Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
No Other Home
The continuing failure of Northern Ireland’s politicians to horse-trade to mutual advantage and find solutions to sticky problems shows that politics as normal has yet to arrive in the province.
It is too easy to press the panic button which brings the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland swooping through Ulster’s grey skies like comic book heroes.
Both the unionist DUP and Sinn Fein know sensible compromises cannot bring the cash and concessions that a carefully crafted crisis can deliver. The late night stand-offs which have defined recent Northern Ireland politics do not take place because leaders lack political skills but because they are masters of the dark arts.
The agreements stitched together while under the influence of the strongest coffee and the coldest pizza are works of postmodern ingenuity which each camp can interpret in diametrically opposite ways. This leads to almighty rows when time passes and guns have not been decommissioned or policing and justice powers are not transferred.
However, the situation is eminently preferable to the diet of true tragedy which defined the province throughout the Troubles. Furthermore, decommissioning has taken place, which is an extraordinary achievement. And if dissident militants can be contained, it seems likely that the devolution of justice will eventually happen.
Once this issue is resolved, it will be harder to engineer crises. If Sinn Fein hands leadership to a generation that has not handled weapons, the spectre of the balaclava era could be removed from Stormont.
Then, a post-Paisley Unionist tribe may look across the debating chamber at nationalists and each group might at last realise they are responsible for a quite unique European nation.
Today, very few people call themselves Northern Irish. Instead, each side has defined themselves by their allegiance to another power. Unionists have looked to the British Crown with pride. Nationalists have traditionally seen Dublin as their natural capital.
But as Sinn Fein’s catastrophic attempts to make inroads in Southern Irish politics demonstrates, the Republic is a distinct country which does not see these men and women as the architects of a future utopia.
Similarly, with Scotland racing towards a degree of devolution which could lead to full-scale independence, unionists need to re-think how they will relate to the United Kingdom. An increasingly multicultural England seems to have little desire to ensure that the people of Ulster remain under a British flag.
Northern Ireland’s leaders will have to recognise that for the foreseeable future their state is defined by its diversity and they have no other home to call their own.
Originally, a Thursday column.
It is too easy to press the panic button which brings the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland swooping through Ulster’s grey skies like comic book heroes.
Both the unionist DUP and Sinn Fein know sensible compromises cannot bring the cash and concessions that a carefully crafted crisis can deliver. The late night stand-offs which have defined recent Northern Ireland politics do not take place because leaders lack political skills but because they are masters of the dark arts.
The agreements stitched together while under the influence of the strongest coffee and the coldest pizza are works of postmodern ingenuity which each camp can interpret in diametrically opposite ways. This leads to almighty rows when time passes and guns have not been decommissioned or policing and justice powers are not transferred.
However, the situation is eminently preferable to the diet of true tragedy which defined the province throughout the Troubles. Furthermore, decommissioning has taken place, which is an extraordinary achievement. And if dissident militants can be contained, it seems likely that the devolution of justice will eventually happen.
Once this issue is resolved, it will be harder to engineer crises. If Sinn Fein hands leadership to a generation that has not handled weapons, the spectre of the balaclava era could be removed from Stormont.
Then, a post-Paisley Unionist tribe may look across the debating chamber at nationalists and each group might at last realise they are responsible for a quite unique European nation.
Today, very few people call themselves Northern Irish. Instead, each side has defined themselves by their allegiance to another power. Unionists have looked to the British Crown with pride. Nationalists have traditionally seen Dublin as their natural capital.
But as Sinn Fein’s catastrophic attempts to make inroads in Southern Irish politics demonstrates, the Republic is a distinct country which does not see these men and women as the architects of a future utopia.
Similarly, with Scotland racing towards a degree of devolution which could lead to full-scale independence, unionists need to re-think how they will relate to the United Kingdom. An increasingly multicultural England seems to have little desire to ensure that the people of Ulster remain under a British flag.
Northern Ireland’s leaders will have to recognise that for the foreseeable future their state is defined by its diversity and they have no other home to call their own.
Originally, a Thursday column.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Ratzinger on Tuesday
The doctrine of the Trinity did not arise out of speculation about God, out of an attempt by philosophical thinking to figure out what the fount of all being was like; it developed out of the effort to digest historical experiences...
One finds God in the shape of the ambassador who is completely God, not one kind of intermediary being, yet with us says to God "Father".
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.163
One finds God in the shape of the ambassador who is completely God, not one kind of intermediary being, yet with us says to God "Father".
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.163
Monday, January 25, 2010
Barth on Monday
And it is this eternal mercy... which makes it impossible to appeal past the Lord Jesus Christ to another lord and to reckon once more with fate or history or nature, as though these were what really dominated us. Once we have seen that Christ's potestas is based on God's mercy, only then do we abandon all reservations.
Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p.83
Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p.83
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Easter Columnist
U2's Bono has become a semi-regular columnist at the New York Times. His meditation on Easter is well worth a read:
There is also more than a hint at what he is getting at in Moment of Surrender:
It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need. Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of “a peace that passes understanding” as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads.
There is also more than a hint at what he is getting at in Moment of Surrender:
Last Sunday, the choirmaster was jumping out of his skin ... stormy then still, playful then tender, on the most upright of pianos and melodies. He sang his invocations in a beautiful oaken tenor with a freckle-faced boy at his side playing conga and tambourine as if it was a full drum kit. The parish sang to the rafters songs of praise to a God that apparently surrendered His voice to ours.
I come to lowly church halls and lofty cathedrals for what purpose? I search the scriptures to what end? To check my head? My heart? No, my soul. For me these meditations are like a plumb line dropped by a master builder — to see if the walls are straight or crooked.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Lands of Hope and Glory
There were howls of terror in France when it was first mooted that Disney would build a theme park on the edge of the capital.
It was feared that this “cultural Chernobyl” would scorch away the essence of French identity. In Britain, it’s fair to say, there was general envy that France had the necessary levels of sunshine to make queuing for a ride on a flying elephant tolerable.
British theatrical Titans want to go to Hollywood and we cheer when they win Oscars.
France regards its cinematic culture as a national treasure worthy of protection; Brits would not be impressed if Avatar was kept off screens so local kitchen sink dramas could have a celluloid outing.
The British love of cultural imports is not limited to Americana. Food has been transformed from a messy energy source into a gastronomic pleasure through the arrival of wares once rarely seen outside Pisa or Dhaka. The idea of going out for a “Scottish” or an “English” is preposterous.
The definition of Britishness is hotly debated, but one positive characteristic must be the notion that addition does not lead to dilution.
Yet this makes the post-imperial confusion which has defined the UK’s strange dance with the European Union both ironic and odd. Why is it that a country that already encompasses different nations – and has welcomed refugees for centuries and happily accepted non-English-speaking members of the royal family – has such a problem with European integration?
One of the greatest challenges for a Cameron-led Government would be ensuring that the Conservative civil war over European policy did not re-ignite within months of taking power. This is still a party that is home to anti-superstate warrior Daniel Hannan and optimistic Euro-enthusiast Kenneth Clarke – and MPs across Britain fret about the electoral threat of Ukip. Will the battles which defined John Major’s administration resume, or has our relationship with the EU evolved since 1997?
Tectonic plates do seem to be shifting and Brussels is no longer a political graveyard. Last year – when it looked like Tony Blair might be EU President and David Miliband could become the High Representative for Foreign Affairs – it became a destination for ambitious statesmen.
When the popular webzine euobserver.com reports the latest European machinations the stories do not read like the power struggles of an alien institution but a drama in which we have a critical stake.
And in the 12-plus years since the Tories last held power, the rise of mammoth nations such as India, China, Brazil and energy-wealthy Russia has perhaps made us value the potential of being part of a bigger club. It will be decades before revellers at the Proms sing of lands of hope and glory but a European dream may be stirring.
First published, like many a post, as a Thursday column.
It was feared that this “cultural Chernobyl” would scorch away the essence of French identity. In Britain, it’s fair to say, there was general envy that France had the necessary levels of sunshine to make queuing for a ride on a flying elephant tolerable.
British theatrical Titans want to go to Hollywood and we cheer when they win Oscars.
France regards its cinematic culture as a national treasure worthy of protection; Brits would not be impressed if Avatar was kept off screens so local kitchen sink dramas could have a celluloid outing.
The British love of cultural imports is not limited to Americana. Food has been transformed from a messy energy source into a gastronomic pleasure through the arrival of wares once rarely seen outside Pisa or Dhaka. The idea of going out for a “Scottish” or an “English” is preposterous.
The definition of Britishness is hotly debated, but one positive characteristic must be the notion that addition does not lead to dilution.
Yet this makes the post-imperial confusion which has defined the UK’s strange dance with the European Union both ironic and odd. Why is it that a country that already encompasses different nations – and has welcomed refugees for centuries and happily accepted non-English-speaking members of the royal family – has such a problem with European integration?
One of the greatest challenges for a Cameron-led Government would be ensuring that the Conservative civil war over European policy did not re-ignite within months of taking power. This is still a party that is home to anti-superstate warrior Daniel Hannan and optimistic Euro-enthusiast Kenneth Clarke – and MPs across Britain fret about the electoral threat of Ukip. Will the battles which defined John Major’s administration resume, or has our relationship with the EU evolved since 1997?
Tectonic plates do seem to be shifting and Brussels is no longer a political graveyard. Last year – when it looked like Tony Blair might be EU President and David Miliband could become the High Representative for Foreign Affairs – it became a destination for ambitious statesmen.
When the popular webzine euobserver.com reports the latest European machinations the stories do not read like the power struggles of an alien institution but a drama in which we have a critical stake.
And in the 12-plus years since the Tories last held power, the rise of mammoth nations such as India, China, Brazil and energy-wealthy Russia has perhaps made us value the potential of being part of a bigger club. It will be decades before revellers at the Proms sing of lands of hope and glory but a European dream may be stirring.
First published, like many a post, as a Thursday column.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Writing it Down
There is a wonderful moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones is about to attempt an act of spectacular danger.
When asked how he plans to single-handedly retrieve the Ark of the Covenant from a truck that is being driven away at high speed by especially nefarious Nazis he quips: “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.”
There are moments when every Secretary of State who has played a role in the freewheeling story of the development of the British constitution could have given the same response.
And if there is a change of Government later this year the essential tool each civil servant will need is not an iPhone or a BlackBerry but the back of an envelope and a trusty pen.
The constitution is a gloriously messy affair. Unlike the Americans’, it does not exist as a single document; instead, we have a mass of conventions, precedents and principles which guide – but don’t necessarily determine – what Governments do.
In the United States, constitutional lawyers debate what the “founders” intended and study the text as if it was a scripture. This has led sane men and women to argue that it is a human right for suburbanites to possess submachine-guns.
The flexibility of Britain’s virtual constitution has been a source of pride. Some see the resulting quirks as endearing, as it has allowed ancient traditions, such as giving bishops and hereditary peers seats in the House of Lords, to flourish in the age of the Segway.
But Tony Blair dropped a giant brick in the British pond when he green-lit self-government in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This made waves, and the water could be about to get choppier.
If there is a Conservative Government in Westminster and a Labour-Plaid one in Cardiff, how much information will senior civil servants feel free to share? Will a Labour First Minister feel free to attack the decisions of a Conservative Prime Minister on matters such as tax and defence?
The three devolved bodies are evolving in different directions, the lack of an English parliament is looking increasingly odd, and there is debate about where ultimate sovereignty lies in each region.
If chaos reigns, demands for a clear constitution and a redefinition of relationships will intensify.
We recently witnessed the Speaker of the House of Commons being thrown out for the first time since 1695, and the first jury-less criminal trial for more than 400 years is now under way.
There are murmurs of concern that traditions of liberty are being eroded by lawmakers. If cherished freedoms are seen to be slipping away, vigilant people may decide it is time to codify the constitution in black and white.
When asked how he plans to single-handedly retrieve the Ark of the Covenant from a truck that is being driven away at high speed by especially nefarious Nazis he quips: “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.”
There are moments when every Secretary of State who has played a role in the freewheeling story of the development of the British constitution could have given the same response.
And if there is a change of Government later this year the essential tool each civil servant will need is not an iPhone or a BlackBerry but the back of an envelope and a trusty pen.
The constitution is a gloriously messy affair. Unlike the Americans’, it does not exist as a single document; instead, we have a mass of conventions, precedents and principles which guide – but don’t necessarily determine – what Governments do.
In the United States, constitutional lawyers debate what the “founders” intended and study the text as if it was a scripture. This has led sane men and women to argue that it is a human right for suburbanites to possess submachine-guns.
The flexibility of Britain’s virtual constitution has been a source of pride. Some see the resulting quirks as endearing, as it has allowed ancient traditions, such as giving bishops and hereditary peers seats in the House of Lords, to flourish in the age of the Segway.
But Tony Blair dropped a giant brick in the British pond when he green-lit self-government in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This made waves, and the water could be about to get choppier.
If there is a Conservative Government in Westminster and a Labour-Plaid one in Cardiff, how much information will senior civil servants feel free to share? Will a Labour First Minister feel free to attack the decisions of a Conservative Prime Minister on matters such as tax and defence?
The three devolved bodies are evolving in different directions, the lack of an English parliament is looking increasingly odd, and there is debate about where ultimate sovereignty lies in each region.
If chaos reigns, demands for a clear constitution and a redefinition of relationships will intensify.
We recently witnessed the Speaker of the House of Commons being thrown out for the first time since 1695, and the first jury-less criminal trial for more than 400 years is now under way.
There are murmurs of concern that traditions of liberty are being eroded by lawmakers. If cherished freedoms are seen to be slipping away, vigilant people may decide it is time to codify the constitution in black and white.
Ratzinger on Tuesday
[What] "almightiness" and "lordship of all" mean only becomes clear from a Christian point of view in the crib and the Cross...
The highest power is demonstrated as the calm willingness to renounce all power.
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.149
The highest power is demonstrated as the calm willingness to renounce all power.
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.149
Monday, January 18, 2010
Tintern After the Snow
I'm just back from a delightful trip to Tintern. The snow which piled on the hills began to melt in earnest on Saturday.
Along the Wye Valley, sandbags were stacked against church doors in anticipation of the surge of waters.
And the ancient abbey was cloaked in the deep mist which swirled down. There was a wonderful "Twin Peaks" ambience in the village, where woodsmoke curls into the low clouds.
Wales had a dark and almost Amazonian beauty.
And on Saturday sunlight cracked through the valley.
The place sprang back into life.
The air was as zesty as a perfect espresso.
And the waterfalls were still a torrent, but back to glacial purity.
If my sums are right, the abbey has been a ruin longer that it has been a functioning place of worship. But there's something about the way it frames the emptiness - instead of trying to articulate mystery with a stained glass window - that makes it an altogether greater work of art.
Barth on Monday
In this one man God sees every man, all of us, as through a glass. Through this medium, through this Mediator we are known and seen by God. And we may, and should, understand ourselves as men seen by God in Him, in this man, as men made known to him in this way.
Before His eyes from eternity God keeps men, each man, in Him, in this One; and not only before His eyes but loved and elect and called and made His possession... Everything is decided about us in Him, in this one man...
For what man knows and lives as his freedom, he lives in the freedom which is given him and created for him by the fact that Christ intercedes for him in the presecnce of God.
Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p.82
Before His eyes from eternity God keeps men, each man, in Him, in this One; and not only before His eyes but loved and elect and called and made His possession... Everything is decided about us in Him, in this one man...
For what man knows and lives as his freedom, he lives in the freedom which is given him and created for him by the fact that Christ intercedes for him in the presecnce of God.
Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p.82
Friday, January 15, 2010
Snow Time Like the Present
The last of the snow seems to have vanished, but running with a dog that have never seen the world turned white was a highlight of the season.
I'd never walked on frozen ice in Coleraine, mind you.
It was if the world had been freeze-framed.
The wind which normally rips around the north coast of Ireland was paused.
Back in Wales, the thousands of footprints outside the Senedd created a picture of urban beauty.
Last week I finally got off the train by these spectacular, wonderful steaming sculptures.
Thomas Keown was on the island of Great Britain and stories of grand adventures were on tap. He's been seized with excitement about the possibility of transforming lives in Kenya with One Home Many Hopes, a remarkable initiative which will thrill you if you read its vision.
This was not Britain as we knew it. We waded through deep, powdery snow down to a frozen lake where a boat was wedged in the ice.
Deer ran in the distance as sun went home. The snow has now gone, but it has been a magical way to start the year.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Ratzinger on Tuesday
We unthinkingly assume that pure thought is greater than love, while the message of the Gospel, and the Christian picture of God contained in it, corrects philosophy and lets us know that love is higher than mere thought.
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.147
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.147
Monday, January 11, 2010
Barth on Monday
This Jesus of Nazareth, who passes through the cities and villages of Galilee and wanders to Jerusalem, who is there accused and condemned and crucified, this man is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, is the Creator, is God Himself. A man like us in space and time, who has all the properties of God and yet does not cease to be a human being and a creature too.
The Creator Himself, without encroaching upon his deity, becomes, not a demi-god, not an angel, but very soberly, very really a man...
Actually nothing more or less is involved than that the divine nature itself has come nigh unto us and that in faith we become partakers in it, according as it meets us in the One. In this way Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man. Everything else must be understood against this background. Less than this God did not will to do for us.
We may realise the utter depth of our human sin and need in the fact this immeasurable thing had to happen and did happen. The Church and all Christendom looks in its message at this immeasurable and unfathomable fact, that God has given Himself for us.
Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p.75-77
The Creator Himself, without encroaching upon his deity, becomes, not a demi-god, not an angel, but very soberly, very really a man...
Actually nothing more or less is involved than that the divine nature itself has come nigh unto us and that in faith we become partakers in it, according as it meets us in the One. In this way Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man. Everything else must be understood against this background. Less than this God did not will to do for us.
We may realise the utter depth of our human sin and need in the fact this immeasurable thing had to happen and did happen. The Church and all Christendom looks in its message at this immeasurable and unfathomable fact, that God has given Himself for us.
Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p.75-77
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Ratzinger on Tuesday
[This] God is the God of the Promise. He is not a force of nature... he is not a God who orientates man to the recurring patterns of the cosmic cycle; rather, he directs man's attention to the coming events toward which his history marches...
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.124
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, p.124
Sunday, January 03, 2010
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