abbotsford.org.uk

Is everyone still there?

Just wondering if we've lost anyone yet to the rapture. And at the end of the day and no one has been taken away can I make an invitation to those who thought they might have been?

Now that you've blown a hole in your own kind of 'Christianity', please consider rethinking your theology and idea of faith and more towards a more progressive model of who and what God is, because quite clearly, once again, God has been shown not to be the kibnd who does end of the world scenarios.

Perhaps handing Christianity over to the aethiests as just another sitcom, but focus on what Jesus shaped and longed for, a world that sought equality, justice and life. It's not as sexy perhaps, nor would it make the best holywood blockbuster, but it's real and thats the difference between a progressive faith and one that focuses on judgements and raptures: it's real.

So if anyone is still here at the end of today, please think about rethinking your theology and give Christianity some integrity and rebuild the trust people ought to have of what sharing the faith of Jesus is about and moves us towards: justice, peace and compassion.

I'm glad the world isn't going to end today because I long for it to be a yet much better, loving place and as Christians we can stand against that or we can stand for it.

Trace the Tax

It's Christian Aid Week and time to change tax havens to tax heavens. A brilliant campaign from Christian Aid has already been mentioned here Tie to mention it again. The simple but world changing idea is to get the G20 countries to make sure companies (often bigger than governments) declare profits in each country and thus pay tax in these coutnries. You would never need aid again.

Nothing about us... without us...

...is for us.

I was at the closing of the Poverty Truth Commission in Glasgow today. It was one of those days that change you and how you see things, when you see so much good going on and you realised how much good there was still to do. And all the good is done despite what is taken away from people. I came away realising (again) poverty is so nothing like what we imagine. It is never a single issue, and always more complicated and chaotic than you can imagine. And it is never what we can do for people but what we can do with people.

It is so true that there hasn't been a programme yet invented or will be invented that will solve issues like this. It is always the relationships built. The commission was not made up of the 'technical' experts with theory but the experts who lived in poverty with others willing to hear and be changed and create positive relationships. Clearly these experts were way ahead of any programme coordinator.

David Lunan who was a commissioner said:

"Of course the problem is not poverty, it's wealth. As long as we live in, and even applaud, a culture in which money is the bottom line, the top line and the front line, there will always be people having to live below the poverty line. The Poverty Truth Commission is teaching us a new way to listen, and relate to one another, and make critical decisions; and its legacy will change how we think"

I just want to know what some of our major politicians weren't asked to sit for the two hours and listen to real poeple tell real stories. Policies would be very different if they did that every so often.

Go to the website. You'll be changed. This has been such an important thing to have  done. I hope others will do it. You can.

Trace the Tax

No, I'm not making a comment about the chancellors budget today. There will be enough on that over the next few days. This is about something that hasn't been said before and I can't believe it is new to me.

I was at a Christian Aid conference today and heard about their campaign called Trace the Tax.

Let me take to to Sierra Leone. They have diamonds aplenty but this is the poorest country in the world. How come? Because the company that removes the diamonds pays no tax in the country but pays it in a tax haven. Try and trace the company who owns the company who owns that company and the company who owns that company etc you'll get no where. It's secret. They are much larger than the countries their work in and no one can find out and they pay no tax.

Sierra Leone meanwhile stays poor and it's natural wealth is removed because their government cannot afford to do anything about it.

Christian Aid estimates US$160 bn is lost to countries because of multinationalist tax dodging. This is zillions more than they would ever receive in aid. But no one knows how much because it is all so secret. No one is accountable.

Christian Aid is calling for a new international accounting standard requiring companies to report on their profits made and taxes paid in every country where they operate. This is called country-by-country reporting and this helping poor countries to collect taxes.

This is just the smallest insight into this campaign. Join up. Now.

The final(ish) frontier

I spent 5 minutes scanning through the headlines of other places in the world other than UK/US/Europe tonight (as you do) seeing what's making news elsewhere which is always interesting: stories still going on that have long since left our screens such at the epidemic in Haiti which is going to be much worse than originally thought , or anti-government protests in Yemen continuing like Bahrain.

Another caught my eye from Nigeria where their space programme is being expanded. Yep, you heard me right. I never knew they had one or thought they ought to have one (how western in that?). And immediately I can hear people saying they should spend the 50million on food and education. I understand that.

But there is a point here about what a space programme actually does for a country and it is what we did during the industrial revolution here where people were hungry but millions was invested in technology. It increases the capacity of the country to earn money and benefits the kind of people who will benefit the country's economy and the broader society.

The Director General of Nigeria's Space Agency, Dr Seidu Mohammed says on a BBC website that it is never meant to be about landing people on the moon but solve problems at home in agriculture, environment, development.

I get that. Britain's industrial revolution did exactly that (well it didn't do much for the environment) but while there were a lot of poor people money was poured into the latest technology which brought the country up into the hugely powerful economy it is today.

It's a point of view I hadn't thought about before. Still wondering about it. What about you?

Eye for an eye

You can't really let this Sunday go past when people all round the world who use the common lectionary have been thinking about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth without making space for Lybia tonight.

We thought about the whole middle east today in dispatches where people have shows the injusyice of a system and shamed it into the first steps towatds change (hopefully one that is peaceful and life-giving rather than military rule). However Lybia seems to have gone for the disporportionate clamp down where human life seems cheap. And eye for and eye is a moral code that at least limits retaliation. Turn the other cheek shames the rules that oppress. 

Butm what do you do when the oppressor shows themselves once more to be without morality? I don't know any other way that to hold space, a vigil of sorts, that makes us make space and makes us think of those who stand up to oppression and forces us to change our routine because turning the other cheek, protesting against unjust systems is an expensive revolution and you can't do it on your own.

 

Revolution

The enemy:
            love them
The oppressor:
            walk the mile with them
The Master:
            turn the other cheek to them

This doormat faith
seems too much to bear
in a world where those who bully
always seem to win

The enemy:
            imbalance them with love
The oppressor:
            shame the law that oppresses
The Master:
           turn the cheek as an equal

This rebellious faith
seems too much to bear
in a world where those who bully
are loved back to justice by the bullied

But this is heaven’s revolution
and we are called into it
come let us worship
love’s rebel, Jesus

 

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Sometimes Rabbie just had it

On Burns Night I have to confess I don't know much about Robert Burns the national bard. I don't know if he was particularly religious though I'm sure he was more skeptic if anything. He was a bit like that on a whole lot of things. But he did seem to hit the mark with his universalism and equality for humanity. A Man's A Man is my all time favourite. I'd read it ever sunday if is was in the Good Book (and really it ought to be and would be if God put the Scriptures together).

Does anyone have any other line outside the Bible that sum up 'The Faith' sometimes better than the faith itself?

Do post them here.

Advent Prophets

So the prophet has spoken today: swords to ploughshares.

Is wikileaks prophetic?

Are prophets prophetic?

What would make us change our lifestyle to one that was more sustainable and just? Can Wikileaks change behaviour because people might be held to account over decisions and actions and intent or does behaviour change  ome with the more vocal style of the prophets screaming in the streets within earshot of his or her hearers about the state of affairs of the their lives?

It strikes me, and I talk from personal experience here, very little makes us change our behaviour. Only when you can relate because you are related in some way to some one affected by your behaviour: only when you see the face, know the name, held accountable to that one person, you know.

How to be a prophet: get to know the ones that call for our behaviour change.

Let's just do wikileaks and sing carols. Easier.

10:10:10 Intercession

 

We have a simple prayer
on this day
food for the hungry
justice for the poor
peace for the war-torn
welcome for the displaced
a simple harvest prayer

and a simple prayer for ourselves
to love our neighbour more

Hear us
So be it

But then, God,
as simple as that?

Yes, God as simple as that
Millennium Goals
on this 10th day
of the 10^th month
of the 10^th year in this millennium

A harvest prayer
banquets for the hungry
freedom for the poor
new lives for the war-torn
a home for the displaced

and for us
to love our neighbour
more than we love ourselves

Hear us
10x10x10 times hear us

So be it
Amen