Tolstoy, Orthodoxy and justice

From jknirp.com

I’ve been watching the excellent BBC series, The History of Christianity on the BBC iPlayer. It’s superb. And some of the most interesting parts of it concern the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Did you know, for instance, that the Russian Cyrillic alphabet was created by the Orthodox Church to evangelise slavic peasantry? There’s a pub-quiz fact for you.

The Orthodox Church has at times been used as a tool of state oppression in Russia and at times stood valiantly against it. I have been reading about the life of a famous literary figure who stood against the church itself — not because he opposed the principles of the Gospel, but because he felt the church, under the Tsars, had betrayed those principles.

The literary figure is Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, and I’ve been reading a book about his reflections on his own unorthodox (in both senses of the word) take on Christianity. It’s called Leo Tolstoy, Spiritual Writings (edited by Charles E Moore) and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Christianity and justice.

Here’s a poignant piece from The Kingdom of God is within You, that I just love:

Are you doing what God has sent you into the world for, and to whom you will soon return? Are you doing what he wills? Are you doing his will, when as a landowner or entrepreneur you rob the poor of the fruits of their toil, basing your life on this plunder of the workers, or when, as a judge or governor, you sentence them to execution, or when as soldiers you prepare for war, killing and plunder?

Even if you are told that all this is necessary for maintaining the existing order, and that greater disasters would ensue if the way things are were destroyed, isn’t it obvious that all this is said by those who profit from the arrangement, while those who suffer from it — and they are ten times as numerous– think to the contrary? And at the bottom of your heart you know yourself that it is not true, that the existing order of things is not how things are supposed to be.

More importantly, even if such a life is necessary, why do you believe it is your duty to maintain it at

From ebooks.adelaide.edu.au

the cost of your best feelings? Who has made you the nurse in charge of this sick and moribund system? Not society, nor the state nor anyone. No one has asked you to undertake this. You who fill your position of landowner, businessman, politician, priest or soldier know very well that you occupy the position not because you are so concerned with other people’s happiness but simply to satisfy your own security and well-being. If you did not desire that position, you would not be doing your utmost to retain it.

Try the experiment of ceasing to compromise your conscience in order to retain your position, and you will lose it at once. Think about it.

No blacks, no Irish, no BNP

Nick Griffin

A Harry Potter forum – that’s where my friend’s sister met her BNP councillor fiancée. Ha! The mind boggles (not to mention muggles). Jokes about Nick Griffindor (or ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ ) chasing down ‘mud-bloods’ will be obvious to fans of the books or movies. All I’m saying is that if Big Nick had a Hogwarts House, you know it’d be Slytherin. If Boris Malfoy would let him in. It’s so posh.

But yes,  it’s easy (and fun) to laugh at the BNP. Not just because of gems like picturing a sweating far-right thug with a cape, wand and broomstick, but because their views are caricatures, simplistic as the dubious morality in a children’s book. But in our haste to use the BNP as demonising shorthand to discourage the less confident racisms we know lurk throughout our society, we must make sure we do not ignore the simple, non-militant, domestic racism of people like you and me. Well.. mainly you. I’m an immigrant. (But a white one from South Africa. Damn!)

Last week, the BBC uncovered British letting agents who happily flout equality laws if their landlord clients require it, refusing to rent to ‘foreigners’. But if we are disgusted by a possible return to the estate agent culture of ‘No dogs, no blacks, no Irish’ (and if we are not, we may need to repent), would we be comfortable having the BNP in our houses? How many ministers would not prefer my friend’s sister to go for the civil partnership option rather than having to perform a fascist marriage?

We can learn from our enemies’ mistakes, and one that the BNP consistently makes is in holding to a largely arbitrary but very rigid definition of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Another is a totally disproportionate loyalty to those they consider ‘their own’.

Last week the government, too, was criticized for arbitrary definitions of the proverbial ‘us’. A proposed ‘points system’ for potential British citizens would reportedly see the democratic (if not human) right of protesting against the government as ‘un-British’.

Loyalty, as all of us in our saner moments know, is not eternally uncritical or silent in the face of the unjust actions of friends, family or nation. But is loyalty, even critical loyalty, an absolute virtue?

MI6 (as was revealed on Radio 4 last week) regularly convinced Soviet citizens to betray their country. If betrayal, in a supposedly higher cause, is morally justified for Comrade Gordievsky, perhaps it is justified for Comrade Philby?  Or do we really believe that ‘we’ are always the good-guys, while ‘they’ are always the bad, as if life were a Harry Potter novel?

The BNP are wrong not just because they are traitors (to the ideals Britain fought for in WWII), but because they refuse to become traitors (to their largely fantasized version of Britain) in the cause of something better.

Loyalty is wonderful, but sometimes I wish we’d encourage more traitors. Radical faith and prophecy often require them.

Oscar Romero: Friend of the poor, traitor to the wealthy (Photo: DePaul)

Rahab was a traitor to her people, with terrible consequences (for them). Archbishop Romero was a traitor to his class. Wilberforce: a traitor to Britain’s economic best interests. And was the Apostle Paul not a traitor to Israel and even his religion when he converted? Isn’t every Christian conversion an act of betrayal against our old selves, our old priorities, friends and ideals? Great traitors are always loyal to something. The question is whether it’s the right something.

In Joshua 5 : 13-14, Joshua asks an angel with a sword whether he is on the side of his people or their enemies. The angel surprisingly replies: ‘Neither,” because he is on the side of the armies of Heaven. We should be careful that our good, praiseworthy loyalty to Britain, our culture, our race, our sex, our church or our families does not put us in opposition to him or the one who sent him.

Is Britain evil?

As Iran exploded, Spain experienced another terrorist attack and a Somali MP was executed by militants in his own capital last week, do you know what the three most popular stories on the BBC website were? ‘Duck charms restaurant customers’; ‘Squirrel nuts over builder friend’ and a medieval recipe for cooking porpoise that is now available online.

At the same time, Gordon Brown was objecting, in the strongest possible terms, to the Iranian supreme leader calling Britain ‘evil’. Evil we may not be, but shallow and indifferent we apparently are.

But does that justify the Iranian jibe? The easy response is to write it off as one of the ravings of a madman or to become offended at the unprovoked insult. Or, as some lefties and fundamentalist Christians might: agree with him. Personally, I do not. But,why is the Ayatollah being so rude? Is there any truth in his accusation?

t-shirt available at Zazzle.com

Britain’s actions towards Iran in the past could easily be filed under ‘evil’. Questionable acts do not an evil country make, but it understandably colours the Iranian view of Britain. Britain for years ‘owned’ and siphoned off Iran’s oil reserves (through the corporation that was to become BP), the proceeds never reaching the people of Iran. Britain propped up the oppressive regime of the Shah, and when a popularly elected Prime Minister nationalised oil revenues and started improving the position of ordinary people, Britain convinced the CIA to topple him and reinstate the dictator. When the United States designated Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’ despite Iranian help in ‘defeating’ the Taleban, Britain was America’s greatest ally, with a foreign policy and attitude effectively indistinguishable on the matter. You see, we’ve called them evil too.

Image from bristol.indymedia.org

Ah, you say, but that is all just history. But what is the source of most Britons’ distrust of and antipathy towards Iran (an antipathy evident in media coverage and public feedback)? Is it really the (very real) political repression and human rights abuses in the Islamic republic? If it is, it is odd that we don’t have such strong opinions about Saudi Arabia or any number of other British allies with similar records. Or does it have more to do with images of hostage-taking and angry shouting from clerics that are also ‘history’? Is it really about Iran’s support for armed groups in Lebanon and Palestine? If so, that seems an uncharacteristic interest in the local affairs of foreign countries from a nation that seems in reality to be more concerned with squirrels and ducks than suicide bombers abroad.

As, last week, Britain tried to remedy the crisis born of rampant capitalism by trying to ensconce itself more deeply in that fatally flawed philosophy (evidenced in increasing cases of economic hardship being met with further emphasis on private profit as a ‘solution’, at the expense of ordinary people in the museum, broadcasting or industrial sectors), the Ayatollah may have been wrong to call us evil. The beam in his own eye is, after all, great. But, then, he is not a Christian. And before we react indignantly we should examine how foolish, shallow, selfish and hypocritical we ourselves have become. We can focus on the falsehood in his one word, or choose to find the truth in the sentiment, repent, and be changed. Or we can surf the net for funny animals, eating slices of porpoise and pretending everything’s fine.

The Muslim Threat ?

Embarrassed, horrified and a little dirty. That’s how I felt last week when I discovered that an acquaintance who had been joining me in denouncing Israel’s slaughter of civilians in Gaza on a social networking site was possibly only doing so because he dislikes Jews. Cliché can be disturbingly real as well as disappointing.

My acquaintance describes himself as an ‘ethnonationalist’ and a ‘race realist.’ He resists the term ‘Nazi’ when I suggest it, not for any of the reasons you or I might, but because he rejects nationalism in favour of race-orientation and socialism just on principle. He believes races should not interbreed; that we should defend the ‘uniquely’ brilliant and beautiful accomplishments of white European culture against dilution by the ‘evil’ of multiculturalism (which, inexplicably, he blames for global capitalism) and that Islam is the greatest threat the world faces. He is a racist. He is more thoughtful and honest than most bigots, but that is also what he is. And he is not alone.

Last week saw a furore erupt over a Dutch politician, Geert Wilders being denied entry to the UK because of a film he made: a disgusting piece of Goebbels-style, violently anti-Muslim propaganda (I watched it on the internet – it really is), called Fitna. The film quotes (and, many Muslims online contend, misquotes) passages from the Quran and illustrates them with atrocities supposedly committed by Muslims. It then asserts that Muslim populations are growing in Europe and that we (supposedly White, Judeo-Christians) should fight Islam.

From http://www.opendemocracy.net

Many Christians will have some sympathy with these ideas. After all, growing Islam means fewer Christians and therefore fewer people in heaven, right? Maybe Christians should support the likes of Wilders, despite the racism?

I think not. The Quran may contain disturbing verses, but so does the Bible. Start from Deuteronomy 13 and work outward. Muslims have done terrible things, but so have Christians. Start from the first Crusade and the rape and murder of men women and children, Jew and Muslim by conquering Christians and move forward through Bosnia and Nigeria. Western European culture (calling it ‘white’ is ridiculous) has much to recommend it, but so does Islamic culture, and both have incubated extremists, evil, corruption and destructive forces.

Another example of why racism is stupid (from http://www.someofnothing.com)

To oppose the growth and spread of Islam on these grounds makes the fundamental mistake of secularised Christendom: confusing culture and nation with faith. The reason to follow Christianity is not found in its followers (though we hope we would give some reason). It is in the one whom we follow. So the spread of Islam can be seen either as an opportunity for witness or a failure on our part to do so because we are more concerned with outward culture than inner faith, more focused on worldly influence and power than the growth of the Kingdom. Hating our ‘enemies’ is a seductive temptation for all Christians, but racist Islamophobia should be resisted as the moral filth and intellectual excrement it is, while never being ashamed to proclaim the uniqueness and sufficiency of Christ. We may reject Islam’s truth claims, but never Muslims as people or their right to their own culture.

As the Bishop of Blackburn rightly said last week, in defence of banning Anglican clergy from BNP membership: ‘You cannot be a racist and speak on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ.’

Next year: make Christmas more commercial

So that was Christmas, as John Lennon almost sort of said. Xmas has become ex-mas for yet another year and we’ll have to wait at least four months before supermarkets break out the decorations again. And not a moment too soon. What Christmas needs is more commercialisation. At least enough to squeeze the charities out of the advertising market. More of that later, but first: what’s the worst pseudo-sin you can commit at Christmas? Is it greed (in the Bible)? Covetousness (also there)? Gluttony (there a scary amount)? No. It’s humbuggery (which, now that I write it down, does sound a little wrong), the sin of not getting into the ‘Christmas spirit’.

I mocked a colleague recently for taking his staff out of a Christmas lunch that had overrun its time before they had finished. I mentioned ‘Dark Satanic Mills’ and put on my best (worst) cockney accent to cry loudly: ‘But Mister Scrooge! It’s Chrissmiss!’ I felt affronted that he wanted his staff to work a full day at a particularly busy time of year. Why? Because it’s Christmas! That phrase: ‘it’s Christmas’, apparently means the rules do not apply anymore. Work hours are optional, diets no longer exist, murder is legal and Garry Glitter gets to perform in the local cub-scout panto alongside Nick Griffin, who’ll be doing a bit of Jew-baiting as a warm-up act. You object? But it’s Christmas!

The news over the Christmas period has been littered with minor stories and editorials from papers all over the (snow) globe that use the short-hand ‘Scrooge’ for anyone guilty of ignoring this principle. Spiked online referred to ‘Eco-Nezer Scrooges’, ‘Christmas miserabilists’ who now use the language of environmentalism to spoil everybody’s fun. Because, obviously, over Christmas, your car ceases to puff out CO2 and starts sighing special wishes that turn into lovely snowflakes and smell of the dreams of children.

But what is Christmas, anyway? Forgive me for being foreign and protestant (I mean properly Protestant, not like my Anglican UK citizen wife, who seems to instinctively understand Christmas rituals and liturgies as if her father had been a catholic priest – well, you know what I mean) but aside from an excuse for possibly the greatest calendars in the world outside of Pirelliville, I don’t even know what Advent is. So to me, Christmas is the 25^th of December. It is certainly a reason to celebrate, and it can be magical, but don’t you get tired of that ‘real meaning of Christmas’ gubbins?

Somehow, according to my tv, that ‘real meaning’ just happens to be saving puppies. Or child-slaves. Or puppies enslaved to children. Or any number of genuinely worthy causes, all demanding as much of me as supermarkets and advertisers are. As if crippling my family with debt to also save a donkey sanctuary is that much better than just buying too many (more than we tend to buy) presents. As if the concept of celebrating Christmas by buying anything was not odd.

We Christians, who claim to understand the true meaning, finish saying how we prefer ‘Christmas’ to ‘Xmas’ and express our gratitude to our saviour by running ourselves into the ground trying to prove we love people by throwing money at them.

So I say bring on the full corporate ownership of Christmas. Let it make us so sick of the pressure to spend, to get bigger, better gifts and the need to pretend love is a financial transaction, that we return to what it could be. Just a day. A simple commemoration, an excuse to spend time with friends or family and a time to reflect on how we should be giving to charity, cutting people slack and showing love to those we call loved-ones all year round.

Of course, Christmas is also the time we (the Christians) celebrate the birth of the Master. This is cute:

Jerry Springer v Abortion v Us

You know what has got to suck? Being a member of Christian Voice. And I don’t just mean for the obvious ‘Nobody likes me because they think my politics are ridiculous’ reasons. It’s got to suck this week because not only did they lose their court case against the theatre and TV channel that put on the blasphemous Jerry Springer opera, but a landmark decision found for the first time that theatres could not be guilty of blasphemy. So, to spell it out somewhat, the situation, from the point of view of Christian Voice, has not merely not been improved by their action, but has been made considerably worse.

Being a member of that rare breed that still believes in free speech, even speech we don’t like, I can’t say I feel empathy, but I do feel kind of miffed. ‘Why, O pinko prince?’ I hear you ask? Because whether or not I agree with the (arguably) loony rantings of people who think non-Christians should behave like Christians and the Creator of the universe is really thin-skinned, this decision will be portrayed and perceived as a loss for us. The Christians. Or at least, according to the radio, ‘the evangelicals’. And I’m one of them, goshdarnit.

But that is the feminine hound about being part of a larger group: it gets known for things you don’t agree with. The temptation, when talking to your non-Christian friends (or writing online or in newspapers) is to make a distinction that makes you look good: ‘Yeah, that’s those sorts of Christians—I’m one of the good kind.’ But that doesn’t help anyone. The fact is, all Christians, at some point, are likely to have moments where an issue that probably doesn’t deserve the amount of hot air it’s generating gets them bent out of shape. But beyond our failings, on the important things, we are hopefully united. I cannot stand with Christian Voice on the matter of how we should respond to tacky musicals, but when it comes to more fundamental issues—that Jesus Christ is God’s only Son and the only way to be saved is by grace through faith in him, for instance—we are, I assume, as one.

The unfortunate thing is that while we are known by the world for several different things, they (like many of our own faith) find it difficult to distinguish degrees of importance between even the ones we agree on. Sure, I think homosexuality is a sin, but is it anywhere near as central to my faith as being saved through faith in Jesus? Not even close. So in a week when the Christian Voice news broke, another perceived ‘Christian issue’ was also in the headlines. Abortion, an issue that concerns the loss of millions of human lives, is lumped in there with how Christians don’t like mosques, or hate seeing boobies on the TV. It’s easy to get confused, even for Christians. But as Parliament debated recently the issue of abortion, we (I mean all of us within the Body of Christ) can only really blame ourselves that many people view the pro-life stance as another form of Christians trying to dictate personal morality rather than preserving human rights.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps I, too have been infected by hostile perceptions of secularism. Perhaps blasphemy is as big a deal as taking life. God is, after all, more important than human beings. But difficulty in accepting the possibility that what I believe may be wrong and examine it again can’t be unique to me, can it? Looking at the headlines, I think probably not.

and here’s a cute music vid encouraging us to try harder. Killer line: ‘are we debating just to win the argument?’

Mega mosque myths

“Jesus loves you… Then again, he loves everybody.” That’s a slogan on a T-shirt from Larknews.com, a Christian comedy website (who also advertise Rapture Insurance “in case you get left behind”). The Jesus slogan is funny as well as being theologically correct (how often is that true?) and perfectly expresses my feelings towards many people, particularly, at times, my Christian brothers and sisters.

Last week was one of those times, as people claiming to speak for Christianity spouted so much intolerance, paranoia and ignorance I could have sworn I was confining all my reading to The Daily Mail. I wasn’t though. The issue of the legendary ‘mega-mosque’, planned for Abbey Mills in Newham, and much beloved of hysterical chain-email petitioners, was all over the news, like white on rice. Or a Tory shadow cabinet. Or a BNP rally. What I’m trying to say is that the issue was as prevalent in the news as the colour white is in something really really white.

Government officials last week said that the mosque could “raise tensions” and papers suggested that Tablighi Jamaat (the sect planning to build it) is pretty close to being a terrorist group. Forgive me if this is obvious, but it seems pretty clear that the proposed mosque is not raising tensions. Morons are. For instance, the mysterious “Jill”, writer of a blog called English Rose, who apparently started the petition. Jill’s website features, along with several links to BNP support pages, many charming opinions, like: ‘it is not English people who are vicious but the very community that you are protecting,’ The ‘community’ she refers to is Muslims. They can’t be English, apparently.

Now, please believe me: I would love it if every person in England was a Christian. I would rejoice in their salvation. But I do not hate or fear those who are not and cannot believe Christ would either. And since I am sure many people have signed the petition and supported its calls not because they are hateful or stupid but because they have been misinformed, let’s look at the facts.

Tablighi Jamaat, while certainly an Islamic missionary sect, is a legal organisation in the UK. Their supposed association with terrorists is based on the fact that some terrorists have visited a few of their mosques. Since another theme in the media attacks last week was that Tablighi Jamaat owns a staggering number in this country, that is hardly surprising. Other Islamists are not quite as convinced of the Jamaat’s jihadi credentials though. IslamicAcademy.org criticised the Jamaat because it’s approach to integrating with western states ‘meets the complete approval of the enemies of Islam, since there is no mention anywhere of anything which might even slightly inconvenience a Kaafir [unbelieving] government.’ They sound really awful, don’t they?

And while a spokesman for Christian Peoples Alliance (a nice, sane bunch of people if their website is anything to go by) who is also a councillor in Newham is spearheading the campaign to shut plans for the mosque down, Transform Newham, a group of local churches who regularly pray for the area, has released a statement specifically refuting his claims and setting out the real facts about the mosque. Should we be delighted that a large mosque is being built? No, because ultimately they are unlikely to be preaching Jesus. But neither do we have a right to oppose it. We are not living in a Christian country and we have not been for some time. The sooner we realise this; stop moaning and start preaching, loving and witnessing harder than ever before on the level playing field that is the UK, the better for everyone. Perhaps then Muslims will see something in Christianity worth exploring.

Calmer, karma-chameleon

As a child I used to call it ‘the locust position’. This seemed to make sense, since that’s kinda what my aunt looked like when she adopted what I was later told was in fact the Lotus Position. Of course at that time I was pretending to be a real boy and following Formula One, so I assumed it meant ‘painful, behind’—which again sort of made sense. Yoga—it’s not just the name of a smarter-than-average hat-wearing bear. Actually it’s not that at all. It is, according to last week’s news, either an innocuous system of breathing and stretching that is every British child’s birthright or a sinister plot to turn skinny, bendy people towards the devil. Of course, as one of the non-skinny, unbendy classes, I am tempted to say he can have ‘em. But the charity for all mankind that my faith gives me and my love of supermodels and Fashion TV add a shot of lime to my bitterness.

Anyway, last week’s news was full of reports about two Christian churches in Taunton that refused to host a children’s Yoga class. A BBC presenter on Radio 4 pretty much chuckled all the way through an interview with one of the vicars, saying that a little bit of stretching and bending was hardly going to turn any of the children into devil-worshippers (the Today Programme producer somehow managed to edit out the sound of said presenter patting himself on the back for that one).  A case of confusion and religious ignorance, nothing more? Perhaps. But the devil-worshipping jibe betrays something else.

Beneath the banner of tolerance, under the surface of the ‘let’s not take this too seriously’ frivolity in that one interview is something troubling. It is the assumption that, as long as it is not Satanism, Christians should have no problem with it. In fact, they should embrace pretty much anything, particularly ‘religious stuff’. Why? Because underlying the attitude that cannot believe a Christian church would turn down popular activities just because their form, structure, origins and ultimate meanings are rooted in Hindu and Buddhist religion, is a belief as clear as any Christian fundamentalism. It is that there is no meaningful difference between the religions. If God exists at all , he is accessible by any path as long as it is sincere. It’s a charming belief (I mean that literally, without trying to sound patronising) and one I used to hold. But in a tolerant, religiously free society, that’s all it should be: a competing religious view that differs from that of traditional Christianity. What it has become is the new meaning of the word ‘tolerance’. What it has become is a philosophy that aims to purge society of all competitors, and last week it found many supporters in the media.

Personally, Yoga doesn’t scare me (except in the sense that most of its positions would snap me like a Yarrow stalk) and if you think it’s harmless, cool. But I am also aware that (depending on which practitioner of whichever Dharmic religion you choose to listen to) it is a way of connecting with an impersonal god who I do not recognise as the Lord, a method of attaining enlightenment in nothingness and/or one way to escape the endless cycle of karma and reincarnation. So even if it is for the kids, even if those doing it have sucked all spiritual meaning out of it, Christians have as much right not to support it as atheists have not to be forced to say the Lord’s Prayer, even if they can cross their fingers. 

Tellingly, the media last week also denounced the Chinese state for interfering in the spiritual affairs of Tibetan Buddhists.

 

 

I blame Marilyn Manson. I’m nostalgic that way.

‘Drink, drugs and broken homes.’ It’s not the title of a Country and Western song, or part of Keith Richards’ backstage requirements. It’s actually what the Conservatives are blaming (this week) for the alarming levels of violent crime among young people in the UK. Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said last week that drink, drugs and broken homes have ‘spawned this plague on modern Britain.’ The plague he is referring to is, of course young people. Young people, with their beady eyes and sticky little paws, their iPod3 players plugged into their ears playing their gongster wraps, running about in hoodies, refusing to go to grammar school.  Okay, they’re not really the plague he refers to.  But they might as well be. He clearly agrees with the director of the Victims of Crime Trust, Norman Brennan, who characterised part of the ‘national crisis with knife crime’ as mainly being down to ‘feral youngsters who are roaming our streets.’

First, let me say: way to go on the ‘engaging young people’ agenda. You is down wiv da kidz, yeah, blud? Second, let me say: fair enough. Kids in this country scare me. And the past few weeks’ news of knifings, shootings and beatings either taking place or being sentenced, most involving young people, should be enough to convince anyone that there is something going seriously wrong with our young people. But what is it?

Davis chose to blame drink, as did a senior police chief in whose area a father of three had been murdered by a gang of youths. The thing is, I’ve been drunk. I’ve never beaten, shot or stabbed anybody, not even by mistake. I’ve also seen young people drunk. Certainly they behave more stupidly, but that in itself takes a trained eye to detect.

 Alcohol is a crutch, but it can’t force you to walk anywhere violent. The same goes for Marijuana. Personally I cannot stand the stuff, but I’ve known many dope-smokers. And if there is one thing that I’ve noticed, it’s that smoking dope never made any of them more likely to go outside, chase someone down and kill them. Mainly because it makes people unlikely to leave the couch, never mind the normal bounds of civilized behaviour. That’s its problem. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that drugs and drink are good for kids (or anyone). Drugs tend, in my experience, to make people radically stupider over time. Alcohol is a neurotoxin. Neither of these can be a good thing for society as a whole. But can we blame them (or the supermarkets selling them cheap—I mean alcohol, not drugs, but give Tesco a few years) for violence on our streets? And what about divorce? Certainly it’s a trauma for children but do only broken homes breed thugs?  

Part of me is in favour of this sort of broad-brush scapegoating. If people are blaming the three Ds (drink, drugs and divorce) they might leave the two Ms (Marilyn Manson) alone for a while and he might get saved. But wait a minute. Weren’t we all up in arms about gangsta-rap music last year? And what about violent computer games? Movies from Child’s Play to Reservoir Dogs and Old Boy, aren’t they to blame? I think they play their part. I think the three Ds and even the two Ms in the hands of the wrong person could too. More relevant, though, is a society in which the concept of absolute truth has been eroded (by secular postmodernism and Christian liberalism) to the point where concepts like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are not just situational, they are completely meaningless for most people. Of course young people kill. They have no reason not to.

You have won a kidney… yoink!

There are some Dutch people out there feeling like gimps today. And not because they’ve woken from a night at an Amsterdam ‘coffee-shop’ to find that they’ve eaten their cat-litter (“crunchy”), tv remote (talk about drugs making you lose control) and their goldfish (“Nemo, nooooo!”). They’re probably feeling foolish and, if they are honest with themselves, as callous as the hard bit on someone’s hand that they get from doing a lot of manual labour.

Why? Because they probably texted to vote in that kidney donor reality show. And it turned out to be a hoax. You know the one. Three contestants in dire need of a transplant (each) and one terminally ill donor who would have to decide between them, based on text messages from viewers. On one hand, what a great idea. Shuffling off this mortal coil with some b-grade model with a fixed smile holding your arm as the voiceover beams: ‘tell her what she has won!’ has got to be better than the agony most renal failure patients go through, right? On the other hand, though… are you out of your mind?

People’s suffering and desperation should not be a source of our amusement. A friend of mine has a T-shirt saying: ‘So many Christians. Not enough lions’. It’s a great shirt because we feel safely distant from a world in which some people were deemed so worthless that their desperate struggle for life was a source of entertainment. That’s a million miles away from say, professional boxing. Our watching people from poor communities with no other way out of poverty beat each other into severe brain-damage and applauding their guts (not literally in most cases) from the safety of our couches is nothing like that.

Watching some of the apparently mentally deficient contestants on any number of popular reality shows fight, cry, have sex and demean themselves in juvenile tasks, all for money that might as well be dangled over them on a fish-hook, is equally civilised. As is our reaction when they occasionally slip into racism or other blunders, for which we and our media will crucify them, though only once we’ve finished watching – this is getting good, could you pass me the crisps? There’s a luv.

My counterculture friends and I are equally guilty. There’s nothing like a self-destructive rock-star, because you can really ‘feel the pain in his music, man.’ As are we liberal intellectual, current affairs types (the fascists who rejoice at every 50 insurgents killed are really too easy a target) who watch the war to make our points about politics in general, who don’t quite rejoice that Iraq is a mess but do find any reports of improvements in conditions there inconvenient.

Many were outraged last week at the prospect of a TV show featuring pictures of Princess Dianna moments before her death. Yet we happily watch footage of JFK’s assassination. That cannot just be because she was ours or she was prettier, can it? A key icon of our faith is the naked, beaten, brutalised image of our Saviour as he dies of suffocation following torture. Are we only okay with that because we know it has a happy ending?

As Christ transformed violent death into a source of hope, do we have a duty, or at least an opportunity, to turn the horrific events, images and situations in our world into catalysts for compassion and reflection on eternal priorities? It seems unlikely if we continue to see our options as only either cocooning ourselves from reminders of suffering or text-voting for who lives and dies. And that will only change when we stop viewing life through a television and stop wishing we could change the world’s channel.