The Lone Piper Played. We wept.

[*A brief detour into how the same history of values/philosophy that have shaped our travelling generation, have also shaped our nations far more than that.  The context to this post can be found here and here]

When I saw the predicted polls of the Irish referendum on the 8th amendment [abortion] on Friday night on the Irish Times website after polling closed, I was in disbelief.  Was this another poor attempt by the Irish Times to slant things, like had happened all along in the Irish media?  (The only lone pro-life voices allowed in the year coming up to the referendum were Breda O’Brien’s short snippets in the latter pages of the Irish Times and David Quinn’s column in the Sunday Times.  In the last couple of months, a few solitary voices were added with the aim of giving a semblance of balance.  In reality, speaking up against all the main political parties, all the main media, hundreds of thousands of euros of illegal foreign money, and some political leaders advocating civil disobedience, was always going to be hilarious to try.)

But as we examined the methodology and sample size, it became clear it wasn’t.  And looking to my pro-choice friends, they were also nearly in disbelief and not ready to yet celebrate, until they saw the concrete results.  From a country steeped in tradition, the steeple had toppled years ago, and now the building was leaning towards collapse.  And there was no reparation funds left to do anything about it.

And so I fled.  Fled to County Kerry for a Stag party of a friend.  Not particularly looking forward to the frivolity of such an affair, but pleased to get mental space from over-analysing results, county by county, as they came in.  And it’s just as well I left, as doing it by county would have made no difference to the results, because if you’d shown me a list of them, I wouldn’t even have been able to pick out the constituency I was sitting in, in the rural west, as all apart from Dublin were much of a muchness.  Donegal, the lone dissenter….just.

While we were away, on a rare warm summer evening sitting on Castlegregory beach with the moon shining overhead and a tiny fire to keep us warm, the storm hit the rest of the country, like rarely seen before in Ireland.  The thunder and lightning displays rumbled on for hours.  Many awoke and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Numerous party-goers of “Repeal” celebration parties were left sheltering inside, or deciding to call it a night.  A small blip on the ecstacy of the celebration.

Returning to reality a day later, I stumbled through a Sunday service, not yet having time to process anything emotionally.  It was only alone that afternoon that it all started to sink in.  Heading out for the evening to a pro-life social gathering of the Life Institute in Cork, there was a sombre mood amongst us all.  A few comments struck me over the course of the evening, informally chatting to many who I had never met before:

“Even our Priest told us we couldn’t canvass outside Mass any week.  The next week, they were canvassing for some other charity to help disabled people.  But Pro-life stuff?  Not at all!  The Association of Catholic Priests had told them otherwise.”

 

“Our [evangelical] church leaders only mentioned it once briefly from the front and invited us all to a central meeting not organised by the church.  As if it wasn’t part of the Church’s concern.  As if ending tens of thousands of human lives isn’t something Jesus speaks about much.”

 

“We just don’t know how it went from us hearing far more ‘nos’ on the canvasses to such a concrete ‘yes’ in the vote.  Were people lying on the doors?  Were only old people in their houses in the evenings?  Did people change their mind at the last minute?”

A canvass leader who had connections to canvass leaders up and down the country.

 

“I’m not religious at all, but the timing of the lightning storm last night was creepy.  We’ve never in our lifetime seen anything like it.  Do you think it was connected?”

(On a sidenote, no, no I don’t.  Jesus’ reply in Luke 13 is a helpful place to go to respond to similar questions and superstition)

 

And as the chat died away, and the two eulogies were made, mourning the coming effects of the result, thanking everyone, and urging us to offer better choices for women, so they never had to choose abortion, even if now available.  We stood with tears in our eyes.

Tears, not that the steeple was gone or that the building was following, because that was not what many, if any of us were caring about.  Owning the skyline of a city is fairly meaningless unless one lives out a warm moral fabric in beautiful communities to go with it.  Particularly for the many atheist pro-life campaigners in the room who don’t even identify with the skyline at all, but were still weeping.

From one bridge further along, 8 church steeples can be seen towering over the city.

The tears were more because of what replaced those communities inside.  Communities that once oozed with a sacrificial love for humanity, in light of the sacrificial, servant Saviour they claimed to follow.  Communities that were quick to confess their short-comings to each other and forgive, and would never hold any human on a pedestal without account.  Communities that made inroads into developing education, healthcare, legal systems, charities, family life.  Communities that most in Ireland have not seen for many a generation.  Their downfall was first inside:

First came the religious elite in powerful positions, able to put on a good show, but underneath not all was well.  Moral corruption.

Second came those who were happy to keep the show going at any cost, despite knowing all was not well morally.  No questions allowed.  Shame the unbeliever.

Third came those who, when knowing the show was not going well, were gradually consumed by apathy: is this even real?

Fourth came those still who would see the nice things in the show, but not want the uglier side and would pick of what they indulged.

Fifthly came those who wanted rid of it all, seeing that the constructs woven into society originally by these communities had become decrepit, purposeless, for power hungry men to defend, and running contrary to the needs of society.

And losing an awareness at each level of anything bigger than themselves, many (including the religious elite) would see they had easier options than to sacrificially love another.  At one end of the scale, the scandals that rocked the church when self-gratification in a lonely role, overtook sacrificial love.  At the other, a misunderstanding that being moral was the message of Christianity and shaming those who weren’t perceived to be – a message that is the exact opposite of the true good news of a sacrificial Saviour who died on our behalf as we were not moral enough.

At each stage we started to doubt and then remove the very basis of sacrificial love and so our individualised rights and choices became the defining factors.  “Do not harm” replaced the far greater call to “love your neighbour”.  Communities that are now even prepared to take other human lives, on the altar of choice.

At what point should the constructs of the old community, so hewn into society and life, be torn down brick by brick for our own good?  And to what cost on the passerby, would falling bricks be, before the constructs of new communities arise?

Afterwards, cutting through the quiet rumble of voices, and the backing of a trad band playing in the corner, a lone piper started his drone.  And after hauntingly working his way through Irish airs, the famous Scottish anthem rang out:

“Those days are passed now
And in the past they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
That stood against him
Proud Edward’s army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again”

We seem to be good at defining ourselves on what we are against.  The past.  The English.  The Church.

What awaits to be seen is what will replace the steeples on our skyline, and whether we can ever move beyond anger, to a positive rubric for Irish life.  For the meantime, I fear much more anger to come and many more innocents suffering the consequences of our anger.

The lone piper continued to play.

The room went silent.

 

We wept.

 

10 for travellers to read in 2018

I’m a big reader.  Partly because I do think readers are leaders.  You could spend worse time and money then learning from the best of thinkers and practitioners round the world.  And so here’s 10 (mostly recent publications) that I got for Christmas, that I think you might like!

Journey: an illustrated history of travel

This coffee table book is a dream for the traveller!  Tracing the history of travel from several millennia ago, its pictures and bitesize format will lead to hours of fun facts and stories you may or may not know about travel.

For the more serious historian or reader, there’s enough to whet your appetite, and enough to send you off down a hundred other rabbit trails of things you want to investigate further.  At £25, it’s not cheap, but I intend it’ll get every pence of value sitting in my living room for others.

Is Shame Necessary? (Jennifer Jacquet)

I’ve written before about how much of the world we see through our own cultural lenses.  Understanding shame/honour culture I think is key to understanding so much of history, world politics, religion and much more of personal interactions in our lives.  While those from such cultures will find this little book humorous and highly entertaining to see a westerner approach such a common sense topic (to you), it is however needed for us over here who have never thought the world could be seen that way!

The Strange Death of Europe (Douglas Murray)

I was quite nervous of this treaty on immigration, identity and Islam, but it was recommended to me by those across a spectrum that I respected, and so I have started reading a book that appears to be a Conservative treatment on a topic I tend to take a more liberal stance on.  Whether Islam or secularism will dominate Europe in the decades to come will be a question that will not leave us for a while, and this, regardless of your opinion, is a well researched book.  Travelling Europe without thinking these questions could be blind travelling.  I can feel my pulse racing…

The Qur’an (Nicolai Sinai, Edinburgh Uni. Press)

A tsunami is coming!  After several hundred years of rigorous historical criticism of the Bible, this work has drawn together where we are with historical criticism of the Qur’an (just starting).  It’s a brave work to some extents, given what happens to those who suggest the Qur’an might not be the revealed message of Allah, but on other levels it will only be the start of fierce, western dragging of the text through critique in the decades to come.  I’m not sure how much westerners doing this, or how much us pretending Islam is a text-based religion will take affect, the way Biblical criticism did, but it’s a key read if you’re interested in the same discussion as the book above, or are travelling any Islamic state.

Zero Waste Home (Bea Johnson, Penguin)

Given the environmental impact on the world that travelling often makes, I would hope that most of us who travel, would be conscious of this, and looking to cut down our negative impact on the world, and on future generations (should there be future generations).  Bea Johnson is one of the leading voices over the years on cutting out waste from our lives, while still living normal lives.  I could imagine travellers will relate to her life of simplicity and absence of “stuff”.  The consequences are large enough, if put into action, that I’d suggest reading this one with a friend (to chat it through) or taking it slowly.  (And yes, I’m aware it’s ironic I’m buying a book on reducing waste…but I do want others to borrow it from my library, and that’s easier than Kindle!)

Cork Folk Tales (Kate Corkery)

Because every country/region has a rich story to tell, and folk tales are often what grab the imagination and help us see the mundane with a splash of colour.

Determined to Believe? (Prof John Lennox)

I’m a big Lennox fan.  I helped to organise his tour of Ireland recently, have sold hundreds of his books over the years.  Having said that, this looks like a polemic against a straw man Calvinism, veering many miles away from where Lennox is best: science (and faith).  I read it reluctantly while praying and longing for the day that the protestant/evangelical church will see that reformed/arminian distinctions don’t need to bitterly divide us.

“[insert Calvinism or Arminianism] will be the death of the church in [insert country/place]”.  No, no it won’t.  And if you think it will, your God is quite small.

JI Packer wrote a marvelous uniting book, speaking into a Christian Union situation in the UK that was divided on the topic.  I hope I’ve not judged this book by its cover.  Why for travellers?  Free will, determinism, compatibilism (and other variants) shape every culture, country, and thing that we do.  To understand culture well, you’d be wise to look at such questions, philosophical as they may be.

The Silk Roads (Peter Frankopan)

It was a bestseller of last year in many charts and one that is key reading to those who had western-centred history lessons.  “The region of the Silk Roads is obscure to many in the English-speaking world. Yet the region linking East with West is where civilization itself began, where the world’s great religions were born and took root, where goods were exchanged, and where languages, ideas and disease spread.”  Fascinating!  Things that will shape your travels in many places.

The Westminster Assembly (Robert Letham)

Perhaps the most abstract and oldest on the list, I’m reading this to get my head around why the Church wrote some confessions of faith, what context they wrote them into and whether they are relevant for today.  Not inspiring to you?  Well stop just for one second.  We all have s system of beliefs, much as we like to say “I just believe the Bible and follow Jesus”.  The question is whether your system of beliefs matches what the weight of scripture teaches, freeing you to live in the best way in life: Jesus’ way?  I’ve found these truths to be invigorating in general life but also life-giving as I travel the globe, but am still wrestling with whether my reading of them was what the original authors had in mind!  If you’re not reformed in theology, I might suggest that you read up on it anyway, so that when you critique it, you’re reacting to the best of it, and not the worst.  A good rule anything you critique in 2018, in fact.

Birds

Because Jesus has given me a love for all things, and my mother has given me a love for what she loves: birds.  And this book to identify ones will be fun when I’m walking the banks of the Lee in Cork, or travelling to far flung places with tropical birds.

But don’t be put off by long lists:

1. Your passions will be different to mine – don’t feel constrained by what I like!
2. One chapter a day will get you readings a huge number of books this year.  Build it into your routine, or grab others to discuss what you read.
3. I’ve deliberately not mentioned all the regular books I read to warm my heart with the good news of Jesus.  I always try and prioritise Bible reading and these, over anything else I read.  Academic views will change, but the Word of God will never change.  However, these titles may help us better understand the Word of God.

Travelling to find yourself

8am and I’m currently sitting in the Glendalough International Hostel in the Wicklow “Mountains” in Ireland.  Staying here as a cheap night away from travelling round Ireland with work but also because I’ve heard some of the trail runs at the top of the hills round the lakes are stunning.  Little did I know that I’d be out running at 5am, and arrive back in at 7am to find my room-mates still sleeping.  They probably thought such a tranquil hostel didn’t have these late night party-ers and early morning flight-get-ers that so often ruin the hostel night’s sleep.

But getting up for 5am runs doesn’t really feel like who I am.  There are “runners” who do that every day or regularly, like the person I went out running with.  But I’m definitely not one of them.

But equally who am I?  It’s a misty, murky question.

Walking Glendalough lakes, with a friend wrestling about His identity (C)  03/07/17

I’ve many friends and I meet people all the time on their travels who are trying to find this out.  Generally you can tell either from what they post on facebook, or from where they invest their time, money and life.  Particularly among the travelling community, such questions are huge, because traditional ties to family or nationality/region are so often rejected (though in some cases nationality becomes a big outward identity, even if the person is in crisis and no longer feels like that inwardly when they’re back home).  The traveller, to some extent, will have to journey alone in finding their identity, as so often their experiences will be unique.

And perhaps that has to be key: we are unique.  Perhaps not as unique as we’d like to think in our shared humanity, but unique none-the-less.  We have to be more than the sum of our parts, and we desperately hope that is true.  As humans we are sexual beings, but we’re more than our sexuality, important as it is.  As humans we’re connected beings, but we’re more than our connections and relationships.  And as humans we’re creative beings in our jobs, hobbies and elsewhere, but we’re more than just “a painter” or “a hurling player”.

And the trouble with all of these things, that if we let them define us, we’ll be ruined.  We’ll sell ourselves short of who we really are or even worse, end up mentally unstable.  And yet it’s what we constantly do in a bid to make ourselves seem something.  So what’s the solution?

Walking Glendalough lakes, with a friend wrestling about His identity (C)  03/07/17

Well, perhaps just to invest our identity in so many things that even if they go wrong, we’ll have a well balanced life still.  Risky, but it normally pays off, unless you get some catastrophe in life.  That’s largely the secular response (with variations on a theme).

Or what if we could have an identity that lay outside of ourselves?  Many would immediately think that it’s demeaning – a denial of our uniqueness and everything that we are.  And what would it even look like?  Most worldviews that promise such, end up being nonsense claims, as that religion or worldview just becomes a part of an inner struggle to achieve in life.  If you do badly at the worldview or religion, you’re back down doubting your identity as that, or struggling mentally.  It’s just one more part of life.  But someone once showed me one identity different to that.

It was an identity outside of myself that freed me to truly start to get to know myself over time.  An identity that had nothing to do with my performance in life or whether something was removed from me.

And if you’ll hold off your initial scepticism long enough to read on a paragraph or two, I’d claim that identity was Jesus and being found in Him.  Not in my performance following him, or my religiosity.  But in Him, Himself.  And I’ve found that because He claims to have made everything (including me, by whatever long, earthy processes that involved), and He therefore knows me better than I know myself, that I can find myself more and more, as I delve deeper into knowing and experiencing my identity in Him.

• I can face serious hockey injuries, without fearing my identity will be taken from me.
• I can sit beside Republican and Loyalist alike, in my home city, and chat to them both and concede some things to both politically, because my identity is not in my politics (even if I am still passionate about it).
• I can face being given the diagnosis of a long term medical condition a few years ago, that will shape my life, largely because my identity is not in my health or working capabilities.
• I can face and even enjoy singleness (without porn, sex or even masturbation), because much as I am a sexual being, I am not defined by it.  I am freed to enjoy sex as my creator intended it.
• I can face the times that I severely doubt the evidence for Jesus, because ultimately, the truth (or lack of) it doesn’t rely on my reasoning alone but on things outside of myself (which I would say give us good grounds for belief).

Because my identity in Him, is a “loved child of God”; a gift from the Father to the Son; one who is sitting reigning with Christ in the heavenly realms; one who is destined for a better world to come.

And it’s freeing!

I’m free to stop travelling the world (metaphorically and physically) to find myself (and now just to do it to enjoy Him and His world).  I’m free to try to love others better who are radically different to me, because if my identity is secure in Christ, I need not fear anything else and can focus all my time and energy on looking outwards to others, even if they’re hard to love.  And in fact, I’d argue it’s the only legitimate philosophical reason that we “ought” to care about others – because we were made for it – our identity as children of God will lead us to love God, and love others at its heart.

Give me a bunch of people who believe this radical truth deeply from the core of their being, and you’ll have an army of servant-hearted foot-washers, freed to change the world for the better. Sadly, my own heart so quickly forgets it and needs reminded of it again.

So fellow traveller, don’t let “Christian” or “Jesus” just become another word on your list of identities.  Lose yourself in Him!   And truly find yourself again in light of it.

[For more resources on this topic, read John’s eyewitness account of Jesus’ life, the ancient letter to the Colossian church from the Apostle Paul, or anything on here: www.bethinking.org (search: identity)]

Easy to lose the woods for the trees in the identity question!  Glendalough, 03/07/17

How can we live together in a pluralistic society?

Two top thinkers in the world discuss this in NYU.  This is a treat.

Travel and Environment

I have a problem.

Ireland.  Ireland is an island.

I mean, it’s not so much my problem as it’s a fact.  Something that isn’t likely to change soon.  But it effects my moral decisions no end.  It’s part of the reason that one set of ethical applications just can’t be forced on everyone in set ways worldwide.  Because some of you reading this, won’t be on an island.

Why does this affect me morally?  Well it means all sorts of things but I’ll start with two.

• Nearly everything I buy has travelled more miles than I have in the last year (and that’s saying something).  From my tomatoes (from Morocco) to my laptop (from America) and my car (from Japan), not to mention most of my worldly goods that have “made in China” stamped on them.  And miles mean shipping, or more often than not with perishable food, flying.  Every week I pay for some perishable food to be flown for me to my house (well, my local shop).  And that affects the environment.
• To visit uni friends, I must fly.  To visit family, I must fly.  To better work at my job, I must fly.  Being on an island involves airports.  And that affects the environment.

So for every shop purchase, and every flight, I am affecting the environment and must decide whether my convenience is worth that cost.  And it’s hard, because the cost is unknown to some degree.  It doesn’t wave at me in the face.  And when it does (in the form of rising sea levels, melting ice caps, shifts in weather patterns etc), it is so easily challenged or justified.  “I’m only me.  What about the big corporations?  What about the countries ignoring the environment?  What about those who fly every day?”

It’s so easy to see corporate responsibility, point fingers, and never look at my own life.  Which is where I find this book, brilliant.  It challenges without overwhelming.  It inspires and amuses, whilst still making a point.  It has helped shape my life in recent years, alongside other things.  I urge you traveller, take this world and its environment seriously!  At the very least, look into carbon off-setting and sign up to someone like Tearfund’s updates to keep you  thinking.  And for your church, find something to keep you accountable like Eco Congregation Ireland.

But as the book rightly points out, we’re working on this one together, so please don’t get on your high horse about every minor thing you think you’re doing that others aren’t.  Some of the most environmentally friendly people I know in Cork (nearly zero waste, their own well etc), I’ve never heard them mention it.  Beautiful living.

Book review: The Art of Travel (De Botton, Penguin, 2002)

1. What worldview gives unfettered freedom to travel and enjoy the world (in the present)?

2. What worldview frees you from being controlled by such desires and travels?

These are the two questions in which I would sum up Alain de Botton’s riveting book.  He’d probably shoot me for saying it.  But let me explain.

This book is a treat.  With art and culture scattered throughout the book, Alain finds some obscure tour guides of past culture and history to introduce us to aspects of travel.  When he’s not doing this, he’s inserting tales of his own, but never in a way that leaves you feeling like that awkward person at the party who has to listen to everyone never shutting up about their travels to far flung lands.  His use of the English language, his way of portraying even bland scenes, and his command of imagery is stunning, and is worth the read even for that.

But like all post-modern writers, they strike a grave difficulty as they attempt to lead you on a joyful, purposeless wander through (in this case) travel.  Because at some point, free-ing as it seems to be offered unfettered, chaotic travel, a big, bad “BUT” comes in.

In this case with Alain, his BUT is an understanding that we can live in chaos.  He gets to a third of the way through a book with random tales, but then he insists on preaching his ordered, secular message to us through the words of another, that “any attempts to create order imply a censorious and prudish denial of our condition” (p. 783 Kindle).  In other words, “if you try to tell me how to travel and insert some order into travel, you can get lost, because that’s not how we are” [or how I want to be].  I mean it’s a nuanced attempt (and far more nuanced than some art that derides a word-centred worldview and then has to describe what the art means, in words) to tell us that we don’t live in an ordered world…..with ordered words, in a book that doubtless has order and intentionality.

And with this, he fails to convince me on the first question, that the secular worldview can give us unfettered freedom to travel with no order or law to how you go about it.  Apart from his secular law which he’ll now proclaim.

Found here, some common Stoic thought

However to the second question, he gives a far more interesting answer that no matter what worldview you adhere to, you would do well to listen.  He never says it outright, but he insinuates that we’ll never be able to remain chasing big travel moments and be happy.  The reality lies beyond the travel brochure pictures which painted for us the idyllic, and set our expectations so high that we couldn’t help but be disappointed.

And in realising things like this, De Botton concludes that happiness is primarily psychological, not material (p. 273 Kindle).  Happiness cannot be decided by how many places we visit, or the state of the places we find (for we would always fall short or be disappointed).  So happiness must involve expectations and imagination and being content like the Stoics.  The traveller is not merely chasing the present experience, but potentially also the memory and the dream, and being content in the present (where we are, what we have deemed ourselves to be).  In his documentary, he goes nearly further into Eastern thought, and suggests that we should try to lose ourselves and our feelings, in order to gain happiness.

But another sad thing for the stoic, is that he deems that he’s unable to change messy reality, and therefore, he must create a new one (p. 926 Kindle).  He thinks that this is free-ing because it doesn’t nail his colours to one thing, and leave him standing against others.  For example, in creating his identity as a Chinese-Arab person, he doesn’t force himself to forever be either one, and against the other (p. 941 Kindle).  But surely this is a false dichotomy?  What if the Christian traveller could be fully Chinese (what he truly was born), yet delight in all nations, and have a passion for all peoples?  He could learn from all cultures, all genders, all occupations, all languages, and yet realise he is a limited creature, and cannot delude himself into thinking he will be all things to all men perfectly.  Surely in realising his limitations, it would free him to enjoy adventuring to expand his horizons?

In several brief and borrowed moments of sanity, the author (through Nietzsche) borrows from Christian belief, in seeing that what you believe changes how you act, and therefore changes stuff (p. 1059 Kindle).  Or so it should.  It shouldn’t remain a dry construct on a page.  Other things follow on, that the majesty of nature brings out good in us (p. 1447) and that it makes us feel small (p. 1552).  The the sublime is really sublime in the world, because we feel weak (p. 1562).  Turning Pascal around (p.1904 Kindle), he instead says that in painting an image, we point to something we can create, more beautiful than the original, perhaps.  But Pascal’s point was that we point to a creator, in the things we paint.  They are mere shadows, not because we could imagine better, but because there is better, in another place – a new Heavens and a new Earth.  And so it’s on those dispersed notes that I finish.

Can the secular worldview give unfettered freedom to travel the world?  

Well, not while it continues to be a preached, wordy message, telling us exclusively what to think about reality.  That’s no more freeing than the Christian exclusive message.

Can such a secular worldview free us from being controlled by such desires from travel, to enjoy the small things in life?  

I’d argue not as well as the Christian message could, that has our identity firmly in other places (in Christ) and frees us to enjoy the world under His Lordship without being controlled by it.  For His yoke is a light one, and His New Creation a million more times stunning than the beautiful ruin we stand in front of now.  And in the meantime, He enables us to engage the messiness straight on, and not have to re-create ourselves to try and avoid it.

Will you buy the secular vision of travel?  It promises so much.  But will it live up to its calling?  Or will it be vanity – mere soapy bubbles.  All talk but no substance.

Why Jesus enables unity in the world more than any other.

Elsewhere, for another blog, I was writing on how unity can be brought about from great diversity, and what motivates me to put my life to this cause.  I wanted to respect exactly that: the diversity of ways this might be achieved, and so I didn’t explicitly state how I think the [evangelical] Christian worldview best equips people to do just that.  But for those who are interested, here are some quick thoughts:

1. Only the Christian worldview has its foundation as a perfectly diverse community (Father, Son, Spirit), united as One (a Triune God). If this is the core of how a worldview works, you could expect this to be mirrored in society by Christians.
2. Only the Christian worldview has a founder (Jesus) who lays down His life and His rights for a disunited people (his enemies), and says He’ll give them a power within themselves (individually and as a community) to live in light of that, seeking the needs of others first, as He did.
3. Only the Christian worldview gives an identity in life (in Christ) that has no link to any earthly kingdom, but still gives great reason that we ought to attempt in His strength to transform communities until a new Heaven and earth appear
4. Only the Christian worldview explains our longing for something better. Why ought the world be better?  Why ought we aim to cause good and not evil?  The Christian account of how the world came to be (regardless of how that looks scientifically, which I’m happy to discuss) has the world as a beautiful ruin.  Beautifully made, but ruined to its core.  And so we should expect to see both of those present in everything: beauty and ruin.  Or as Pascal said, glory and garbage.

If any other worldview does any of those things, I’ll be happy to stand corrected!  Sadly, this is not to say that all 4 of these have been lived out by local Christians.

We see Christians forgetting that we are all unique and different, and trying to force a theocracy on everyone.  Ultimately the “god” they force on everyone tends to look a little like themselves, and thinks that way too!

We see Christians wanting to fight for their rights first, even when that comes at the expense of others.  Perhaps some who take their privileged status in the west, and never seek to constantly be looking to bless others from it.

We see Christian DUP fanatics claiming that their identity is primarily in Christ, when all they speak of is politics and vilifying the “other” side.  Equally I see evangelical Sinn Fein supporters in Cork who would advocate taking up arms still against the British.

We see Christians who refuse to see good in other worldviews and political opinions.  Who make straw men arguments and vilify others.  They see everything as black and white, so their cause is easier to defend.  They forget we’re all beautiful humans with some good and some bad.  They forget we’re all ruined with some ruin in our own views/thinking.

What might this look like?

Well it looks diverse.  It could mean being a left-wing councillor of Sinn Fein in west Cork (who I’ve sat next to in church), being a right wing conservative (David Quin of the Iona Institute), or being a middle of the road, centre-ground person.  But whatever it looks like, it’ll mean first of all having our identity in something not of this world, but in someone who will come and re-create all things.

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death –
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Another remnant of British days in Ireland, visited this weekend.

A united DUP and Sinn Féin?! Thoughts on unity, diversity and elections, from Cork.

The thick arm slowly contracted around my neck, squeezing just a bit too much for my liking.  The hearty laugh of the large figure who was keeping me captive once again boomed out over the countryside of west Cork “you British planting parasite, I’ll kill you one day when I come with my army!”  I didn’t care to lift my Irish passport, nor scold him in Irish for his banter.  My crime?  Suspicion that my schooling in east Belfast, my sporting associations (playing hockey), and my mixed family backgrounds made me one of the “other” side.

That was Seamus*, my good friend, and my teacher of Irish history from a different perspective. Driving home from the heart of west Cork to my home in Cork city, I’m in a contemplative mood.  Putting Seamus’ jokes aside, there are still many deep divisions on this island.  We don’t need to point fingers at Trump’s sweeping generalisations about certain demographics of the world population, to see fingers pointing back to us, asking us what we’re doing about the division we’re part of.  The division that remains far longer that it should, because we consider our only political action is voting.  And then we sit in despair for four years and wait.  We mock those “other”s who we voted into power and pretend they’re very different to us.  Horrible people, those politicians out there!

But it doesn’t need to be politicians, or for that matter the paramilitaries who bombed my Dad’s shop twice, or the lads who held me up at knife point at the local pitches when asking me what Scottish team I supported (Aberdeen FC, for the record).  We’re quick to cause division regardless of the topic.

So how can we get on together as a society?

Some of it I suggest comes in understanding each other.  Perhaps sitting side by side in education and seeing each other as normal human beings might be a start.  But more than shared experiences, Jonathan Haidt, a democrat and social psychologist in the US, has written a book that has address this very topic.  In his book he makes the case that we first understand we’re not as rational as we’d like to think.  We often make gut instinct decisions and then rationalise them afterwards.  Like a tiny rider (our reason) on a lumbering elephant (our emotions) walking along a tricky path (circumstances of life), we often struggle to end up bringing about the change we desire and get where we want to go.

He also suggests that as those on the left and right of the political spectrum we have different values that mean we talk past each other a lot of the time, as if the “other side” are just stupid and morally deficient.  It’s easier to throw metaphorical (or in our case physical) bricks at the opposite side, than it is to sit beside them, put our arms around each other as humans, and help each other move towards a shared future of unity amidst diversity.

Grasp these two things, and a lot of what will be “successful” in election campaigning will make sense to you, and you’ll be better equipped to sit down and work out what would be persuasive to those of diverse opinions.

I help to lead a team of people, running various community spaces in universities and cities across Munster.  Each week, hundreds of people from various countries, counties, social backgrounds, races, political views and worldviews all pile in to events.  And when I say events, I mean more communities.  Communities that aim to break down walls and integrate everyone into a society that will help everyone stay in a learning posture.

My one problem is that it’s hard.  Loving people who are different to me is difficult.  I’d rather find people of like mind, and enjoy a whale of a night out with them.  To find ourselves in a place where we’re naturally rubbing shoulders with every type of person regularly is a rare opportunity that I’ve been blessed with, that is not realistically achievable for everyone.

Why do I have this desire, and what ought to motivate us to get on and do this?

I’m sure there are various answers to this, and so I won’t bore you with mine (you can find it here, if you are interested).  But I’d challenge you to ask yourself whether your worldview that you hold to, will give you the motivation to spend an other-person-centred life, serving the needs of society in its full diversity (and not just forcing a uniformity of thought on them all)?  As the university I work in says:

Muslim Immigration in Europe: masculinity, politics and law

Working in a university has its advantages, and Friday night was one of them.  Public lectures on relevant topics, by those with suitable qualifications.  UCC had me excited with this one.  And so too were many of the university staff, with most in attendance being from the related fields of study within UCC (those lecturers chatting behind me were lecturers in middle eastern art history, and history of gender studies).  But sadly I was left walking out of the majestic Aula Maxima into the darkness, even more confused than I had been before.  Where did it all go wrong?

The UCC president (Dr Murphy) opened on a fascinating note by telling us of the huge changes in Irish society and in UCC.  in 1990 there was only 4% of Ireland who were non-native (not born in Ireland).  By about 2011 there was 12-14% non-native living within the shores.  Nods were taken from the professor who specialised in Irish migration.  You couldn’t say anything wrong here, given those specialists attending.  Or could you?

What followed was two fairly unrelated speeches from high profile speakers, both women who came from a Muslim background.  One, Tasmina, who is MP for Ochil and South Perthshire seemed keener to tell us about her achievements in life and her passions as an SNP politician.  And much as a woman who had achieved so much was fascinating to listen to, I did wonder whether I’d come to listen to an inspiring SNP politician (the inspiring part need not be linked to the SNP part) or someone speaking on the topic in hand.  Brief reference was made to how SNP policy endorsed more open borders than others would.

Following on was Dr Samia Bano, from SOAS London who started by trying to tell us that she would be very academic (I’m not sure why she thought this would be a problem), and then proceeded to speak on a range of issues, some of which tried to separate Islamic culture from religion, some which tried to persuade us that we could contextualise and re-interpret the Qu’ran, and some which tried to persuade us of the forward leaning nature of many of the Muslims within Islamic communities in the UK.

But I couldn’t help but think what the Islamic Society (or the local mosque for that matter) would have thought about such attempts to separate culture and religion, to re-interpret the Qu’ran (or even reinterpret a copy of the translation of the Qu’ran, as I’m not sure what levels of Arabic were actually read by either panellist), or to persuade us that the Islam could be up-to-date with the latest gender theories and feminist issues.  Or to even what extent they’d want to do that.  For the religion that completely bows to the theories of the day, and whatever direction the wind is blowing, ultimately gives up its right to objective truth.

Liberal academics may try and persuade us that Islam says one thing or another.  But in reality, the only questions on people’s lips were:

• what is the essence of Islam (if there is one)?
• how can change be brought about?

And if one thing were fairly obvious, it was that the panellists were trying to make the Qu’ran say what they wanted to hear.  And that because of that, change will only occur in the outer echelons of liberal or nominal Islamic communities.

To know what is actually believed in Islam, or to bring about change, I would suggest one may need to be side-by-side at the heart of such communities.  And so I find myself in a local mosque again tomorrow, as well as reading some academic works.  The disconnect is huge.

The main point I took away from the evening?  How much travel is impacting Irish society, both in immigration and otherwise.  Thanks Dr Murphy!

Above all: do not harm

It’s the heartbeat of modern culture.

“Do not harm”

It’s the moral standard of the day.  Unfettered freedom until harm is caused.  We can get drunk (normally seen to be no harm to others) as long as we don’t get violent or harm anyone.  We can have sex galore (supposedly no harm), until there is not consent (harm).  We can have gay marriage (which culture would say is no harm) but not paedophilia (which does harm minors).

But how did we arrive here and why does our utopia involve as much freedom as possible, until harm is involved?

Although some point to documents like the Hippocratic Oath as things that had this principle in, it would appear that such principles read this into the oath more than it actually says.

John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” is a classic text to read.

I think current versions of age-old principles stem from influential political philosophers like John Stuart Mills and John Rawls who, although coming from supposedly different philosophical frameworks (one Kantian and the other utilitarian), have both spoken into
the common mindset of how most of us think on this topic.  Without reading them, I doubt we’ll understand how our moral compass is wired today and how we’ve largely bought them, hook, line and sinker.

One increasingly frequent push-back on this take on “harm” is summed up in this Guardian video which asks whether sitting back and not harming people is enough.  Should we not be campaigning on behalf of the harmed and shaping our lives round that?  Understandingly, given the implications for each of our lives, there’s quite some reaction to it in the comment section.  It reminds me of Edmund Burke’s famous saying (see left), that certainly comes closer to a Biblical definition of harm (that includes things we don’t do [sins of omission] as well as things we do [sins of commission]).

Is harm the be all and end all?  Well, in my mind it depends what you mean by harm.