Once more unto the Barricades!

We Need "to show solidarity with the large numbers of people who are suffering as a result of government cutbacks".

We also must raise protest "on behalf of those losing their jobs, seeing their public services undermined, their hopes for higher education jeopardised, or their fears realised through the creation of what increasingly seems like a less caring, more brutalised society, and where vast bonuses form the contemptuous retort to any mention of restraint, and the black economy of the super-tax dodger is seen as a legitimate moral code"

Who could the speaker of these words possibly be? Is it an irate Len McCluskey sounding another call to arms? Is it Ed Miliband changing his mind and finally deciding to reveal his true colours as 'Red Ed'; the monster from the wild and desolate hinterlands of the left that the Tory press always knew him to be?

Well no, not exactly- it is in fact the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade.

Look at him! Look at Nicholas Reade! He clearly has 'dangerous Radical' and 'Turbulent Priest' written all over him. The clerical collar gives him away. The Full article can be found here.

I am really of course, supportive of stories that show the Church concerned with the poor rather than gays or women for a change, though I am though intrigued by what is meant by 'christian protest', as if it is somehow objectively different from other protests.

Perhaps he does, after all people are already quite used to Christians standing in the street shouting random slogans at them or else handing out battered-looking leaflets- This being the case, maybe we do need to sharpen our approach when it comes to protest. After a quick brainstorm I've come up with some suggestions which I humbly submit for the Bishop:

1) Possibly something like this- though with a change of words? Perhaps we should chant James 5:1-6 antiphonally? Or for the more modern worshipper of course perhaps turn it into a new four chord song involving hand-raising and a frustratingly catchy chorus?

2) Why stick to forming a mere human chain when one can form a human Rosary?

3) In the spirit of the liturgical season, when challenged by police or store-owners, insist that you were led to this point by a star and can't really move on until 'something miraculous has happened'.

Of course, the best examples of biblical, and whilst there is of course the option of writing scathing letters or overturning money tables, I think they'll be expecting that sort of thing the crafty dodgers, so instead I offer 2 of my personal favourites-

4) Marry a prostitute- give birth to children and name them things like 'Fatally Compromised' or 'Forsaken by God' (Hosea 1)

5) Lie on your left side for 390 days without turning over and on your right for 40 days, eat only bread baked using cow manure as fuel, when this period is up take a sword and cut off your hair and beard- proceed then to burn 1/3 of it, scatter 1/3 of it to the wind and with the remaining third, walk around attacking it with the sword. (Ezekiel 4, 5)

Now if that doesn't show the authorities we mean business, I don't think we will ever get the message through to the authorities. I look forward to seeing the Bishop on the warpath in the new year.

Finally I would just like to wish anyone reading this a very Merry Christmas, I hope the day itself is particularly good and happy. I would offer best wishes for the New Year, but I'm not sure if I'll find something to say before then, so maybe, maybe a Happy New Year to you as well!

The Politics of Jesus, no fast answers

It is strange with so much going on- the loss of up to 100,000 public sector jobs, the possibility of a rise in absolute Child poverty for the first time in 15 years according to the IFS or the deeply discomforting treatment of Jody McIntyre by the politicians and the press or the Beeb, that I would decide to pick a blog post about Mehdi Hasan's recent article over the politics of Jesus in conjunction with Mike Ion's article to the same end focusing though on the nativity.

The other things of course deserve comment, they should not be allowed to pass by without mention lest they be ignored by a wider public, though in the last case it has already been done with such blistering brilliance by Laurie Penny that there is truly nothing further to say on my part.

Fact of the matter is though that coming from a religious perspective as I do, the so-called politics of Christ and the Gospels surely comes at the heart of whatever response I should wish to make. In trying to align myself towards the divine goodness, the words and deeds of the Incarnate Deity should act as an anchor, a polar object which other ideas revolve around. For a theological response to have any worth in its contribution to a debate it must find agreement with its sources.

And I wish I could say that I felt the matter was as open and shut as Mike and Mehdi wish to make out, but I can't quite see the evidence for the assertion either that Jesus would likely have been throwing stones at Fred Goodwin's house, or that the implications for the Roman Empire were the 'single most important fact' of the Nativity. My principal objection to this is that both these sorts of views actually represent and narrowing, and a limiting of the Gospel proclamation.

There is always a certian amount of twisting involved when we apply 19th century social and economic theories to what has preceded it- and we shouldn't automatically assume that a particular action is always prompted by the same motivations. Ultimately, I do not believe that Jesus should be seen as a left-wing activist bent on improving society. This isn't the whole story. We should be careful about portraying Jesus as a political figure at all- if we look at the gospels in their wholeness, rather than commit the factionalist/fundamentalist error of quoting scripture shorn of wider context and then assume the fragment speaks for the whole, then it becomes quite clear that there is a distinct...otherworldly quialty to Jesus.

Jesus came to preach the Kingdom of God, not tear down the Kingdoms of Men. His activity, his mission, his very being is directed towards the will of God, and his ministry is not presented as simply a shaking up of the earthly order (quite the opposite in fact) but rather a cosmic 'game-changer' in the relationship between God and Man, that also opens itself to a reshuffling of human relationships towards each other.

I don't wish to claim that Jesus is right wing, left wing whatever wing really. The Jesus of the gospel accounts always seems to evade sloppy categorization and anyone who takes the accounts seriously would have a hard time trying to make him the poster boy for any social movement. This is not the first time of course that individuals have tried to make a political figure out of the Messiah when Mike Ion asserts the most important thing about Jesus is that he represents 'a drastic political challenge to the imperial power of Rome.' He makes common cause with many first century Jews who hoped, nay, expected the same thing. The Messiah was meant to be a political liberator who would restore Israel to its former glory. Yet the Messiah when he came did no such thing.

If Jesus overthrew Roman Rule, he picked the most impractical way of doing it; wandering around and engaging in religious teaching and dispute before getting executed as a criminal, leaving behind a seminal faith that would later go on and eventually ally themselves with the Empire- the effects of which can still be felt today, notably with the Bishops in the Lords for example.

I am not saying of course that one cannot be Christian and stand up for the things outlined in Mehdi's article, I truly believe that one can hold both without tension; Jesus is a countercultural character- he associates with the marginalised of society and dishes out a strong critique of the religious authorities and teaches that he who is last shall be first, but we shouldn't try to impose a political, ideological system onto this. There must be room for the religious, spiritual dimension to the message of Christ if we are to understand him at all. Healing the sick isn't signalling support for a tax-funded system of healthcare its a revelation of what the future holds and what a life of faith entails. It seems more likely to me that the workers at the vineyard is more likely first and foremost about salvation in the fullest sense being available whenever one takes it rather than being literally about workers wages.

My fear is that by hammering Jesus into a particular ideological straitjacket we risk alienating those of religious sentiment but with different political opinions. Jesus is not a partisan, for the faithful at least, he is meant to act as a force for unity and holding together the contradictions that arise between people. He is a bridge, not a barricade. the idea that any side would want to score cheap points by claiming him for their own is a little disgraceful. It's difficult to know who the other 'side' is meant to be- simplistic media reporting would suggest 'Evangelicals = Right Wing' yet Lausanne shows us that a commitment to social (and increasingly environmental) justice is not just a preserve of the liberals or mainliners. Yet by exploring the spiritual/religious side there is common ground, which can open up fruitful discussion as to how the Kingdom of God would be organized, what discipleship entails and so on.

Jesus may appear left wing, but when he sat down on the mountain, he did not outline his view of society and the reasons for its injustices and then plan how to topple the lot, no he rather gave commands that every disciple was meant to follow- and how to work them out as part of an active citizenship, he seems to have allowed space for personal consideration and growth, and I hope that we will be able to do it united in faith rather than divided by politics.