After keeping it quiet for so long it’s difficult to say anything – I still feel as if I’m breaking some sort of confidence, even when a press release has announced my appointment. I’ve spent a lot of the last few months trying not to think too much about what lay ahead; it was difficult enough to keep on with normal life as it was. Living two different futures, one of which you have to talk about, and publicly plan for, even though you know it isn’t going to happen, is a very uncomfortable experience. The real future sometimes seemed like a strange fantasy; until this week the only piece of paper I had with my name and ‘Bishop of Croydon’ on it was my CRB disclosure.

The moment Bishop Christopher rang to tell me I was the chosen candidate for Croydon ranks with those very few other memorable times which change your life, which open the door to something new, exciting, and of course scary. I remember getting the news that I had been recommended for ordination training – ringing home from Slough railway station, as it happens. I remember making my marriage vows, and addressing my first words to my newborn daughter. That phone call was another of those moments: everything’s different from here.

Mostly, I’m glad to say – and I hope the people of the Croydon Area will be glad to hear – it’s given me a great sense of joy and anticipation. I’ve done a fair bit of trawling the web, but however wonderful the virtual world might be it can’t beat real life. When I finally get to start work, sometime in May, I know there’ll be plenty to do and a huge amount to learn. I can’t wait.

But in the meantime, it’s only six weeks until I say goodbye to Stoke Newington. After coming up nine years in the parish, and six years before just round the corner in Highbury, it’ll be a real wrench. This has been such a good place to live, and a great community to serve. But there’ll be time for farewells later …

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about living and working in Stoke Newington has been the diversity of the community – different ethnic groups, social classes, religious traditions. Although I’ll miss where I am now, I’m really glad to be coming to an Area which is just as diverse, encompassing everything from inner urban areas to the Surrey countryside via Croydon Town Centre and the surrounding suburbs. It’s that diversity which I see as one of the greatest strengths of the Church, reflecting the richness of God’s love for all people.

I’m also looking forward to working with churches, chaplaincies and communities of faith which reflect the diversity of God’s grace – churches large and small, evangelical, catholic and firmly middle of the road. I’ve always been struck by the many different ways there are to live out the good news – expressing faith, bearing hope and embodying love, as Bishop Christopher expressed it in his Call to Mission. I will do all I can to serve and lead in the Croydon Area so that in our diversity we enjoy our unity in Christ.

It’s used too much, but it felt inescapably appropriate: ‘For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.’ (Dag Hammarskjold)

And in the meantime, what about the rest of 2012? Well, yes, I am looking forward to the Olympics. But there’s a lot else that doesn’t look too good on the horizon. Just looking at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Christmas message reminded me of the nihilism and rage of the rioting last summer. As the Archbishop said, the answer to that sort of breakdown in society is to rebuild relationships. He emphasises relationships across the generations, but it could equally be across any of the barriers we build up so easily against the people we think are different.

So, guess how the Daily Mail reported the story? “Archbishop defends rioters”. Ah well.

On the other hand … The other good thing about Christmas Day being on a Sunday is that it gives us a chance to celebrate the Naming of Jesus (I didn’t emphasise the Circumcision, I must admit). I started to think about the fact that all Christians share in the name of Jesus – we are all baptised into it. Bearing that name means we can’t be any less welcoming than Jesus was. Ouch – but that’s exactly what Christians have to do, especially when times are tough and the instinct is to pull up the drawbridge. That’ll do for a New Year’s resolution.

And even then it appeared that the confusion was shared, even by the parties to the negotiation. The Financial Times‘ reporters put it like this:

“Nobody understood what Cameron wanted – nobody,” said one diplomat from a central European country that might be considered a natural ally of the UK. “We were talking about big things, saving the euro, and he was asking for peanuts. It was not the time or place.”

Who’d be Chancellor of the Exchequer right now? I may be in a minority, but I do find myself empathising with the several dilemmas George Osborne faces. As the government tries to steer a course through the competing priorities of the two parties, the various electoral promises and the future vote calculations, it can’t be fun trying to work out where to dole out the pain.

Six lean years face us in the UK (at least). Well, that’s one less than the famine in Egypt which Joseph predicted, though I wouldn’t bet against it getting extended. The problem is that we didn’t have a Joseph turning up at the beginning of the fat years now passed, telling us what was going to happen. Or at least, not one that anyone listened to. So we didn’t store up our surplus; instead, we enjoyed it. And more too.

It’s easy (or at least easier) to act ethically when things are going well. It’s times like we’re living through now that really test. When there isn’t much to go round, real core values are exposed by the retreating tide. Money and mouth are in the same place, because there’s no alternative.

So – don’t be a low paid public sector worker, seems to be the clearest message. Two year’ pay freeze already, increases of 1% for the next two years, way below inflation, plus the changes to pensions, plus multiple reductions to tax credits for low paid workers and for children. Oh, and national pay bargaining goes over the next year or two as well.

In a democratic society, there are two clear tests which a government must pass if it is to demonstrate that it is acting justly. The temptation of any system of power is to play the system to increase your power, rather than to use your power for the benefit of the members of the system. In a democracy, you do that by pandering to prejudice, and rewarding your supporters. So the tests are these:

• Are our policies equally just towards those people no-one cares about much?

• Are our policies equally just towards those people who still won’t vote for us?

No-one’s expecting much joy from the Chancellor at the moment, but we can still demand justice. I’m sure the coalition would argue that that’s what we’re getting. But if 100,000 more children are going to fall into poverty over the next few years because of the cuts, I’d like to see more evidence of where there’s a vision of social justice lying behind them.

So – we rejected all the options. The proposed legislation was defeated by two votes in the house of clergy, though a majority of synod members overall were in favour. We then discussed two motions suggesting other options – and defeated those too. So the resounding message from the diocese of London? Collectively, we don’t know how to get ourselves out of the dilemma we’re in.

I suppose if we do have a message for the rest of the Church, it’s a cry for help.

The memorial for 9/11 - two huge water features in the footprint of the fallen towers

Iraq has come and mostly gone; Afghanistan continues; security concerns are still ever present and slow down our lives in ways to which we have become accustomed. We know that there will be another attack, some day, we just don’t think about it.

In one way it’s not new; those of us living in Britain in the 1970s were equally aware that an IRA bomb might happen, and occasionally they did. I looked up the history – one source claims that ‘During the IRA’s twenty-five year campaign in England, 115 deaths and 2,134 injuries were reported, from a total of almost 500 attacks’. That’s a whole lot more attacks, and twice as many deaths, as the 7/7 bombings – and doesn’t include the far larger numbers in Northern Ireland itself. I was surprised: I had really forgotten how many attacks there had been, how many people had been killed, how many had had their lives blighted through injury or bereavement. And now … the same people who planned and in some cases executed those murders are now steering the Northern Ireland peace process.

How we think about that fact may help us to work out how we might think about where we stand now in relation to the 9/11 anniversary, and the consequent wars and violence that have followed after it. Arguably the violence in Northern Ireland came to an end because of two very different facts. One was that the violence wasn’t working, in the sense that the political aims of the IRA were not coming any nearer through it. The other was that other doors were opened, through the negotiations which took place while the terrorism was continuing, which made it possible for the IRA to see a peaceful option as a realistic possibility while still seeking its aim of a united Ireland. Would those doors have opened if the violence of the IRA had never happened? Personally, I suspect they would, but we can never know: and I guess many Irish Republicans would say the opposite. But I am sure that the IRA would never have cease their violence if there had not been contacts before the violence ended. The rhetoric of ‘no negotiations with terrorists’ may play well with the public, but it doesn’t bring peace.  It is well known that ‘The British government maintained a secret back channel to the Irish Republican Army even after the IRA had launched a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street that nearly eliminated the entire British cabinet in 1991.’[1]

As we look back on ten years of ‘war against terror’, the same message seems clear.  In some cases, violence is necessary to control violence; but violence will never defeat violence. However complete a victory may seem to be attained, it will leave smouldering the embers of anger among the defeated. We have seen in Libya how long it took for those embers to catch fire again, but also how powerfully that fire has burnt. NATO may have evened up the battlefield, but it was the rebels in Libya who have fought and died to rid themselves of what seemed an all-powerful regime.

What theological resources can we find to help us with all of this? It seems to fly in the face of basic justice that we should advocate talking peace to those who are still perpetrating violence. Is it not encouraging the violent, to begin to offer anything before the violence ends? Where is the justice in that?

But then, where is the justice in the incarnation? Anyone who has any doctrine at all of human sinfulness has to recognise the parallels. God came defenceless among humanity, and not just to negotiate; as Paul says ‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’. Clearly God’s saving action in regards to humanity didn’t conform to our notions of justice at all. But is that a resource for politics? Is there any way we can transpose God’s salvation onto our relations with those who offer violence to us?

We certainly shouldn’t be simplistic about it. Just because God did one thing in relation to us, it doesn’t necessarily follow that God commands us to do the same thing. We’re not God, after all; the UK Government wasn’t offering salvation and forgiveness to the IRA, just another political path.

But we do have some pretty direct teaching from Jesus on how to deal with our enemies, from the Sermon on the Mount: ‘You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven’ – which leads all too quickly on to the final verse of the Sermon: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’

We aren’t called to be Jesus, either as individuals or as collective bodies; but we are certainly called as individuals to show something of the same unjust generosity towards those who hate us as Jesus did.

So then, what about countries? Is there any meaningful way in which a national policy can reflect love? It’s not the sort of thing you talk about in politics, unless you’ve prefixed it with ‘tough’ – and that generally means something not very loving at all, as far as I can see. It’s certainly not part of the contract that a state makes with its people, that it should sacrifice itself out of love for its enemies. That’s not the sort of decision any collective body can make on behalf of all its members.

But the paradox that we saw in relation to the IRA was that peace eventually came through a process which began covertly and quite in contradiction of the official government line. The politics, in this case, was arguably more Christian than the rhetoric. The UK Government may not have been sacrificing lives, but it was prepared to sacrifice some notions of justice in order to find a peace that would resolve the situation and end the stalemate of violence.

States maybe can make at least that sacrifice: the sacrifice of their own rhetoric of righteousness, reaching out beyond the entrenched pain of injuries suffered and the desire for vengeance. As we come to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, that message seems even stronger to me. When the desire for justice becomes tinged with revenge, it becomes a vehicle for the further growth of violence. Even just causes can lead to greater evils. But if the desire for justice is mingled even a little bit with a real desire for peace, then things become possible because the inner walls which sustain the desire for violence begin to be dismantled. If those walls go, it’s not so difficult to breach the walls between warring groups.

Peace doesn’t just arrive one day, it has to be sought. It’s good that we hear so much less of the language of war nowadays in relation to so-called Islamic terrorism. We don’t yet hear much about peace. But then, maybe (hoping against hope) that’s just because peace has to be spoken secretly – the guilty secret, the virtue that dare not tell its name.

Is God really our refuge and strength? It’s when there is real danger that we find ourselves tested as to whether we really believe those words. It’s easy to believe all sorts of great things about God if actually the police will do the job anyway. But when it’s not so clear that anyone else can keep us safe – what do we believe about God then? What might the psalmist have believed, whoever it was that wrote those words?

The psalms contain within them the hugest variation of experiences of God and responses to God. One of the most extreme s Psalm 89, the first half of which is a song of praise to God for establishing David’s kingly line for ever and ever with an iron cast guarantee. The second half begins ’But now you have rejected and spurned him; you are full of wrath against your anointed – and continues in that vein – one of the biggest turnarounds you can imagine. An expression of absolute faith by the psalmist can’t necessarily be taken at full value as a statement of historical fact. There are all sorts of things that happen, some of which encourage faith and some which seem to deny it – the psalmist has the lot.

But even with that warning, this psalm, Psalm 46, does express a deep faith that God will look after the chosen people – that he will take away all the world’s violence – as the BCP Psalter puts it, ‘He maketh wars to cease in all the world; he breaketh the bow, and knappeth the spear in sunder’.  Now we know what that doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean what it says. God did not then, and has not since, intervened to prevent wars from happening. The people of Israel fought plenty of wars and went into exile when they finally lost one too many.

It’s only in the light of Jesus that we can make sense of either the Bible, or our own experience. Jesus transforms what it means to overcome violence, what it means to bring peace. He overcomes not through more and better violence but by ending the cycle, by changing the game. That’s why a Christian attitude towards the events of the last week must stand against the insanity of mob violence – and the calculated, orchestrated violence of looters. But we must also point to the fact that the re-assertion of state power – which is a better sort of violence, violence controlled by law – isn’t the same as restoring peace. Peace is what we hope for which lies beyond the realm of all violence: it’s the life of the kingdom of heaven which the resurrection reveals to us. Our attitude to what has happened shouldn’t be shaped by our instant and emotional responses, natural as they are. The Spirit in us enables us to see all violence in the light of this hope and conviction – that violence itself will end

So as Christian people we don’t just take sides. We know that we still need state-sanctioned and controlled violence – that’s why police forces should still be called that. They are society’s recognition that the use of force is necessary to preserve society in being. But we are also aware that violence begets violence – it was police violence – possibly completely justified, we can’t judge that now – which lit the fuse. Let me be clear: the police are in no way responsible for the explosion that followed; it’s part of the dynamic of violence itself.

So even while looking to see order restored, we’re looking beyond that for something even better. Because of that greater promise which goes beyond this world we’re able to engage with this one. God is our refuge and strength – a refuge which is in the promised future of the resurrection. In that strength, we are able to be God’s hands and heart in our situation.

One of the articles commenting on the events of the last week reflected on the Turkish shopkeepers taking action – and quoted an ironic tweet, ‘”Bloody immigrants. Coming over here, defending our boroughs & communities.” – while the article’s writer admitted she was sitting at home trying to distinguish the sound of helicopters on the TV from the ones overhead, dealing with riots just around the corner.

I’m very glad there were people who were brave enough; our calling is to be just as brave, to get out there and to be part of our wider community, to defend, nurture and build it, and not only at times of crisis. A time of crisis is a time of judgement – that’s what the Greek word means. Times of crisis demonstrate whether we have the faith that makes us strong enough to strengthen others, to help rebuild shattered lives. One of the saddest things I saw on the TV was the shopkeeper who refused help from people clearing up – they might just steal more. Rebuilding faith, hope and love is our job now.

Well, it's what we're good at making.

Socialism-on-Thames

Here in Hackney, lots of people are making a good living out of the new economy. Lots more are making no living at all. Britain is making more money, but as today’s numbers tell us, right now average take-home pay is on its way down, not up. My last post suggested that a Christian view of economic life, whatever else it might contain, had to start from looking at how well or how badly the poorest in society are treated. Reading today the Richard Bauckham’s The Bible in Politics, I was glad to find I was in reputable company. In the introduction to the second edition he says: ‘If the Bible has an economic preoccupation, it is with the plight of the poorest people’. The globalised economy that Evan Davis describes might not have been a disaster for GB plc, but it has been bad news for many of its now-unnecessary inhabitants.

And I wondered – what next? Right now, service industries do what the factories used to: provide unsatisfying low-paid jobs for a vast number of people. But that won’t last for ever. It was once agriculture, then it was manufacturing, now it’s Starbucks and call centres. If the pattern continues, those jobs too will be replaced – probably not by factories in Shanghai, but through increasing automation. I’m an example myself. I scarcely ever talk to anyone at my bank: I can do it all more easily online.

The what does everyone do? The money will continue to be made, even more of it, but it will flow into even fewer hands. And given the globalised nature of finance and power, it’s unlikely to become easier for governments, even if they want to, to reclaim that income for the poor by taxation. So what next? The other book I’m reading is Terry Eagleton’s Why Marx was Right. Many things I still don’t buy into, but Marx’s vision of human flourishing beyond capitalism is right on the button:

“production” in Marx’s work covers any self-fulfilling activity: playing the flute, savouring a peach, wrangling over Plato, dancing a reel, making a speech, engaging in politics, organising a birthday party for one’s children. It has no muscular, macho implications. When Marx speaks of production as the essence of humanity, he does not mean that the essence of humanity is packing sausages. Labour as we know it is an alienated form of what he calls “praxis”—an ancient Greek word meaning the kind of free, self-realising activity by which we transform the world.

Maybe we will be finally forced to look for something else, which isn’t about the continued increase of wealth – and start to think about what is the point of having it. Maybe we won’t have any choice but to question the ‘latest phase of the Enlightenment meta-narrative of progress’ (Bauckham’s description of globalisation as an ideology). But there are always choices. Dystopia or utopia? I think it’ll be one or the other – the middle way is disappearing ahead of us.

We need prophets – to help us find a new balance, a way of living that isn’t taking the wages of sin. We need a new language – a way of talking about society which isn’t caught in the trap of assuming that markets are automatically good, or at worst neutral. You;d have thought we’d have worked that out after 2008, but I don’t think we have. There is no alternative because we haven’t found another way of thinking about how our society should operate.

We need prophets to point out to us the things we would otherwise miss, the ways in which we are still enmeshed in sin. Of course, you then have to know how to tell the true prophet from the false.  Terry Eagleton suggests (in a book entitled, incidentally, Why Marx was Right):

The true soothsayers of our time are not hairy, howling outcasts luridly foretelling the death of capitalism, but the experts hired by the transnational corporations to peer into the entrails of the system and assure its rulers that their profits are safe for another ten years. The prophet, by contrast, … denounces the greed, corruption and power-mongering of the present, warning us that unless we change our ways we might well have no future at all.

The prophets of our time are many and various – so many voices clamouring for attention. While I’m not completely convinced by Terry Eagleton’s attempt to rehabilitate Marx, I have become increasingly convinced that Christians should be thinking more critically and creatively about the basic ethical principles which should underlie any society of which we’re happy to be part.

It’s time for us to challenge – to challenge what? In the nineteenth century it was pretty obvious who was making the money, and who was suffering. Now it’s much more international, much more difficult to tie down. Look at Greece: the country has borrowed beyond its means, and now the citizens are being told to pay it back: but as they are saying very loudly, the ordinary people of Greece don’t feel as if they were the ones to benefit from the debts run up in their name.

We don’t need to know all the answers in order to speak prophetically; it’s enough to know that a way of running society which makes the poorest into the victims, which glorifies riches and power, which says there is no alternative to pleasing the financial markets even at the cost of abandoning the poorest and most marginalised: that’s not a Christian way of running a country. There is sin, and there is righteousness, in economics and politics as well as everything else. Economics is too complicated, too boring, too difficult for us to pay attention to. Politics is entertaining, and makes sure it stays that way at a certain knockabout level, but rarely does political debate engage with the deep (= complicated = boring) issues facing us.

Will the Big Society provide a framework for thinking differently? I’m sure that it’s not intended to lead to revolutionary ferment, at least in David Cameron’s mind, but it may be possible to use it that way nevertheless.