I know. It sounds like a firm of solicitors or a dental practice in London. But, read on…
It’s frustrating being on the move and not being able to post quickly on ‘interesting’ news stories. The news about Cardinal Kasper’s withdrawal from the Papal visit to the UK came as I was leaving the annual College of Bishops meeting in Oxford in order to get to Heathrow for the night before flying to Berlin and Wittenberg for the Meissen Commission joint meeting which starts today.
Two stories dominated my mind: Cardinal Kasper’s extraordinary interview with German magazine Focus and Baroness Warsi’s much-reported speech to the Bishops earlier in the day.
Let’s take Kasper first. I have met him several times and found him to be generous, open and not at all pompous (despite the dressing up). He is also very media-savvy and discreet. But, maybe retirement has allowed him to let his guard slip a bit. Whatever the reason, his remarks were rather inept and unfortunate.
Yet, I am bugged by the fact that I am sure I have heard these views before. Although the interview is recent and appears to be specific to the Pope’s current visit to the UK, the formulation of his observations is not new. I cannot remember where I heard them before, but the context must have made them less remarkable then. His observation about landing at Heathrow and feeling that he is in a Third World country is only derogatory if you think that Third World countries are places you’d rather not land in.
I have no idea if Kasper’s withdrawal from the Papal Visit is coincidental or causally connected. But, it is a shame because he is probably the one person in the Vatican who understands something of the Church of England (even if he doesn’t like what he sees and we don’t like what he says).
Baroness Warsi is a different kettle of fish. I wasn’t going to write about Baroness Warsi’s speech to the Bishops in Oxford as I was unsure of its confidentiality status. However, later in the afternoon I got the AP reports and then the copy of her speech along with the press notice. So, here goes…
Baroness Warsi is a breath of fresh air. She is warm, funny, has an infectious sense of humour, a good sense of perspective and is great to listen to. I love her northernness and the fact that she looks you in the eye when speaking to you. She delivered an interesting, straight and direct speech to an appreciative (but not uncritical) audience. She is a very good communicator.
She does understand ‘faith’ and the role of religious bodies. Crucially, she understands the role of faith as the motivator of good stuff and not just the destructive stuff which is always singled out by opponents. Compare her rationality and knowledge of her subject with that of the shouters like Polly Toynbee and the usual suspects from the usual sources.
But, having said all that, where is the substance? It is good that she (and the government) understands and wants to free up local public service of communities in order to energise and mobilise faith groups to do best what they do best. But, the rhetoric begs lots of questions. For example, cutting bureaucracy usually seems to create further bureaucracy. (It always amazed me that the Thatcher regimes chopped up institutions such as the NHS in order to make them more efficient and ‘competitive’ (!), but then oversaw the creation of extra tiers of management and regulation, often duplicating ‘support staff’ before coalescing into larger consortia and, ultimately, reinventing the wheel after having spent billions of pounds in a bit of structural engineering.)
The slogans sound good and the intentions are great: but, I am looking for some awareness of the law of unintended consequences and some statement of how the slogan will be translated into effective action.
However, the really startling thing about the question-and-answer session after her speech was her inability to respond in any way to a question about education policy and academies. The success of Labour’s academies system was rooted in the fact that poor schools were given new life and purpose. Michael Gove is now opening this out (unthinkingly, in my view) to all schools and the real fear is that successful schools will become academies, leaving others to second-class status. The future of LEAs and their support to ‘ordinary’ schools is also unclear. But, the fact that a government minister cannot comment on what is a central plank of government policy and ideology was, at best, strange (and not at all encouraging). It is beginning to sound like ‘spin’ again: like the Millennium Dome – all form, no content (yet).
Baroness Warsi was followed in the afternoon by Lord Wei. He got a great build up from people who had heard him before – particularly in the House of Lords. He was slick, smooth, very articulate and very likeable. He clearly lives on a different planet from the rest of us, though, and his language has not yet escaped from the McKinsey management-speak that has shaped his career thus far. Most of the bishops sitting around me gradually lost interest, became increasingly incredulous of his grasp of reality and by the end had given up thinking of engaging. We didn’t feel we were living in the same world as he is.
The man is bright and you can see why Cameron wanted him on board. But, when talking to bishops whose parishes and clergy are rooted in communities that cover every inch of the country (and some of the Irish, Scottish and Welsh bishops were with us, too) and every socio-economic context that exists, you have to be careful about generalising, categorising and being over-confident about things of which you obviously have little experience. Lord Wei seems to think that a couple of ‘good ideas’ such as ‘time banks’ can be rolled out anywhere and will solve our problems.
Of course, the root problem for both Warsi and Wei is not a new one. Reagan and Thatcher both assumed that people, basically, are good, altruistic and desperate to put themselves (and their money) out to support the weak and the poor. Provided, of course, that we don’t question the systems that give the rich and powerful their wealth and power. Warsi and Wei need to give some attention to their understanding of human nature as ‘fallen’ (in Christian terms) or ‘all-too-frequently selfish and destructive’ (as others might put it). The formulae so far look a bit thin.
[Update 18 September 2010: For a much better and clearer (and more generous) analysis of Warsi and Wei, see Bishop David Thompson’s post here.]
September 16, 2010 at 9:59 pm
The negative aspect of organised religion SHOULD be singled out. Saying “Okay, shut up about the child abuse for one second, and look at our shiny clothes!!!” is ridiculous.
Organised Religion, as an institution, has no place in the modern World. It is dangerous, and amusingly (this is what makes me want to bang my head on the table), it isn’t real. It’s fiction. It’s a cult of a fairy man in the sky. Why the hell does it have such power over the World?
September 16, 2010 at 10:00 pm
I do agree with your comments on bureaucracy. Replace this emotionally loaded word with something like “administration” and you begin to realise that cutting it is going to have anegative effect soemwhere along the line, whether in terms of customer service, availability of information or procedural chacks and balances. Much of it is there because thngs once went wrong and someone did something about it.
September 17, 2010 at 12:23 am
Hi. Pardon me please if I say I’m not too impressed by Kasper overall, given Cardinal Kasper’s attitude to Margot Kaessmann’s sensible remarks back in January. On the whole, Kasper’s remarks very much reflect what I see of the thinking of the Pope.
September 17, 2010 at 5:45 am
Futiledemocracy, which particular prejudice leads you to think that ‘organised religion’ tries to pretend it has shiny clothes. You can slag off particular religons, if you must, but at least learn something about them first.
September 17, 2010 at 5:48 am
Gurdur, no pardon needed. But particular bad comments do not make someone totally bad. As I said, his remarks were extraordinary and inept.
September 17, 2010 at 6:10 am
I don’t get this generic “faith” thing – the word is surely “religion” or better, “religions”, and the truth claims they make about the world and human life. Christianity and Islam are definitely not the same thing: they are fundamentally different visions of human life. Warsi is an Asian (East African-born) Muslim, not a Christian, and her own recent marital history (however it may accord with Muslim mores) should give pause for thought.
I can only imagine this failed politician got to be a “Baroness” was because of her sex and ethnicity.
September 17, 2010 at 10:24 am
I’m still not sure about this Third World remark. The Vatican says he meant to refer to Britain’s pluralistic society and it is true that there is a huge mix of cultures and ethnic backgrounds at Heathrow.
In the context of defending Christianity against people from non-Christian backgrounds and atheists in an increasingly secular society, the this interpretation would make sense.
It would still have been an appallingly clumsy term to choose and he should have known better, but I do think we’re too quick to take offense at times, especially when we don’t know the full context yet.
September 17, 2010 at 11:19 am
Jim, you might not get the generic ‘faith’ thing, but we have to live with it. It is imprecise, unnuanced and hopelessly ill-defined, but it has proved impossible to get politicians and journalists to re-think its use.
Your final sentence is presumptuous. Where do you get ‘failed politician’ from? I disagree with your insinuation.
September 17, 2010 at 11:50 am
Time Banks aren’t the answer to society’s problems because there is an element of selfish people using the system who don’t wish to give their time back. As with any society, even altruistic organisations contain normal human beings who display human failings.
September 17, 2010 at 1:07 pm
This is extremely serious. There is a real possibility that I have to agree with almost everthing in this blog.
KK checks his meds. , cuts down on the Beta-Blockers.
KK
September 17, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I’ve read Baronness Warsi’s speech and, while I agree with you about content and practical realities being a little on the ‘thin’ side, I am nevertheless excited about possibilities for the future – as a humble inner-city faith practitioner.
But I’ve been excited before – in 1997 when similar rhetoric was being splashed around by a new government about local faith communities being involved in partnership action for the common good with local and national government.
And also in 2006 when the Faithful Cities report came out, with its emphasis on spiritual capital. Neither 1997 nor 2006 lived up to the rhetoric, so will the Big Society in this regard? I hope so. Third time lucky…
September 17, 2010 at 3:01 pm
futiledemocracy: Take a look at Martin Sewell’s comment on the last post [comment no.12]. He gives a really helpful summary of changing attitudes towards child abuse over the years, from the point of view of a Child Protection Lawyer. Abuse happens. We know that. The pity is not just that the church has taken so long to wake up to, and admit, this but that we all have. Nobody wants silence over it except the abusers themselves, often their victims, but both need help. Let’s assume, because it’s a generous assumption, that at least some of the desire not to name and shame has been a desire to protect the vulnerable from the damage that exposure can do. This has led to cover ups where there shouldn’t have been cover ups but we are all of us learning how to deal with this phenomenon and that requires patience. Two things are certain – none of the major religions advocates abuse and it isn’t only clerics who abuse.
Also, I don’t know how far you want to go with this, but some philosophers would argue that everything we know is a fiction [in the sense that all things known must be humanly constructed ideas] and therefore that ‘your head’ and ‘the table’ you bang it on are as fictional as your ‘fairy man in the sky’. This might lead you to more head banging except that it gives you a real and very powerful choice. If it is true, then why not choose the good news rather than the bad? Since you can’t be certain? The reason the cult of religion [as you call it] has such power is because its messages are immensely liberating … and far less painful, and less futile, than head banging I should say.
September 17, 2010 at 4:40 pm
“His observation about landing at Heathrow and feeling that he is in a Third World country is only derogatory if you think that Third World countries are places you’d rather not land in.”
I realise you describe his remarks as inept overall, but I still think this is letting him off too lightly. The point is that he thinks it’s a bad thing. It’s like the double bind if someone calls you a lesbian (as happened to me in church a couple of months back, I didn’t bother with the whole “no I’m not but there’s nothing wrong with.. blah blah blah”) – or A A Gill using the word “dyke” to insult a TV presenter and then his newspaper trying to argue that because some people are reclaiming it for a positive, he wasn’t being offensive.
September 17, 2010 at 9:50 pm
I too have been critical of the lack of substance in the Government’s programme, though comparatively it is early days so I have not given up hope.
A couple of weeks back there was a piece on the Church of England’s Website about co-operations/ initiatives between the CofE and the Government in which Eric Pickes was going to be involved as well.
Do you know Nick, if the Wari approach is
“it” or is it possible there is more coming further down the track? I do not know, but would certainly welcome a dialogue in which the Government is ready to listen to and harness the vast experiece that the Church has on the ground in our most needy communities.
September 17, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Dubious,
Thanks for your appreciation – occasionally I do know what I write about!
One of the saddest realities about abuse is that whilst there is certainly no direct correlation, today’s abused do find themselves disproportionately featured amongst the abusers of tommorrow. I only say this because as Christians, we do need to recall that more often than most people appreciate, the abuser we hate today was the child we wept over the day before yesterday.
September 17, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Martin, the Warsi approach is promising, but the devil will be in the detail. When someone begins by slagging off the predecessors and promising a brave new world, I immediately become suspicious. There is no connection between what you read (and I blogged) on the C of E website and what Warsi has in mind.
September 18, 2010 at 9:36 am
“Baroness” Warsi is a “failed politician” in that she was decisively rejected by the voters in 2005 but nominated a “Baroness” and parliamentarian (at 36!) anyway by the Tory leader. Never mind democracy but nothing new in this – the Labour Party did the same with their “Lord” Alli, and their “Baroness” Suzi Leather etc. I can’t imagine her preferment came because of a lifetime of service and achievement; I think it has a lot to do with identity politics. The circumstances of her second marriage(rich husband #2 dumps wife #1 – or did he?) were the subject of a lot of comment at the time, but rather unexceptional, I suppose, for the way politicians of all stripes run their ‘private’ or family lives today: basically, if you have money, you can do as you like, because marriage and sex have been declared a religion-free zone.
September 18, 2010 at 10:34 am
martin: “more often than most people appreciate, the abuser we hate today was the child we wept over the day before yesterday”.
Exactly. Which is why naming/blaming/shaming is so pointless. Where would we start?
September 18, 2010 at 3:02 pm
[…] agenda, whereas Wei spoke much more warmly about faith contributions.) For more critique see the blog by my fellow bishop Nick […]