Thank God for Brexit?

I was given an opportunity to speak in a pub last week on whether there is a distinctively Christian approach to politics. This is what I said:

The title of this talk is 'Thank God for Brexit - question mark'. I emphasise that because it is a question not a statement.

The identity of the speaker is 'author and broadcaster'. I hover around the fringes of BBC Radio Bristol where I have done 150 Thoughts for the Day and have written some books, articles and broadcast pieces. But my day job is as a Church of England vicar and I wouldn't want to misrepresent that. I am a member of what national radio prefers to call generally - the faith community.

I am a Christian. I believe in God although I understand that as a more complex statement than it sounds. I believe, as the Bible describes, that God is beyond our comprehension yet in the person of Jesus Christ is uniquely revealed. Said St Paul (I paraphrase) as he wrote to the Colossians, 'If you want to know what God is like look at Jesus.'

So my question for us all is this - is there a faith position, in my case a Christian faith position, on matters of national political purpose?

And at this point I need to tell you how I feel about national political purpose. I'm going to try and avoid telling you how I will vote at the next election. Conveniently that is because I don't currently know.

Political debate over the last few years has been like watching two people discuss a snooker ball. Politician A brandishes the ball and says 'It's red'. Politician B shakes a head and says 'No it's not - it's round'.

And the problem with that, if you need it spelling out, is not either of the statements but the words 'No it's not'.

We live in a constitutional democracy - although that got stretched to breaking point this year and may yet do so again - where oppositional politics is encouraged in every way. Someone says A so a person with view B is delivered to argue.

The BBC fights to stay neutral and since people on all sides think it doesn't it probably does but from time to time the oppositional style leads everyone to call foul. The science of climate change is pretty clear and so you don't need to balance it with a climate change denier. It is what to do about it that is the more complex discussion and has sides.

Plus, we don't have a neutral press. I'm not going there.

'The problem' said Matt Forde on 'The Political Party' podcast '...is that politics is often the war between two imperfect opposites.' I agree, but often presented as the war between two perfect opposites.

On 27/5/16 Richard Osman, perhaps one of our trainee national treasures, said, on Twitter, 'In most debates we have to listen to people who shout the loudest or are the most certain of their views. That doesn't represent most of us'.

So up until 2016 we had an electoral pie diagram that had blue wedges and red wedges of roughly similar sizes and almost always at least 35% plus smaller green, yellow and other coloured wedges. If we imagine it as an actual pie with slices, in 2016 we invited someone to have a slice of pie and they cut it, horizontally, through the middle.

And over the next three and half years our first past the post system, which we were reminded in a referendum gives us strong government and the people agreed, polarised to where we are now, that this election is about Brexit whether we like it or not. The Conservatives have allied themselves totally with leave, removing the whip from non-conformists. The Lib Dems have allied themselves totally with remain and the Labour party are trying desperately not to have their party re-aligned on Brexit lines.

On 16th June 2016 I wrote on my blog, 'Whatever the end result a referendum stops democracy in its tracks. We will have to move on with what looks as if it will be a 55/45 on a maximum 80% turn-out. And that, my friends, is a divided kingdom.'

A rare outbreak of insight, if I say so myself.

How does my Christian faith help me with how to vote. I have four things:

1. I am on the side of the poor. Anybody of faith who manages to read the Bible and not consider there is a call on their compassion, action and money towards the poor is, I believe, reading it wrong. But the dilemma this gives me is that:

a) I am on the side of the poor.

b) The poor, largely, voted for Brexit.

c) I believe Brexit will make the poor, poorer.

Before the referendum, journalist Rod Liddle said 'Somehow this referendum has caught the imagination of ordinary working communities who see it as a chance to register the complaint that something, not sure what, is changing about their world and they don't like it.'

Giles Fraser, prominent Christian thinker and minister and also Brexiter campaigned that our focus on making the EU more equal was a bias against the poor of the rest of the world. Although I don't think a huge amount of people who agree with him also want to see mass immigration from much poorer parts of the world. He also noted that for some communities the massive increase of residents from overseas, over a short period of time, upset them. Not necessarily because they were racists but somehow because they had lost their home.

My Christianity tells me to try to use my vote based on what to give not what to get.

2. I am on the side of the truth. Jesus Christ described himself as the way, the truth and the life. I find truth in short-supply lately in political campaigning.

Once 'We campaign in poetry; we govern in prose' (Mario Cuomo, Governor of New York, Democrat. 1985 placed on Leo McGary's lips in The West Wing by Aaron Sorkin) was seen as a helpful reminder.

Campaigning in half-truths is clever. Putting on the side of a bus that we send £350m a week to the EU made sure that how much we send was the subject of the conversation. It wasn't £350m. But it wasn't nothing either.

One of the problems with the remain campaign is that they didn't think of a parallel outrageous claim to put on the side of a bus. Maybe 'The EU has done more for peace in Europe than any other organisation since World War 2' would have changed the subject. I have no idea if it is true. It is almost untestable.

But to go from there to the cynical ploy utilised this week, after the leaders debate, of rebranding the Conservative Official Twitter feed as a fact-checking site felt, to me, like some line was crossed.

It was designed, I'm sure, to make the conversation about that and not about what the Conservative leader said. And it worked. I applaud the genius in the way I applaud the thieves in the Italian Job.

In 2018 a summary of the attitude to Donald Trump by philosopher Julian Baggini was this, 'People didn't vote for trump because he is telling the truth. They think all politicians are liars but he's 'our liar'' (Journalism in a Post-Truth World - Bath Festival).

But now, pick the bones out of this exchange, in one of Radio 4's current appallingly unnecessary bits of political vox pop from round the country. A hairdresser from South Wales was asked about her voting plan. She said:

'I'm going to vote for Boris Johnson. I know he's a liar but I don't always tell the truth so that makes him more human to me so I trust him.'

Where do I start with that? Actually, to be honest, I go back to my Bible and that statement on Jesus' lips. It is in John's Gospel. John used philosophical dialogue to make points. He put things on Jesus' lips that he didn't actually say in order to paraphrase what he did actually mean. It was normal to do that in those days. It's a tough conundrum this truth business but it was Jesus' followers who called him the truth. To find out if that is true you can read the other things he said in other Gospels where the intention was more reportage than philosophy.

But in this section, let me give the last word to Richard Dawkins, not the church's greatest fan. He said, responding to the suggestion that all politicians lie, 'Unlike all other politicians, Johnson and Trump become more popular with their fans the more they lie and the more appallingly they behave. That's what's new.' (Twitter 20/11/19)

3. I am on the side of both facts and feelings. A victim of a mugging, walking in through the door will find it hard to engage with the truth that crime figures are down.

In the USA in 2017 in the presidential election campaign an exchange happened that went something like:

Violent crime is up

Actually it isn't - it's down nationally

Not in Chicago it isn't

Actually it is - overall crime figures in Chicago are down but one or two types of violent crime went up

People don't feel the crime figures are down

Which led comedian/commentator John Oliver to say that 'He brought feelings to a facts fight.'

But feelings are important. Those who have voted to leave the EU have every right to demand that what we said we'd do, we'll do.

A decision to live as a person of faith is just as much about feelings - it feels right to me - as facts - it works for me.

Changing your mind involves vulnerability. Nations find it hard to change their minds.

4. I am on the side of inclusivity and equality. Galatians 3:28 says 'In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female - we are all one in Christ Jesus.'

Whereas Ian Burrell, in theippaer 13/11/17 said '...Brexit has left our nation horribly divided undermining the Union and fuelling nationalism while opening up fissures between young and old, rich and poor, north and south.' The opposite of Galatians 3:28.

In November 2017 Roger Scruton wrote in The Times:

'You can be a loyal subject of the British Crown and also English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh when it comes to other aspects of belonging. You can be a British Nigerian or a British Pakistani, and the future of our country depends upon the process of integration that will persuade new arrivals that this is not only possible but also necessary if they are to make a home here. You can be a British Muslim, Jew, Christian or atheist, since nationality, defined by land and sovereignty, does not extinguish religious attachment.'

My little churches have dealt with the fallout by not talking about it very much. Perhaps we should have and this might be a start.

For someone who values inclusivity I find that my social media friends and my family largely take the same view as me on Brexit. I chastise myself that I didn't know enough of the sort of people I professed to be wanting to serve and help.

Likewise one of my Facebook friends makes regular comments about Brexit meaning Brexit and last Christmas, responding to the suggestion that Brexit has ruined some families Christmas dinners, said 'No problem here - we're all no deal leavers.'

Do we know enough people not like us?

It is nearly Advent. A time for waiting, hoping and praying in the Christian year. For looking forward to the celebration of Jesus' birth (the date is another liberty with the truth by the way) and wanting his earthly influence to grow.

Recent research by World Vision told us that people outside the church think it is judgemental, anti-science and irrelevant. It's none of those things; but we need to do a better job of saying so.

Thank God for Brexit? I can't say. All I can do is continue a quest for truth, inclusivity, equality and hospitality and adjust my behaviour in the light of it.

I'll drink to that. Beer and chat my friends. Beer and chat.

39 Articles - A Summary

THIS Book of Articles before rehearsed, is again approved, and allowed to be holden and executed within the Realm, by the assent and consent of our Sovereign Lady ELIZABETH, by the grace of God, of England, France, and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, &c. Which Articles were deliberately read, and confirmed again by the subscription of the hands of the Archbishop and Bishops of the Upper-house, and by the subscription of the whole Clergy of the Nether-house in their Convocation, in the Year of our Lord 1571.

This paragraph is how the 39 Articles end. We discussed earlier how the job of the ordained in the corridors of the good and the great is to speak truth to power. Bishops in the House of Lords have that responsibility. Trouble is, dumbing down at the other end of the priestly spectrum does not mean we should see our job as speaking truth to stupid. But we might accidentally behave like that. Sorry.

In one of his essays Martyn Percy uses a wonderful quote from writer Bill Vanstone about the Church of England, 'Why, he asked, is it like a swimming pool? Answer: all the noise comes from the shallow end.'

This last few weeks has been an opportunity to have a go at some of the harder and deeper things, understand them, and try to make their meaning plain. You will be the judges as to whether I have succeeded.

These 39 Articles were set out at a time when the Parish Priest was often the most educated member of the community and had a leadership role because church and state were connected.

I take from this exercise not a desire to be shouting spiritual truths into the shallows as an over-confident deep-ender. No. I want more people to come to the deep end. There are things to explore and it's not dangerous. Try swimming. You can do it. Let's have deeper conversations.

Sincere thanks to my companions on this journey:

On the Thirty-Nine Articles (Conversations with Tudor Christianity)

Oliver O'Donovan

SCM 2011 (1st published 1986)

Thirty Nine New Articles

Martyn Percy

Canterbury Press 2013

Reformed and catholic; happy Easter to you all.

Oaths - Article 39/39

XXXIX. OF A CHRISTIAN MAN'S OATH

AS we confess that vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and James his Apostle, so we judge, that Christian Religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the Magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the Prophet's teaching, in justice, judgement, and truth.

Christians have had a difficult relationship with oaths down the ages. In trying to be people of the truth, people of no-lying lips, people who let their no be no and their yes be yes we find it hard to swear on the Bible as if that raises the standard somehow.

But an oath in court is a matter of record and judgement. So whilst not wanting lies to pass our lips on any occasion we are allowed, by this final Article, to agree to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a court of law and be legally bound by it in a way we are not in everyday life.

We may want to ask questions about the court process, which uses a method of examination and cross-examination which can hinder the arrival of the whole truth rather than help it along. But the Reformers were happy for the Christian individual (they said 'man') to take part in legal process and not be exempted.

But swearing in court is not contrary to Scripture for the Reformers.

God, Boris and the Truth

It is a while since that New York Mayor, Mario Cuomo, quoted by Leo McGarry in The West Wing, said 'We campaign in poetry; we govern in prose.' 1985 in fact. And I guess we were all fine with that as long as we understood that it meant that big picture vision statements were the stuff of rallies and nitty-gritty detail the stuff of day-to-day running of a city or country. We got that.

But I don't think that's how it's interpreted anymore. We accelerated very rapidly through 'We campaign in hyperbole...' and are delivered to where we are today, campaigning in lies. Whopping great porkies painted on buses, printed on leaflets and photo-shopped on social media.

I was at an interesting panel discussion on fake news recently when the American grass-roots Republican position was summarised as 'Trump's a liar; but he's our liar'.

Hold that idea; here's another one. It's to do with our brains. I am not a neurologist.

When someone puts you in danger or stress the amygdala sends a signal to the hypothalamus that leads to a flight or fight response. We can have a false response when stressed at work because constant low-level irritation of the system overworks it and leads to other health problems. Find the medical stuff explained here.

It has recently been discovered that the same signals are triggered when someone opposes your long-held views. It takes experience and training not to shout at, or even punch, someone if they suggest you have voted wrong all your life or been a racist without realising.

This places us in difficulty. If you can't counter a lie with the truth without starting a fight, and can't disabuse someone of a falsehood  because they assume everyone is dealing in falsehood, where do you turn?

Well let's turn to Boris Johnson for a while since I put him in the title. As I write he has not apologised for his reported observation that a burka-wearing woman reminded him of a bank robber, or a letter box. If you are in doubt about the precise difference between a hijab and a burka then BBC Newsround have a useful guide. But the cat's out of the bag. Any apology will be for political effect. I doubt he will mean it or have seen the error of his ways. It was the sort of joke/comment that I would have heard at my parents' dinner parties in the 1960s and 1970s. I imagine BoJo's parents had more dinner parties than my family so a wider selection of racist friends were available. Those of us who enjoyed a liberal education learnt soon after that such 'jokes' were inappropriate and in the 1980s political correctness, for all its negative press, was a  desire to make sure a minority group had not been overlooked or accidentally oppressed. As the late Miles Kington wisely pointed out once, the over-reaction was when people treated the disadvantaged as if the disadvantage itself conferred dignity. It is perfectly possible to be a wheelchair user and an arseshole. And US wheelchair users can be assholes.

We turn to free speech. This is one of the great values of liberal democracy. People are allowed to say stupid things. People are allowed to be rude. They can make bad jokes. If they write lies then the civil courts offer the chance of an action for libel (although few of us could afford that route). We try to put as few limits as possible on the right of free speech. But in the UK we decided that incitement to racial or religious hatred should be a crime and this was enshrined in law in 2006. And, of course, employers will want to police the language of their employees. If your position at work makes you 'known' then you forfeit some of the rights to private views if they contradict those of your employer.

The question we may never know the answer to, this side of eternity, is whether Boris is a devious and manipulative tester of the rights of free speech - or an arsehole. Does he actually realise that some horrid people will take his words and see them as authoritative on a nastier scale? Does Boris' position require of him a higher standard than that required of others? Does his stepping back from one of the great offices of state have a bearing on this?

His recent Telegraph article, which I have read in full, has had a bit ripped out of context. He was chastising the usually-liberal Danes for banning the niqab and burka. He did include a small observation that he thought such face covering looked daft and, yes, he did say it reminded him of a post box. The bank robber comment was slightly more ambiguous:

'If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly. If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto: those in authority should be allowed to converse openly with those that they are being asked to instruct.'

You may recall the expression, 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' (S.G.Tallentyre 1906)

Boris disapproves of the burka but supports the right of people to wear it. We ought to support the right of Boris to say what he thinks even though we disapprove, unless, unless, unless...

Unless it is incitement. Unless it is part of a state of the art divide and rule policy. Boris has form when it comes to allying himself with the 51%. And unless it is not the position of the governing party to which he belongs - then he should rightly be disciplined.

I also brought God into the title. This is awkward for readers who now have to disagree with everything I've said so far because I belong to the faith community and they don't. That said, the Bible has very much higher standards for the use of language than incitement legislation or the libel laws.

Ephesians 4:29 'Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.'

James 1:19 'My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.'

The presence of these two correctives to the behaviour of mainly Christian hearers or readers tells us that the early church was far from perfect. People were becoming followers of Jesus before realising that it had some implications for their behaviour.

Which may be why John, writing his Gospel later than many of the New Testament letters, put the words 'I am the truth' on Jesus' lips. It is easier to have a person to follow and trust than a manual to try and understand.

Turning to Christ is more of an answer than turning to legislation. If you do, you will want to try to be people of the truth, seeking forgiveness in genuine humility when you fail.

This has been a long-winded way of saying 'play nicely'. And I'm still not much further forward in understanding how to debate with people who have a trigger-happy amygdala. But I'm going to hang in there, slow to anger, and look for the good, even in Boris.

Journalism in a Post-Truth Society

As part of the Bath Festival I went to an interesting discussion on Tuesday, titled as above. It roamed a little freer than I would have liked so I think I will capture the atmosphere better with some quotations, scrawled as hastily as I could.

Julian Baggini is an author and popular philosopher (by which I mean he writes philosophy for an untrained reader). Good places to start include The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, Welcome to Everytown or Do They Think You're Stupid? He said:

‘People didn’t vote for Trump because he was telling the truth. They think all politicians are liars but he’s ‘our liar’.’

‘People don’t think Boris Johnson is great but he has managed to appear genuine - as have Farage and Corbyn (who has held the same views for 40 years).’

‘Philanthropy may come to the aid of local journalism. It may be the only hope.’

Heather Brooke is a Professor of Journalism at London City University. She said:

‘People have not had the journalistic training to assess the truths on the internet. But you could do a one day course in how to spot bullshit.’

‘We are seeing the consequence of the lack of local journalism - it may have caught Grenfell early.’

‘Local journalism holds power to account at a quite detailed and forensic level.’

James Ball, journalist and author, was the chair and also the most engaging speaker. He had to shut himself up a lot ('I'm meant to be the chair') but I wished he had said more:

‘In focus groups people say they want more foreign news and less celebrity. But if you do that, sales plummet.’

‘Newspapers need to make an assumption now that their intelligent, millennial readers are renting their accommodation.’

‘People go to fact-check sites to check stories they don’t want to believe.’

Stephen Bush, who  writes for the New Statesman - a centre-left publication - and occasional columns in broadsheets, was also there. I had looked forward to hearing him but he seemed a little disinterested on the day and  was following something on his phone to begin with.

The whole discussion was full of general agreement that we are where we are and we will have to see how things pan out. It felt pessimistic. The public debate is populated by people who have no rules of enagagement. Naturally they were all protective of journalists although it is clear they meant 'jouirnalists like us'. Apart from the insights about the local press I wasn't taken a huge way on in my thinking but it was an interesting snapshot.

Thought for the Day

One of those days where, due to traffic, I dashed into the studio and delivered and then dashed out again. Time on the road 85 minutes. Time at BBC Radio Bristol - 8 minutes.

'Amen, Amen.'

Or to translate. 'Truly, truly.'

Jesus was fond of the phrase 'Truly, truly, I say to you.' In the Bible he uses it to respond to old teaching.

'You have heard it said... but I say to you...'

There have been a lot of falsehoods peddled in campaigning recently.

Brexit campaigners offered £350m to the NHS.

President Trump denies climate change is a thing.

Both lies. Soundly disproved.

Elections for the role of Metro-Mayor take place on Thursday - with the candidates promising new bus schemes, travel plans, car shares and more.

What is the status of a promise? Only one candidate ever gets to deliver on their promises. Those not elected can shelve their promises for another few years.

Meanwhile the one elected, cynical me says, has to work out how to ease back on any of the more grandiose pledges made whilst electioneering.

Christians don't, of course, have a monopoly on the truth but we can point to one who claimed to be the truth. And the central attribute of understanding yourself as a Christian is not to get your identity from any earthly structure or promise but from Jesus.

For humans can be unreliable. Can lie. Can let us down. And if we get our identity from people we follow or support we will suffer a crisis when they disappoint.

An identity based outside this world's structures, treasure in heaven and citizenship based there, strangely keeps our feet on the ground. For when I am empty and nothing; then God can use me here. For I rely not on my own strength but on the one who strengthens me. And that's the truth.

On Trusting Statisticians and so on...

There was an excellent Long Read in the Guardian last Saturday about the death of statistics. In a detailed piece William Davies discussed the current environment of appealing to emotions rather than facts. Now I am sitting in the middle of the current maelstrom in which members of the liberal chattering classes whirl. I really don't know how it has come to this. But I have watched the developed western world  (if I may call it such) get here and would like to have a go at discussing why.

I am a stats nerd. I never miss More or Less on BBC Radio 4 and take longer than most people digesting (and sometimes checking) graphs and tables in papers. Current bugbear - the axis that doesn't go to zero making variations seem worse than they are. I know this is not normal. I also tend to avoid thinking with my emotions having been encouraged by endless management training courses to 'take the emotion out of it' when facing conflict. Or to put it more bluntly, a football coach once said 'Never think with your bollocks son they're not meant for that.' So I tend to look for the reassuring solidity of facts.

But in politics especially over the last thirty years facts have been used messily. Summarising political debate a few years back a friend of mine paraphrased a BBC Radio 4 interview. Imagining they were discussing a snooker ball, he said one person asserted:

This ball is completely red.

Only to get the response:

No it's not, it's completely round.

A more subtle and duller version would be (and these facts are all made up):

The cost of travelling has increased 12% year on year since the year 2000.

Responded to with:

This government has put £10bn extra into public transport, making a 15% increase in investment in real terms over the corresponding period.

You will recognise the sort of discussion. At least in the second version the divisive 'No it's not...' is missing although it is pretty much assumed.

It is not a contrary position. We may not like it but this is exactly what an 'alternative fact' is. It is quite possible for both sides to be right with stats.

During the recent US Presidential campaign the statistical fact came up that a massive reduction in violent crime against the person, nationwide, was being reported during the Obama administration. Challenged on this a panellist on a news show said:

Not in Chicago it isn't. Followed by, People don't feel it is like this.

John Oliver accused the guy of bringing feelings to a facts fight. Yes. He did. And I think he won.

And what do we need to say of Michael Gove's Brexit campaign rallying call that people had had enough of experts. They were, and still are, tired of the sham expertise that rubbishes the other side's stats as a matter of course. For the message received by the public is that all stats are wrong, not just those ones. It was not because of the experts that experts became mistrusted, but because the information provided by the experts was used so badly. And it was ironic that it was Gove, one who had been doing that, who called it so.

This has been an opinion piece. But it is my opinion that facts matter. If they don't then we can plaster whatever we damn well like on the side of the campaign bus. It doesn't mean we have to do it.

And finally, as a coda, those of us who believe in facts need to quadruple check the 'facts' we share, especially on social media. Trump didn't photoshop his hands and it makes us look bad to suggest so. Neither did he hold hands with our Prime Minister in a giant love-in; he helped her down some dodgy stairs. We'll do photos another day, but those things freeze movement and can make it seem permanent. Some photo editor somewhere has 99 pictures of Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich properly.

Pants on Fire

I am a liar. I have always been a liar.

That's better. Get it all out there.

Right. To business. You know those personality profile tests you can do? I always come out as highly intuitive. In Myers Briggs terms, if it is N or S I get 30-50 N every time.

My interest in statistics is because it is good for me; they are counter-intuitive and I have to stop and think (favouring T over F it is not all sacrifice). Daniel Kahneman's 'Thinking Fast and Slow' has been a helpful companion to me, reminding me to check my preconceived ideas regularly, challenge assumptions I have made and yet not lose the essential quick-wittedness that helps me get on and get stuff done.

But if you ask me a question - say cheese or ham in your sandwich - I will not think about it. There will be a day for ham and a day for cheese and a day for both and I'll just know. I may decide at the last possible minute, which scares some people. A colleague once asked me in a queue in a sandwich shop what I was going to have and was bothered that with my turn coming next, and before his, I still didn't know. I was almost tempted to ask the assistant to 'Make me a sandwich' on the basis that it was a sandwich shop and I like almost all sandwiches. I order food without over-contemplating and act as if the decision is correct from then on.

If you ask me which way a room should be set up for a meeting I will know and I will tell you. If you ask my why I chose that I will have to look at my decision and work out what reason there is and discover that, intuitively I went through a process of eliminating all the ways it would be wrong for the chairs to face and coming up with an answer. Sometimes all the ways the chairs could face will be wrong in some way so my answer, intuitively grabbed from the sub-conscious shelf, will turn out to be the direction that has the least wrong about it. I have set out rooms a lot. Only occasionally do I re-check the working.

Showing my working involves analysing how I got there.

As a child I used to tell the truth. This got me into trouble:

Parent: Why did you do ... (Insert wrong thing here)?
Me: I don't know.
Parent (or sometimes a teacher): You must know. Everyone knows why they do things.

And so I discovered that life is easier for others if you have a narrative structure. So I invent stories that explain why decisions are right, after I have made them. Since occasionally my decisions are wrong my stories may well be lies.

Never was this more challenging than in the obviously right decision to encourage one of my church's PCCs to spend over half a million pounds on the old rectory next door during a clergy vacancy rather than see it fall into private ownership.

Almost everyone wanted to know the thinking. What was the vision? Why should we do it?

It would never have happened if I, or any of the other intuitives on the team who also got it, had insisted it was because we knew it was right. So visions were cast, stories were told, possibilities were discussed but at the end of the day it was a no-brainer. Even if it turned out we had no use for the building whatsoever we could always sell it, probably for more than we paid for it.

Asking an intuitive to show working is asking them to tell you something that doesn't exist. It is asking them to lie. And we are very good at it. We tell stories to fill the gap between our grasp of reality and yours.

Our stories are excellent because we have much experience. 'Was that true?' No, but the narrative demanded it at that point.

It follows that some of the stories I have told over my life, to show working or explain things, were not true, but with repetition I almost believe them myself.

By the way I don't mind my decisions being challenged. As long as you can explain to me what is wrong with mine and better about yours. And if you're intuitive too? Well we probably won't disagree but if we do we will really enjoy the exploration of the truth, probably over beer.

How do you feel about that? Before you answer take a moment to ponder how much you hated, and continue to hate, the parental/ authority answer to the question 'Why?'

Because I say so.

You always wanted a reason, and always will.

Seeking After Truth

There is a certain way that churches do evangelism. Probably applies to conservative and evangelical churches more than liberal ones. Liberal ones tend not to do evangelism.

The methodology uses the metaphor of a meal and feeding a baby.

The parent has the food. As much food is put into the baby as possible who then needs to burp before any more can be taken.

The teacher has the truth. As much truth is put into the enquirer as possible who then needs to burp before more can be taken.

Alpha uses this model. The talks are the food and the discussion groups are the burp. It still works for some people, especially those who have a respect for the knowledge and ability of the teacher. The discussion groups allow people to respond to the talk and the next talk builds on this.

It was perhaps nearly twenty years ago that I met my first brother in Christ who would describe himself as an 'emergent' Christian. The person in question, who I encountered at a very funky little group at the Custard Factory in Brum where Christians involved in the arts could support each other, called himself a 'Seeker After Truth'.

I loved that. I loved the language, the spirit of enquiry, the lack of certainty (therefore the presence of mystery), the general cultural alertness of the members of the group.

In doing their work (and all were highly effective communicators of the gospel) they emphasised some things that operated counter to conservative Christian culture. I will call the communicator 'teacher' in these examples but I mean it more in the sense of philosopher, or journey-leader. Here are some emphases:

1. Seeking. Both teacher and disciple are seeking. Both might be changed by the process. The person who is interested or enquiring is valued as someone who has something to bring to the party. The whole one-beggar-sharing-bread-with-another thing.

2. Vulnerability A. The teacher owns up to uncertainty or times when Christians have disagreed. If there are two views both are expounded and decisions are not forced.

3. Vulnerability B. Rather than packing a meeting with seven Christians for every enquirer (again, often my Alpha experience) the teacher will go alone into a room full of seekers, facing the questions, the difficulties, alone.

4. Biblical literacy means talking about the historicity questions academic theologians have discussed for years but have largely been kept from congregations. It is about being honest with the truth.

5. Story. Stories have a power. Jesus used fiction to communicate. He very rarely told people what the story meant and even when he did his explanation often contained more mystery than certainty.

I ran Alpha for some years. Still would given half a chance. But I was quietly subverting it by setting out options and not insisting on one line. My Alpha course embraced universalism, hell as a metaphor not a reality, the possibility there was not a real Satan, the possibility of God no longer healing physically, the fact that some committed Christians were gay ... not saying these things were all acceptable but allowing people to come on board with such views and be included.

In reality Alpha don't like you mucking about with their course and still calling it Alpha. In my last church I just about held together some of the most liberal thinkers I have ever seen in a traditionally evangelical place of worship, including a number of lesbian and gay Christians. Almost all left shortly after I did. Which saddens me.

I'd like there to be a possibility of this not happening where I am now.

Quote Book Index 601-610

From John White's 'Changing on the Inside' but quoting John F. Kennedy:

605. The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

Revisited Quotes 8

We are so used to a leaven of falsehood in all we hear and say, nowadays, that nothing is more likely to deceive us than the absolute truth.

Miss Dunstable, Framley Parsonage, John Trollope 1861

Truth and Da Vinci

I don't like Dan Brown's writing style. Said so here. But his plots are fun. Over three Sunday evenings in May at St Paul's we are making The Da Vinci Code the subject of our evening services. We are going to look at:

• Bible reliabilty
• Jesus' divinity
• Mary Magdalene

I spent a happy afternoon yesterday watching the promotional trailers and teasers on the Sonypictures site for the movie, which comes out on May 19th (Cannes May 17th if you can get) and reading up on the matter.

Annoyingly I had to buy another copy of the novel because I had left my previous copy in a holiday apartment somewhere in the world.

More on the issues raised by the film over the weeks, but for now, this. My friend Mark Stibbe, now Rev'd Dr and very gifted scholar, academic and popular communicator has produced a DVD of his lecture on the book, which he was giving regularly in late 2004 early 2005, to much acclaim.

In this he examines some of the premises Dan Brown makes. Again, more on this in the sermon series. The thing I noticed, and don't think I have seen put quite so bluntly before is this. Mark says there are three attitudes to truth we can identify, since the Gospels were written.

Pre-modernist attitude - truth is absolute
Modernist attitude - truth is relative
Post-modernist attitude - truth is created

In other words attitude to truth changes, although perhaps it changes so slowly that it is hard to notice from the perspective of but one lifetime.

This rings true. Pre-modernists made you refute or burn if you denied the perceived 'absolute' truth, especially in areas of theology or natural philosophy (which was what science was called before the nineteenth century).

The modernist attitude, much discussed, was that truth was all relative. This has been largely discredited. You can't say 'I am absolutely convinced all truth is relative.' It's a non sequitur. You cannot, as Nick Pollard has put it, stand in the middle of the road and say, 'I refuse to take this oncoming bus into my sphere of truth and ultimate reality.' Well you can, but not for long.

So what of this post-modernist attitude - we create truth? Certainly our Prime Minister does it. With him, I have heard it said, the future is always certain; it is only the past that changes. I don't think he is capable of living with the concept of a lie. The closest we get is that everyone thought it was the truth at the time so it was, effectively, true for us.

So our cultural make-up is to construct truth. We make a version of the world we can know and live with. And that means we love the idea that something which people have thought to be true for ages is a conspiracy. We love the idea that we have uncovered the truth. The truth is out there. This is my truth; tell me yours.

It means that a movie maker feels able to say 'based on a true story' in almost all circumstances. Stibbe tells us that when the Coen Brothers made that claim for Fargo it started a treasure rush for the alleged buried cash. This led to at least one fatality. There was no cash. It wasn't that sort of truth. Somehow all fiction is based on truth or we wouldn't recognise the scenarios.

Stand-up comedians have, for years, told us stories that were 'true'. Not because they were but because they were exaggerated truth, they 'could have happened' or simply to get attention.

Dan Brown says his story is fiction but the facts are true. 'All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in ths novel are accurate.'

Let's see if we can construct some common threads of truth out of all this then. Should be fun.

And as he reached the end of the post he suddenly realised the truth. And it terrified him more than anything had ever terrified him his whole life.

Saying what you think

I have written in the past that our staff team at St Paul's has dwindled rapidly and indeed we are still without our Careforce Volunteer (stuck in Kenya, visa refused) and our Administrator (no applicants; any takers?). But we do now have a Vicar, Curate, Church Co-ordinator, Music Director, Associate Minister and Youth Minister so we have definitely undwindled.

We were discussing a sermon from the previous evening on Revelation 1 by the Bishop of Coventry. He had suggested (as I have heard many times before) that Christianity comes to the crunch when it is tested by persecution. He illustrated the background to the passage as John, in hiding on Patmos, saw his dramatic vision at a time of great persecution. Christians had had to make their home outside Judaism for the first time. A Roman Emperor had picked a fight with them. Jerusalem fallen. Temple wrecked.

Bishop Colin used as an example a situation in Iraq where Christians, on their way to church, were handed slips of paper saying 'Choose: Islam or death.' That, he suggested, was where your faith got tested. Only recently a Christian friend of his had suffered the bereavement of two cousins, both beheaded for being Christians.

Here's where saying what you think can get you into trouble because nobody wants to belittle a Christian martyr (although we are quite happy to belittle a martyr of any other faith, especially a suicide bomber). I asked:

If someone says to you, 'Choose Islam or death,' why do you have to accept their terms? I don't see how I can be required to make that choice. If I reply in that way, of course, then they kill me anyway so suppose I say, 'I choose Islam' but don't mean it?

Well it is my integrity that is in doubt then, said someone. Is it? And if it is why is my integrity more important than my life? Why do we value truth so highly? In various parts of Africa the hierarchy of values puts family higher than truth.

If someone tells me they will kill me for what I believe then I suggest a lie to save our lives is fine.

The second response to this was that Christians should not be afraid of death and should cling to the assurance of eternal life. We didn't go on to discus this and in all fairness I cannot answer the question whether my suggestion is due to a lack of confidence in eternal life or a certainty about the importance of this life. Maybe both. I am certainly convinced that we value this life too lightly and take insufficient care of it.

Nobody would be found guilty these days on the basis of a confession forced from them under duress. Why can't I insist that the battle between religious ideologies sticks to words - words of peace and love alone? If someone wants to make it a battle of persecution then rather than accepting willing martyrdom I might lie. The church is built on the rock of a three-times denyer. Jesus didn't tell him to leave; he reinstated him. Peter didn't stop loving Jesus when he said 'I never knew him'. He just saved his skin. Jesus knew that. Betrayal in words alone. Cool idea.

The fatal flaw in this argument is that having blogged this how could anyone possibly believe me now if I chose Islam. They'd kill me anyway. Back to the drawing board.