real. So this year's question is, how do I, how do any of us, interpret the passion in such a febrile political climate? How does the Brexit emergency colour the way we "lift high the cross" in liturgy, preaching and prayer?

Of course, that's putting the question the wrong way round entirely. It falls straight into the Brexit trap of seeing everything from our own limited perspective. What matters infinitely more is, how does God see things? How does the cross itself interpret our national politics at this turning point in our history as a people? More than that, how does the cross judge our collective and individual motives, attitudes and choices at this critical time in our history, and indeed all of the time? I almost said at this crucial time in our history, this “crossroads” that is subject to the judgment of the cross of Jesus Christ.

I'm clear that in Holy Week, the preacher is called "to know nothing but Christ and him crucified", as St Paul puts it. Yet in the powerful passage from which I’m quoting (1 Corinthians 1.18-2.5), Paul directly contrasts "the foolishness of God", that is, the wisdom of the cross, with what he calls merely "human wisdom". He concludes that faith must rest on the power of God that is the ultimate judgment on all human activity. So the proclamation of the cross places all human thinking and action under divine scrutiny. And that includes the politics of every nation, people and society at all times in all places.

Let me say straight away that I don't intend to mention the B-word explicitly at Southwark. I don't see it as the preacher's role in Holy Week to weary long-suffering listeners by expatiating on Brexit. But just because I won’t inflict my Remainer opinions on people, it doesn’t mean that I’ll apologise for them if asked - which, I suppose, is conceivable. It’s true that I've argued with some passion that as an established church, the Church of England can and should take a view on this nation's future in relation to the European Union. It should be as committed to shaping opinion as it is to reflecting it, because Brexit is a matter of public theology, morality and social ethics. But Holy Week is not the time to do it from the pulpit.

However, it doesn't follow that the passion narrative sits above politics. Far from it. In all four gospels, it’s clear just how deeply political this story is. While it's true that the cross is the ultimate demonstration of how "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (St Paul again, 2 Corinthians 5.19), the particulars plunge us inextricably in the politics of first century Palestine and the complex public interactions of the Jewish people with their Roman overlords. Whatever else Jesus' death means spiritually and theologically, we can't evade the historical fact that the crucifixion was the direct consequence of political decisions.

Given that the divisive politics of our own day is the context in which we shall be commemorating the cross this year, it would be surprising if we didn't hear all kinds of political echoes and resonances in the passion story. Some of the themes that have haunted the rhetoric of the Brexit debate are clear in the narrative. We could think of financial inducement and betrayal (Judas and the thirty pieces of silver); the strain on personal relationships ("Are you not one of his disciples?"); the naked populism of the crowd that sucks everyone into its craving for a victim ("Crucify him!"); the indecisiveness (some might call it non-alignment) of the political leader who could have saved the victim (Pontius Pilate who found no fault in Jesus but for all that turned him over to be crucified). And so on.

None of these is "about" Brexit, of course. Rather, both Brexit and the passion narrative reflect atavistic aspects of human beings that act out archetypal patterns. In particular, the theme of the scapegoat, the victim that is driven out of a community carrying with it its pain, conflict and dysfunction has been extensively explored by the theologian-anthropologist Rene Girard as an important insight into the atonement. Such behaviour seems to underlie the desire to attribute blame that is pervading so much of our politics right now. When feelings are running high, finding a victim on whom to project our ambivalence or anger, our hatred or distress, our longing for revenge is a basic human instinct. Annas and Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate, the religious authorities and the wayward crowd all fit this template. Laid across the passion, the Girardian template yields illuminating insights.

In all these ways, human politics turns out to be deeply implicated in the passion narrative. I'm pretty sure that without trying very hard, we Holy Week preachers and listeners will find ourselves attuned to the political nuances of the story this particular year. As I've said, it isn't a matter of explicitly alluding to our Brexit dilemmas. It will be implicit in our reading and preaching of the texts if we are sensitive to the layers of meaning the evangelists are conveying. Context is everything for both preacher and listener. What are called "reader-response" approaches to the interpretation of texts have highlighted the importance of understanding the context of the listener, whether political, social, cultural or personal. We need to be aware of whom we are preaching to, and what kind of assumptions (not to say fears and worries) they will bring to our Holy Week and Easter services.

But the glory of the cross in the New Testament is how the politics of God and the politics of mortals intersect in a story that turns out to be about reconciliation, redemption and healing. Even in the subterfuge and chaos, the falsehoods, betrayals and thirst for violence, the passion narrative tells of God's purposes to bring about the salvation of the world. All our churches have expressed the hope that even in our divisions over Brexit, people of good will may come together and find that our differences are transcended by our shared humanity and our resolve together to seek the common good. That is where we Christians can make common cause with people of other faith communities or of no faith, but who, like us, care about the welfare of the human family. That will be healing in itself.

In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus speaks about how when he is "lifted up from the earth" he will draw all humanity to himself (John12.32). This is what we must allow the cross to do to us and for us this Holy Week. As we celebrate the paschal mystery of Jesus' cross and resurrection, we shall, I'm sure, find ourselves also drawn closer to one another in wonder, love and praise. We shall want to listen to others' stories about what the cross means to them, and to share our own. Those stories have implications for the whole of life, including social justice, public life and politics. To worship together at the foot of the cross is not somehow to iron out our differences and make everything “all right”. It’s certainly not to extricate religion from politics. But it is to acknowledge that the cross summons us to the search for truth and justice. It’s to recognise that God cares as passionately as we do about the politics of peoples and nations. It’s to bring politics with us to the cross and seek a new purity of vision for our life together in society. And that could transform the quality of the discourse as we go on debating Brexit after Easter.

Maybe you were hoping that Holy Week would mean a few days' retreat into the peace and tranquility of personal piety from the turbulence of politics in the public square. If so, I'm afraid you can't have been paying attention to the gospels!

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.

Farewell Facebook. Sort Of.

There's something faintly narcissistic about discussing social media on social media. But I guess we all do it if only to try to understand why, if it has, social media has become such a pervasive part of our lives.

Six years ago when I was still finding my feet in this strange new world I wrote a blog about Twitter. A week is a long time in social media, let alone six years. But I don't think I'd change anything much, other than acknowledge that the character limit is now 280, not 140 as it used to be in the (good) old days. I tried out these Twelve Principles of Responsible Tweeting on a conference I once addressed on the subject of wisdom and pastoral care. They went down well.

At about the same time as a Durham University colleague told me I'd enjoy Twitter (how right she was), my children persuaded me to reactivate my Facebook (henceforth FB) account so that we could all keep in touch, resuscitate old friendships, share holiday snaps and discuss what we'd had for breakfast. Always compliant, I did as they asked. I enjoyed interacting with people I hadn't seen for years as well as making new friends (whatever we think online "friendship" means). I learned a lot from links people posted to broadcasting, newspapers and journals, enjoyed their photos and was often inspired by their blogs.

But I never cared for FB in quite the way I took to Twitter. Twitter was elegant, disciplined and smart. I loved its minimalism - not so minimalist now. FB sprawled without limit (and by heaven don't some people take advantage of that). Twitter was amazingly simple to use, FB labyrinthine in the complexity of its settings (some of which I don't get to this day). But what irritated me most, and still does, is the gossipy world view it often endorses. The endless fripperies, the studied triviality that was once mercifully confined to the privacy of personal relationships are now on view for all the world (well, all our friendship worlds) to see.

It's not that lightening up isn't a very good thing. We should cultivate humour, laughter, lightness of touch, a sense of the absurd. We all need to do it, myself included - ask my family! But somehow, FB seems to inflate it. And that's true at the opposite end of the spectrum as well, where serious commentary (of which there's a great deal on FB - don't misunderstand me) often descends into rudeness, vitriol and rage. The more words I have, the more I can indulge myself in front of the ever-willing audience with which I share my echo-chamber. In that respect, Twitter's tightness imposes some controls. Yes I know that 280 characters, precisely because of that limit, can curtail nuance, inhibit subtlety, make words sound sharper-edged than they are meant to be, offend where no offence was intended. And if you want to abuse someone, Twitter is ideal for it. It will get you noticed. No medium is perfect. But perhaps I've said enough to explain why I've not found FB comparable to Twitter which, most of the time, has been source of enlightenment, stimulus and pleasure.

Social media holds up a mirror to both our best and our worst selves, and to the shades of grey in between which I suppose account for ninety-five percent of ordinary life. The mirror, if it's telling the truth, won't make us look any better than we really are, or worse for that matter. But the question is, precisely what "truth" are we talking about when we gaze dispassionately at the image of ourselves that we portray on social media? I find that an intriguing question to which I don't really know the answer. Some of us want to promote the image of the clown or humourist, others the sage with profound wisdom to impart. Some aspire to be the angry prophet, some the witty flaneur. There's the friend who cultivates triviality in order to subvert (or just take their mind off) the serious stuff out there in the real world or in cyberspace. And there's always the one who wants to be the cleverest person in the room. God forbid any of us might crave that reputation.

To some extent, these caricatures tell both truth and lies. We're all of us tempted to construct false selves online, create the public or semi-public persona we want others to see, may even want to see ourselves. When we draft our social media profile and select images to go with it, what governs those decisions? Some devote a good deal of time to thinking about it, others take a devil-may-care attitude. I suppose personality type has a lot to do with it, as well as the roles we have in our work or public life, and how social media can enhance or detract from them. And all this assumes that we do lhave regard for truthfulness and integrity online so that what you see is, to a greater or lesser extent, what you you get. I assume that everyone who reads this blog believes that this ought to matter to us. But even if it does, it’s easy to deceive ourselves about what the gap between how others see us and what we truly are. That’s no different from everyday life of course. But on social media, as some have found to their cost, that gap can be fatally magnified.

I have to admit that FB is not altogether the life-enhancing medium I thought it might be. But I won't have it said that social media is intrinsically destructive or bad. It's morally neutral, like the invention of the printing-press or telephone, radio and television, all of which were said at the time successfully to corrupt minds and hearts, especially those of the young. Like any communications medium, the internet is only a tool - a hugely powerful one, but a tool for all that. What any tool does is simply to broaden the scope of our capacity for good or evil. As I've said, it's as good or as bad as we are. So the important question to ask always is, how can we make it better for others and ourselves, put wholesome, positive, wise messages out there to help combat so much that's negative and deleterious and bad?

All of which I've written as a way of telling FB friends that I've decided to change the way I use this platform. Hitherto I've posted a lot of stuff about theology, culture, social affairs and politics on my timeline as well as link to some of the best writing on those or other topics that I've come across in my reading. But I've come to think that maybe FB isn't the best medium for doing this, at least not for me. Someone told me, in the nicest possible way but quite firmly, to lighten up on other people's timelines (and there I was, thinking I'd made a helpful contribution to the discussion a friend had begun in a new year's post). Maybe they were trying to tell me that FB isn't the right tool for this sort of thing, or more likely, that I just wasn't using it properly. However, the effect was to make me feel as though I'd lobbed a hand-grenade into the kindergarten playground. Over-sensitive? Maybe. Even probably. But it had the intended effect of making me think about my use of social media.

So I've reached a decision about FaceBook. It's not to suspend my account - at least, not yet (as for closing it down permanently, how to do that has baffled some of the world's greatest minds). But I've decided to use FB purely for social interaction rather than the political, social and theological debates I've been engaging in for the past few years. I'm going to restrict that kind of content to Twitter, and keep FB for what I guess it was meant to do all along, enjoying the fun-stuff with family and friends and sharing more personal joys and sorrows as appropriate. And, I hope, continuing to enlarge the circle of human relationships, some deep, some more casual, that social media is good at promoting. So I've changed all my privacy settings from public to friends only and drastically reduced what anyone can see of my life online.

In some ways it's felt bleak to do this. But it's not the parting of friends, just a new year rearrangement of the digital homes we are inhabiting. I know many of us will go on meeting up on Twitter where lively debates about everything under the sun will continue. And let me emphasise that I'm speaking only for myself and my experience. We each have to come to our own conclusions. But there's no denying that I'll miss many of you in all sorts of ways when it comes to the often controversial discussions we've had and all that I've learned from you.

I'll give it a few weeks to see how it works out. With the public exposure about its policies and practices that it's had in recent weeks, FaceBook's own hour may be coming, though it's too soon to tell if we're on board a sinking ship. It's entirely possible that events conspire to make all of us question the wisdom of continuing to associate ourselves with FB and be manipulated, as we seem to be, by the vast amounts of information it holds about us, and by the inscrutable algorithms that govern what happens to it (and to us).

When Sherlock Holmes was heading for his last encounter with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, a meeting he believed could only end in the deaths of them both, he told Dr Watson that he did not think he had ever used his powers of detection other than for the welfare of humanity. I’ll make the more modest claim that on FB, I’m not aware that I’ve ever intended to harm or diminish anyone else, however much we may have disagreed or been passionate about the causes we believe in. That of course is no defence if I’ve hurt anyone or damaged their reputation. But as I say a sort of farewell, I can at least say that I’m sorry. That feels important just now.

Playing Politics with the Armistice?

 In the summer of 2016, my mother lay dying in a North London hospital. Her long life had begun in Weimar Germany in the aftermath of the Great War. The rise of the Nazis from 1933 cast an increasingly dark shadow over her teenage years. It became clear that like every other Jewish family, hers was now gravely under threat. In 1937, her parents got her out of Germany and she came to England as a refugee. They meanwhile fled to the Netherlands for safety. When the Germans invaded, they were hidden underground by two evangelical sisters who believed it was their vocation to shelter Jews.

My mother's hospitalisation happened during the Referendum campaign. She was not much given to political debate, but the idea that Britain might leave the European Union exercised her deeply. "This country wouldn't do anything so stupid, would they?" she asked me more than once. I tried to reassure her, believing at the time that despite episodes of irrationality, the British people were on the whole pragmatic with an instinct for common sense, and that this flirtation with Brexit would pass. Then came the vote on 23 June. Afterwards, she simply commented, "What a terrible terrible shame". A month later, to the day, she died.

Why am I writing about her on Armistice weekend? It's prompted by the moving report of our Prime Minister's visit to war graves in Belgium and France. She said that it was "a time to reflect on our shared history". I tweeted about it, commenting: "The logic points to building a peaceable future in our common European home. To turn from Brexit would honour the centenary of the Armistice". A friend took me to task. "No, don't play politics with the Armistice. It doesn't belong to Remainers".

He's right in his last point of course. The Armistice is not the property of this or that faction, or even this or that nation. It is part of our common European history, indeed, of our history as a human race. Its solemn commemoration this weekend should unite us, just as it should unite us with both our allies and our former enemies. I'm heartened that this centenary has so engaged people across our nation and continent. Last night's news carried reports from schools where children have written poems and imaginary letters in honour of the war dead. To them, a centenary must seem incredibly remote. Yet they have caught the theme of "war and the pity of war" (as Wilfred Owen called it) with real imagination. One nine-year old said that the thought of leaving his family at home to go to the front and possibly be killed was unbearable. How could they do it? he asked.

But I bridled at the allegation that I was "playing politics". I replied that far from indulging in political games, I was entirely serious. If we don't learn to allow history to shine a light on our present predicaments and future destinies, I argued, we are just not learning from the past. And when we don't do this, as has been said so many times, we condemn ourselves to repeating its mistakes. Wars are not inevitable. They happen for reasons that need to be understood against the context of the time. History doesn't repeat itself. Every generation has to learn for itself how to navigate the events of its own day. But the twentieth century's two world wars with their shocking waste of life are a stark warning to all of us. We can sleep-walk into catastrophe because we are not interpreting the signs of the times. Remembrance Sunday is an annual reminder to do precisely this: remember, reflect, pay attention, resolve that never again - if humanly possible - will precious human lives be sacrificed on the altar of conflict and war.

For my mother, brought up in the shadow of one world war and living through another, the peace in Europe we have enjoyed for seventy years was, if not a miracle, a very great achievement. This was why she cherished our membership of the European Union. For underlying everything else it aspired to was a project that began with the need to find reconciliation and build a lasting peace in Europe. To her in the last weeks of her life, it seemed inconceivable that progress, so hard-won across the continent since the last war, could be sacrificed in such a casual way. Why throw it all away? she asked. Why indeed?

We heard far too little about this during the Referendum campaign. Since the vote, politicians on all sides of the debate have obsessed about the economy, trade deals and the financial implications of any Brexit deal that might be negotiated. I'm not going to say these things aren't important. But they may not be what matters most. To my mind, our place in the world and our relationship with our own continent are even more significant because they have so much to do with the flourishing of human life across the planet, social justice, the welfare of the most needy in our societies and our care of the environment. Our sights should be set so much higher than simply our own national wellbeing.

On Remembrance Sunday we recall how Britain entered both world wars to support nations that were threatened by aggressors. Not turning away from others in need was a powerful motivator. We are right to remember, with pride and gratitude, how our country responded so honourably when our continent was at risk. We presented our best selves to the world. The challenge now is, how to present our best selves to the world in this postwar era where we are beset by threats to world peace and stability beyond the imaginings of our parents and grandparents.

What kind of world did the glorious dead lay down their lives for? Is it playing politics to conjecture that for them, a kinder, more compassionate world, more sensitised to human suffering and need was somewhere in their minds? Should we not go on aspiring to build this kind of world as we keep the Armistice centenary? And shouldn't we honour all the global, continental and national institutions, however flawed, whose purposes include friendship, stability and peace? The EU is not perfect - far from it. But it has played an important role in contributing to the peace of Europe for the lifetimes of most of us. I've heard veterans of the last war speak with dismay about Brexit as a kind of betrayal of so much that they fought for. That makes sense to me, born as many years after the end of the war in 1945 as my parents were after the Armistice of 1918.

That's why the war graves of Europe are emblematic for all who care about peace. This centenary is indeed "a time to reflect on our shared history" as Mrs May says. But a shared history leads naturally to thoughts about and hopes for a shared future that would be so much better together rather than apart. How we remember the past shapes us, and shapes the future. Yesterday at Thiepval in the Somme where she was laying a wreath, someone called out from the watching crowd, "Please don't leave us". That person too made the connection between Armistice and the future of our continent. Our nations went through so much during two world wars. Former enemies are now firm friends. The European Union has sealed that friendship in so many important ways. We are all the better for it.

Not to walk away from our friends is a lesson I draw from the Armistice. We didn't in 1914 and 1939. We shouldn't now. That's not playing politics. It's trying to learn from the events we commemorate this weekend. It's asking how, a hundred years later, we go on building on the hopes and dreams of those we remember who laid down their lives for the sake of a better world, and for whose sacrifice we remain for ever thankful.

This image says it all. It was taken yesterday at Compiègne where the Armistice was signed in 1918. It has added poignancy because it was here in 1940 that Adolph Hitler insisted on receiving the surrender of France out of revenge for the Treaty of Versailles. Here's what someone who had seen it posted on Twitter last night. I'm from the Middle East. This picture moves me nearly to tears - curiously, more than I find it moves young Europeans. Do young Europeans even realize what has been achieved? It's nothing less than sacred, because peace is sacred, because human life is sacred.

There is nothing left to say. Except to be thankful.
 

 

My letter to Tim Farron

Dear Tim

Thank you for your personal message to LibDem party members explaining that you have decided to stand down as leader. I know you will not have taken this enormous step without a great deal of thought and prayer.

The first thing I want to say is that you are in my own prayers now. I respect your candour as a politician, as a Christian and as a decent human being. Thank you for your leadership of the party in these tumultuous times.

I too am a Christian and a liberal (big L and small), living, as it happens, not far away from you. I love the far north of England as you do, not least for its sense of spiritual place, its soils infused with the long memory of our northern saints like Aidan and Cuthbert. I don't say that it's easier to be a Christian here than in the hectic Westminster village where, like Athens in the Acts of the Apostles, people are forever in search of something new to gossip about. Maybe up here we breathe a little more easily and are not always having to defend ourselves or our faith against the kind of opprobrium you have had to endure.

It's not for me to comment on your decision. I know you will have taken it with integrity, and from the tone of your letter, not without much inward struggle. But I am genuinely sorry about it all the same. I think you were under a degree of media scrutiny that was pitiless and intrusive in its invasion of your privacy. "We do not make windows on to men's souls" said Elizabeth I famously, but this is precisely what the media have tried to do with you, despite the fact that during the campaign you have not wavered an inch from LibDem policy in relation to same sex relations, equal marriage or anything else. The Prime Minister is also publicly known to be a Christian of conviction, but we don't find the media spotlight focusing relentlessly on her own personal opinions as a woman of faith.

You and I may come from different wings of the church, but this is not a factor as far as I am concerned. I am a Christian who believes with all my heart that the logic of gospel faith drives us to an inclusive vision of the world in which we give our LGBT friends the same rights as everyone else, just as we do people of colour, women and those with disability. I may wish that everyone else saw it that way, but I realise that this isn't the case. So we learn as Christians to practise what Justin Welby calls "good disagreement". I know that you have made your convictions about gay marriage clear in both what you have said, and how you have voted. That should have been the end of the matter. But even if you had taken the opposite view, I would have respected it. I can see that it might have been a struggle to reconcile personal faith with aspects of official party policy, but how you or I do this is no-one's business but our own. In any case, as you've said, a true liberal allows others to have different convictions from our own.

But illiberal media commentators don't seem to want to allow you that privilege (even though on this issue you haven't asked for it!). So if your recent relations with the media are behind your decision to resign, then I am doubly sorry. It is yet another victory for a media that is too often a disgrace to a progressive (I want to say enlightened) secular society that should be proud to sign up to liberal values. It does in theory - but not always in practice.

Of course, you may have been subject to a lot of other pressures that have added to your discomfort in the role of leader. Life in politics must be extraordinarily stressful. But if your resignation is a straw in the wind, and it is going to become harder than ever for a convinced man or woman of faith (any faith) to contribute as a political leader, then I am deeply worried about what this says about our country. We need Christians to be committed to leadership in public life in every sector of a secular society. I know you believe this ex animo because you have given us an example of how to inhabit such a role as a man of Christian principle. So I believe you would not have resigned unless the pressures had become intolerable. That's what is so troubling about your announcement - not because of what it says about you, but because of what it says about the rest of us!

You end by referring to Isaac Watts' great hymn of the cross: Love so amazing, so divine / demands my life, my soul, my all.  I was moved by that confession of faith on your part. And yes, we must not compromise our holding on to that central article of our faith. What could possibly matter more? It's why I have been a priest for more than forty years. And when conscience directs us in the light of the cross to act in a particular way, we dare not disobey.

So I want you to know that I entirely respect your decision, even if it also saddens me. You will be a loss to the party as its leader, and as a man who has brought your Christian gifts and insights to the high table at which our political leaders sit.

Let me wish you well for the future in a spirit of Christian friendship and in thankfulness for all that you have brought to British politics during your tenure as leader.

Best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Michael

If I were Theresa May... Seven Things to Think About

Never will a prime minister have been on the receiving end of so much advice. It's enough to make you feel sorry for her. Nevertheless, here's one more offering for the smorgasbord as she tries to pick up the pieces after the election.

Who am I to say anything? I'm a lay person when it comes to politics. I realise that comment is easy and comment is free; it's much harder to do the job. Despite her mistakes, despite the fact that she brought this election fiasco on herself, I feel for Mrs May. She cuts an isolated and lonely figure, tragic in the proper meaning of that word because her nemesis is the consequence of her own flawed vision.

So I write in a spirit of constructiveness as one (retired) leader to another. My experience tells me that we ought to be worried at the moment. These volatile days call for highly skilled leadership. How leaders behave under pressure reveals their strengths and weaknesses. Especially the latter. And I don't know that Mrs May has got it right in the last couple of days, indeed, the last couple of months.

But more important than any leadership experience I have, I write as a citizen of this country. I have cast my vote and that gives me an interest in what happens next. (If you chose not to vote, that suggests you don't care too much about your own future or the nation's. Dare I suggest that in that case you forfeit your right to comment on the outcome of this election?) The surprise result has consequences for us all. There needs to be an honest conversation among the electorate to try to understand what has happened. To talk to one another is part of being good citizens. It's what democracy means, not just voting but participating. Gaining insight will take time, and this is only the day after. Nevertheless, here goes.

First, Mrs May needs to say sorry. I don't mean to her own party, her MPs who lost their seats, those who supported them in their constituencies, her own cabinet colleagues and staff. She has done this (not as swiftly as they would have liked). But what she has not done or even hinted at doing is to apologise to the nation. She has put us through a bruising election that we did not need nor ask for. It has cost a lot of money, and more importantly, a vast amount of precious time that should have gone into dealing with the crises we face such as the terror attacks and Brexit.

It's hard not to feel used (or abused?) by a gamble which, even if it had paid off, would always have been a kind of large-scale displacement activity. We can conjecture about her reasons, though she was clear what they were when she announced it. Whatever she intended. it took our eyes off the balls that were, still are, flying through the air above our heads. But it hasn't paid off. The opposite in fact. That needs to faced up to and apologised for. By her. In person.

If only she had begun by apologising when she spoke to the nation yesterday outside No 10. It would have shown something of the humility we like to see in our leaders. Contrition in public life is a sign of wisdom. It shows we know the limits of our powers and recognise our capacity to get things wrong. Is it too late now? My experience tells me that it's never too late, though apologising always comes with more conviction when it's done as soon as possible. In her shoes, I'd try apologising rather than defending myself when I did the next round of media interviews. I'd say to myself that in this catastrophe, there wasn't much to be lost.

And it would be the right thing to do. "I beseech you, think it possible in the bowels of Christ that you may be mistaken." I've always cherished that advice from Oliver Comwell to parliamentarians. I don't trust leaders who are without any shred of self-doubt. So I was nervous yesterday when the PM spoke no fewer than three times about "certainty". It didn't sound well on a day when we looked for a little more humility and tentativeness in the light of events.

Secondly, the PM needs to be more candid with the nation. It is striking that since the election result, she has stuck rigidly to a message about having "more seats and more votes" than any other party. This is true but it's not the point. She told us when she launched the election that she looked for a bigger majority to strengthen her mandate in negotiating Britain's exit from the European Union. She has signally failed to achieve this. And that has damaged, not enhanced, our position in those negotiations that will shape our country's history for decades.

Nicola Sturgeon got it right when she said how disappointed she was at the loss of SNP seats, even if it was still the largest party in Scotland. She promised she would consider and reflect in the light of the election. Mrs May needs to do that too, and demonstrate more transparency. She must make it clear that she is not just reading from a script but is thinking hard about recent events. This includes the part she herself has played in calling this election and how she has performed during the campaign. There are tough lessons to be learned for her personally. Some are saying that her credibility has been shot to pieces by the gamble she has taken. Maybe. But I do know that she won't be credible if she doesn't show signs of having pondered deeply. Being a "reflective practitioner" is an inescapable aspect of good leadership. We need to know that she understands this.

Thirdly, Mrs May needs to find a different style of working. The rhetoric from the Downing Street lectern last night made it sound like it's business as usual. It's absolutely not! British politics has changed during this election. It's become clear that voters want to be treated like grown-ups. They want to take part in conversation, not be lectured to de haut en bas from a script that "may" not be departed from. The "Maybot" epithet is unkind (even if it's very funny). But like all good caricature, it contains more than a grain of truth. Mrs May's refusal to take part in broadcast debates with other leaders was a clue to this aspect of her character. It hasn't played well. Maybe she has been too quick to listen to the advisors who seem to have had enormous influence over her. Perhaps she needs to discover a new "self" in her leadership role, humanise her persona where she can.

If I were leading a minority government in the aftermath of this unforced error, I would want to reach out to the leaders I had failed to engage with during the campaign. I don't mean her natural allies like the DUP. I mean everyone who shared my belief in doing our best for our nation. I would want to sit down with opposition leaders and ask, How can we work together when our nation faces so many big, even life-threatening, challenges? Without sacrificing principle, are there ways in which we can give and take for the sake of the common good? I think the non-hawkish majority of the electorate likes it when people of different opinions start working together. It's how we find that very often, what unites us is far greater than what divides. I'm not naive about this. It's difficult and takes effort and much patience. Yet this is just such a time at least to try out a collaborative approach to the nation's challenges. Her emotional intelligence ought to be telling her that.

Fourthly, the Prime Minister needs to pay attention to the messages of the election result. There's a lot of "noise" around in these febrile times when we are trying to make sense of an unexpected and perhaps confusing vote. But here's what clear. Our nation is divided, perhaps more than ever it was before the EU referendum. The polarisation of opinion between left and right, young and old, cities and countryside, among the UK's nations and regions, has been much commented on. Another aspect of good leadership is that it is responsive to change. There is a multitude of issues debated during the campaign where the election result calls for a rethink in policy and presentation. I don't simply mean Brexit. I'm thinking of the future of the NHS, education, local authority funding, austerity, welfare and national security. Being responsive as a leader means taking the evidence seriously. If I were the PM I'd want to listen again to some of the best media campaign debates, re-read some of media commentary, try to map the landscape I was travelling in and try to discern the best way to traverse it.

Fifthly, Mrs May needs to look again at Brexit. Why specifically? Because this was her stated reason for calling the election in the first place. It's very odd how Brexit did not feature very much in a campaign whose focus this was meant to be. We were told she was looking for a result that would strengthen her position in Brussels when the negotiations began. Fair enough. Yet we did not learn anything we didn't already know about her negotiating stance. And now that we are on the brink of them, all the evidence suggests that despite everything, she is going into them with her well-known hard Brexit position unchanged.

I don't think this will do. The message from the election seems to be: we as a nation are not disputing the referendum result. But we do not want a hard Brexit. If we did, we would have voted massively to strengthen the PM's position as she asked us to. In particular, everyone who defected from UKIP would have tumbled into Mrs May's arms and not voted Labour in the numbers they did. So we badly need a far more open, nuanced, approach to Brexit. She needs to go into the negotiations willing to have an adult conversation with the EU, not just set out her stall and lay down the gauntlet. She needs to treat the EU27 nations as our best allies and close friends, not as adversaries. And first on her to-do list must be to offer unconditional permanent residence to citizens from other EU countries who are already living in the UK and who are desperately worried about their future.

Sixthly, she must not resign any time soon. This bit Mrs May seems to have got right. What we need now is indeed a version of the stability she has talked so often about. It won't be "strong and stable" but even in her fragility, there can be a measure of continuity. Another Tory leadership election would not help. Even less another general election, at least for a while. Yes, I doubt that Theresa May has a long-term future as a prime minister, maybe not more than a few months. But more elections, with all the uncertainty they produce, can only distract further from the Brexit negotiations and all the other crises our nation is facing. (In any case, I doubt that my ageing constitution can face many more long and anxious nights in front of the TV.)

To me, David Cameron piled error upon error by resigning on the day after the referendum when he had promised to carry on, whatever the result. I think that was an terrible mistake, an unforgivable failure of leadership. Yes, it's tempting to throw in the towel when things don't go according to plan. Which of us hasn't thought in that way when times are tough and so many seem to be against you? But the day after is not the time to make far-reaching decisions. All credit to the PM for putting nation above personal interest, at least in this respect.

Lastly, Mrs May should re-read what she said on the day she took office. When I was a dean, I looked from time to time at the sermon I preached at my inauguration service. Did I really say that, I would ask myself? It was important to be reminded of those first fine (I don't say careless) raptures. I suggest Mrs May does the same. She started out well. She spoke about helping those most in need of what a good administration can do. She wanted to support the "just about managing". Many of us felt included to an extent we hadn't foreseen. It was probably her best moment. We had high hopes.

How long ago it now seems! Mrs May has made so many mistakes in her incumbency that it's hard to imagine that her standing can ever recover. It probably can't: history will make up its mind about that. But maybe she can repair her reputation a little by going back to the values she laid out in her personal manifesto. If she cares about how we remember her, it may be as simple as refreshing her memory to help her re-set her approach to public office.

There's a lot more to say about the 2017 election and how it will reshape our politics. But that's for another time. Meanwhile, we say our prayers and keep the conversation going.

That Infamous Headline: a Question from Schooldays

Have we ever seen a more infamous headline in a British daily paper?

I mean the Daily Mail's front page on Friday 4 November. It was the day after the three High Court judges ruled that the government was bound by law to gain the consent of Parliament before invoking Article 50 and triggering Brexit. As we all know, it lined up mugshots of the three judges above the headline "Enemies of the People".

In a blog (here) the same day I spelled out what I thought was at stake in the High Court's ruling and the Prime Minister's rush to appeal it: respect for law, governance and parliamentary democracy. Many have defended the judges and many have dissented. Fair enough. Testing judgments is what legal process is for. But if you are going to dissent, it needs to be done intelligently. It's not enough to denounce, attack and stamp your foot. The Mail seems to me to be wilfully perverse in just not "getting" it. For this case in law has nothing to do with Brexit itself, whether Britain should or shouldn't leave the EU. It has everything to do with the legal process by which the referendum decision to leave is achieved. This, said the judges, was a matter for Parliament, not the Executive alone.

So the Mail's headline is based on the false premise that by interfering with the referendum Brexit vote, the judges were guilty of meddling in politics. But it's worse than that. To denounce them as "enemies of the people" is an offensive slur on their integrity and professionalism. They know the boundaries of the law's competence better than anyone. Straying beyond them in the High Court to play politics would be unthinkable. And if the judges have acted as enemies in upholding the role of Parliament in the Brexit process, that's tantamount to asserting that Parliament too is the enemy. If I were a parliamentarian, whatever my party or position on Brexit, I would be extremely angry.

This amounts to an implied attack on the independence of the judiciary. A free press is at liberty to disagree with judges just as it's free to dissent from politicians. But once it goes beyond that and starts saying, in effect, that the judgment should have found for the government because that was its business, the independence of judicial scrutiny is entirely subverted. The reality is that in the British Constitution, Prime Minister, her Executive and the Crown itself are all subject to the law of the land. It's the job of the judiciary to clarify what that law is. That's what the judges were doing as conscientiously as they knew how.

The Daily Mail has in the past won awards for its reporting and investigative journalism. So let's not disparage what the Mail has achieved just because we're at odds with it (not for the first time). But that doesn't excuse serious lapses of judgment. Cheap headlines like this are unworthy of a responsible paper. They don't clarify, they aren't truth-seeking, they don't foster serious debate and they don't help us to "disagree well" to use the Archbishop of Canterbury's phrase. All they do is to raise the temperature and fuel mistrust. They are more at home in regimes where the judiciary is in the pockets of dictators or powerful paylords, not in constitutional democracies like ours. "Enemies of the People" may achieve a dramatic effect (who will forget it?) but it's meretricious and unprincipled.

Now, the editor of the Daily Mail is Paul Dacre. I was at school with him in the 1960s: I think we were exact contemporaries. A writer rang me up a while ago to ask if I remembered him from schooldays. I replied that I hadn't known him well, but I did have a clear memory of one thing: his prowess on the rugby pitch. How I envied sporting ability like his! I was the clumsiest rugby player you ever saw and no better at cricket. Those who won their colours were like gods to me. I imagined there was nothing they could not and would not achieve in life. And becoming editor of a national newspaper is indeed a pretty big achievement.

You may have got the impression that he and I went to a typical public school where old-fashioned values were shaped by the classics, chapel services, corporal punishment, the playing field and the corps.  Well it wasn't like that at all. True, it was an independent (day) school where we did study classics and did play rugby. But our school had been founded by far-seeing and enlightened men in the early nineteenth century in pursuit of a vision for society shaped by utilitarian ideas and free of religious ideology. In the prep school I found myself in Bentham House. That says it all. For Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), virtue in a society meant "the greatest happiness for the greatest number". It has proved to be a profoundly influential idea throughout the English-speaking world thanks to the writings of John Stuart Mill.

Because of this, my parents decided to send me there. My father and mother were a mixed marriage of non-observants, Anglican and Jewish. They believed religion was a source of division and conflict in the world, and wanted their children educated in a liberal environment free of religious obligations and loyalties. (How ironic that it was at school that I found my Christian faith as a teenager, or rather, it found me. God moves in mysterious ways.) They wanted us to be good citizens of a world where religion, politics and ideas were debated in a tolerant way that was not afraid of diversity, and instead of invoking dogma, looked for understanding. They wouldn't have put it in quite that way. But it's what they were feeling for.

I realise how much I owe to that education. It's true that for a while, the conservative evangelical Christianity I'd embraced threatened to eclipse the liberal outlook I'd been formed in. I'm grateful that by the time I was ordained in the 1970s, I was able to see things in a larger context. I began to understand that if humanity is to survive, let alone flourish, we must all learn to live as adults in a world of religious, political and ideological differences. It's not that there's no place left for conviction or passion. It's how we express them and embody them that counts, and (just as important) how we listen to other people's passion and conviction. It's part of finding our place in the world where tolerance, understanding, generosity and trust are everything.

This was the school both Paul Dacre and I come from. So you'll see why Friday's headline poses a question for me. If our school influenced me in the ways I've described, I'm wondering how it influenced him too. For the editor of the Daily Mail presides over a paper that seems to me to have taken on Friday a rather different approach to the week's events from the one I'd thought he and I were schooled in. "Enemies of the People" is just not the way his education and mine taught us to do business. It tried to help us learn that we don't scream with rage or impugn one another's integrity; instead, we listen and try to understand; we argue it out, and if we differ it's without rancour. There's no place in the public discourse of a civilised society for shrillness. It brings no credit to a responsible newspaper that claims to be proud of our British values and ways of doing things.

So because I'm interested in human nature (it's my job to be), I'm intrigued by what motivates the thinking of this powerful and able man who for so long has sat at the helm of the Daily Mail. Perhaps my old school contemporary will tell us how his mind works nowadays, half a century after he and I parted company for the last time.

blog

Christians for Europe

Yesterday was the first official day of the EU referendum campaign. To mark the occasion, we launched our new website "Christians for Europe". Our aim is to put a Christian case for the United Kingdom to remain within the European Union. You can find us at https://christiansforeurope.org/.

Regular visitors to this blog will recognise a family likeness. Our new site is a descendant of the original campaign Twitter feed @Xians4EU and its Facebook sibling. They have both attracted a lot of interest and support. They have linked followers to news and comment, articles, resources and blogs about the referendum. They have offered their own "take" on developments and interacted with others contributing on social media. We have been noticed by the church media and invited to comment.

However, we have recognised that we need a more permanent presence in cyberspace. Hence this new website. It's a forum where we can post news, comment and opinion about the referendum, invite response and discussion, link to other sites that are relevant to our aims. What we hope is that Christians for Europe will be a place of lively, intelligent debate informed by the insights of faith. We are convinced that Christianity "speaks truth to power". We believe that it has vital wisdom to contribute to our discussions about what kind of nation we aspire to be, and what it means to be the United Kingdom in both a European and a global setting. Whatever we believe about the EU, we must all recognise that in our contemporary world, isolation from the human family is simply not conceivable.

In particular, we believe that Christian theology points us in the direction of integration, not fragmentation. We believe the gospel looks forward to "a single new humanity" in which the human race is reconciled and at peace with itself. All inter-governmental agencies that promote deeper, more wholesome international relations are to be welcomed. The EU is not a perfect expression of this aspiration but we do believe that it represents the best attempt yet to create a lasting neighbourliness in our continent. That can only be good for our world.

We are not utopian about this. The EU is no more an expression of the kingdom of God than any other human institution. It is flawed, and recent challenges from the weakness of the Euro to the refugee crisis have painfully exposed its shortcomings. Those who look for greater transparency in its processes have a point. 

Nevertheless, we are convinced that far from walking away from a project intended to put freedom, humanity and social justice at the heart of our nations' lives, we should embrace the opportunities the EU gives to make a real and lasting contribution not only to the European family of nations but to the world. It is purely self-interest to say "yes" to the benefits of membership. But it becomes enlightened self-interest as we also say "yes" to all that we have to give to the EU as committed leading European players. And as Christians, when we say "yes", we want to say it with confidence, conviction and hope.

You'll have noticed that we've rebranded ourselves. We are now "Christians for Europe", not just "4EU" though that remains the Twitter handle. It's a small but significant change. Of course we are "for" the EU in the sense that we want to urge everyone to vote "yes - let's remain". But that could make it sound as though the EU were an end in itself. Which of course it's not. It's being Europeans that matters most - thinking of ourselves as not simply British but belonging to something bigger, the continent to which we have been so closely connected through trade, politics, culture, scholarship and recreation for so many centuries.

And this is where we need to raise the game when it comes to the referendum. If only we could talk not just about the pluses and minuses of the institution we call the European Union, but about what it is all ultimately for, and why being Europeans ought to be something not to be reticent about but to celebrate. That's our hope at least.

Meanwhile, when you'll visit the site, you'll find an impressive line-up of people in public life who are endorsing Christians for Europe: bishops, politicians of all parties, Christian secular leaders from different traditions and walks of life, theologians and others. We are grateful to the LibDem Christian Forum for hosting and managing the site for us. This is part of its contribution to this all-party effort that is bringing people of faith together in support of the UK's continuing membership of the EU. We are excited and hopeful as we embark on this journey through the coming weeks of the referendum campaign. We hope you'll jump aboard!

Believing or Beleaving? On being an In-thusiast for the EU

A week is a long time in a political campaign. It was only last Saturday that David Cameron stepped off the plane (so to speak) waving his hard-won EU summit agreement in front of a waiting nation.

So with the starting fun now fired, how is the debate about the European Union taking shape? It's too early to tell, of course. But already it's becoming clear that battle lines are being drawn up along familiar fronts. Will Britain be better or worse off staying in the EU or leaving? Will the pound and the FTSE strengthen or weaken if we leave? Will Brexit encourage large and transnational organisations to decouple from the UK or not? Will our overseas trading relationships be helped or hindered? Will we be better or worse placed to face international crises? Will our country be more at risk from terror attacks in or out? Do the EU's governance shortcomings in its democratic transparency and accountability pose a fatal risk to the UK's sovereignty or not? And so on. Of the making of many arguments there is no end.

I am learning a lot by following news feeds and commentary about the referendum from all over the world and from many different perspectives. When it comes to the themes I've just listed, I am no expert. It all depends on whom you listen to, I suppose, or whom you listened to last, and of course whom you trust. I've said before that serious listening comes into things right now. It's important, when we don't know (or even when we think we do) that we pay attention and don't come to premature conclusions about arguments that have a long way to run. 

However, the rules of engagement have been set in utilitarian, pragmatic terms that largely focus on the matters I've mentioned. These are all important but on their own they limit the discourse of the debate. The functional tone was set by the PM when he went into the summit. 'I'm going in to demand, and to get, what's best for Britain' - or words to that effect. Was I the only one who felt depressed, even dismayed, by that kind of talk? It sounded self-serving to me, lacking inspiration, falling short of the big idea. David Cameron famously said that he is not in love with Brussels. But what if we began at a different starting-point altogether, one that took us back to why the European Union was created in the first place, and why it might still be worth belonging to?

I've argued in my blogs that a Judaeo-Christian perspective on politics, public life and social ethics begins with the great commandments of the Torah, especially the second: to love your neighbour as yourself. This, to me, is the fundamental reason for believing in the EU as a family of peoples who, without sacrificing their own national identity and integrity, covenant together for the sake of one another's wellbeing and flourishing, what Catholic social theology calls 'the common good'. So we need to celebrate the signal achievements of the EU in safeguarding the peace of Europe since the War, bringing a degree of prosperity to its peoples undreamed of before, and beginning to get collective purchase on global threats that no nation can tackle on its own, such as terrorism and climate change. Whatever its failures to live up to its high ideals (and they are many), the vision, the purpose and the achievements still matter. And not to be talking up a noble ideal seems to me to lack real belief in the European project, the conviction that it could still be a force for immense good in the world and that Britain should be taking a leading role at the very heart of it.

You may say: this is the passion of the Europhile preacher speaking to emotions and soul rather than the hard-headed realist addressing the mind. Well, I am a preacher by trade and believe in the power of good rhetoric to change both minds and hearts. Heart speaks to heart and my heart is unequivocally in this. And believe me, it's precisely this 'heart-work' that we need to do: for if we believe that the EU matters to an entire continent and indeed to the world, then it should certainly matter to us as one of its member states and to each of us as UK citizens. But a lot of what I've read and heard from our leaders seems to be along the lines of: the best that can be said for the EU is that because our membership is the status quo, and because we are persuaded that we'll be no worse off by leaving it, we may as well stay and make the best of it we can. Some of the campaigning seems to be striking that rather grudging note as if to say, we'd really rather not be bothered with all this but since we are where we are, let's try to sound convincing. 

When it comes to passion, Brexit Beleavers may well be more prepared to own up to it than we who are EU-Believers. After all, it's so un-British to talk up the EU - isn't it? (Though it's also true that the spirit in the pro-EU organisations out on the streets is becoming energised and excited by the campaign, and that's how it should be. If we aren't afraid of speaking to the heart, there's a chance that people in the UK could become as engaged in the referendum debate as the Scots were over the independence vote in 2014. Indeed the two issues are not so very different as I'll try to argue in a future blog.)

So I want to urge us as Christians for the EU to speak up as those who are proud to belong to a body with such an enlightened view of how human beings can grow together. Because as Ben Ryan has said in his recent Theos report A Soul For The Union, the challenge is far bigger than securing assent to some abstract organisational idea called the EU. We need to become Europeans, and persuade others across our continent and in the UK to think of themselves as having that sense of both identity and belonging. It's similar to the difference between assenting to Christianity and being Christians, or as we might say, 'believing that' as distinct from 'believing in'. If Latin cuts more ice than English, it's fiducia that we need, not just fides. 

That's my pitch: that it's belief in that we badly need to foster in this campaign. Not naïvely, not uncritically, not without asking the hard questions of governance structures and processes that everyone acknowledges need reforming and renewing. (If only the PM had focused on those things at the summit!) But let's reawaken the vision of the EU's founding fathers and mothers. Let's rekindle their first fine (though not careless) rapture. And yes, let's be passionate about what we believe - in politics as much as religious faith, and urge our leaders to be as excited as we are by our future in the EU with all the possibilities that lie open before us. 

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