Just got back from a great trip to our link diocese in the USA – Southwestern Virginia – and trying to pick up what has been going on while I was away. Both the BBC and the Guardian websites were re-shaped into US sites while I was over there, so some domestic news seemed to slip by.
So, what strikes me on my return?
1. The Leveson Inquiry continues, but things are getting worse as four more journalists have been arrested – this time not from the defunct News of the World, but from the Sun. I can’t weep for those who have (a) indulged in unethical or criminal activity in the name of ‘the freedom of the press’ or (b) shredded other people’s lives before simply moving on to the next cash-generating scandal. However, I do weep for good journalists who now find themselves tarred with the brush of corruption – even if they now know what it feels like to face a situation of personal injustice that they cannot resolve by themselves… an experience familiar to victims of their tabloid colleagues. Not to forget also that it was excellent investigative journalism (and considerable nerve) that exposed this apparent web of corruption in the first place. A good democracy and a good society need a good, free, intelligent, accountable and ethical press.
2. While we spent nearly four hours on Saturday night with a couple of hundred others in Roanoke packing 176,000 food parcels for Sudanese refugees and displaced people (the remarkable and motivated young people of Southwestern Virginia raised the $35,000 it cost – and did so explicitly in the name of Christ), questions were being raised here about the viability of the new state of Southern Sudan. The challenges are huge, but they extend even more precariously in the north (Sudan itself). Christians there continue to be persecuted, expelled, attacked, dispossessed and dispersed. At least one British newspaper keeps this in the news (others may be doing so, too, but I have only had time to check the one).
3. Lord Carey, former Archbishop for Canterbury has bashed the bishops for being so feeble as to defend the poor in the face of the governments welfare cut proposals. Actually, it is clear that the bishops in the House of Lords have not opposed cuts per se and do take seriously the need to re-calibrate who gets what in the future. With the caveat that I have lifted this from the OUTRAGED Daily Mail report, this is what Lord Carey said about the bishops’ amendment regarding Child Benefit:
‘Considering that the system they are defending can mean some families are able to claim a total of £50,000 a year in welfare benefits, the bishops must have known that popular opinion was against them, including that of many hard-working, hard-pressed churchgoers,’ he writes.
‘Yet these five bishops – led by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds – cannot lay claim to the moral high-ground.
Victoria Coren responded effectively in the Guardian, defending the right – nay, the obligation – of Christian bishops to speak on behalf of the poor, whether or not they win the eventual vote. But, my question really has to do with the insinuation that the bishops should not go against ‘popular opinion’. This cannot be serious. Since when has ‘popular opinion’ been the singular guide to ethics, Christian thought and action, or prophetic wisdom? Coren put it like this:
But I’m not a bishop. It doesn’t matter whether I think they’re right or wrong; I think it’s their job to do what the Bible tells them to do, ie look out for the needy, like the innocent children on whose behalf they raised the amendment, who might otherwise get lost.
The right-wing press that is so angry with the bishops has been complaining for years that Christianity (for better or worse, our national religion) is too weak and small a voice, that its values are not fought for. Now it’s happening, they hate it.
Lord Carey might have an opinion on the government’s handling of the debt, but to suggest that the bishops should be guided by popular opinion (as opposed to, say, the Bible?) is just weird.
Or have I missed something?
Nick Baines's Blog 
January 30, 2012 at 10:20 pm
No nick you’ve missed nothing!typically the right wing press have responded in a predictable way.the idea that bishops in some way are there like politicians to represent popular opinions is so far off the mark as to be laughable.A prophet must prophesy without fear of so called “popular opinion “.A Bishop or indeed any leader in the church must speak , as the guardian article rightly pointed out because it is his / her duty to speak particularly on issues relating to the poor and needy.
Now I’m also of an opinion that blanket benefits are not a good thing but to keep rolling out the same old examples of someone with ten children raping the state is cheap nasty and factually unrepresentative of those claiming or HAVING to claim benefit in all its forms.
Lord Carey may well be losing it or simply doesn’t have a keen enough grasp of the subject .this is of concern but of greater concern to me is his attempt to talk of the ordinary working Christian families, drawing an uncomfortable distinction ( for me at least)between those we help and those we don’t based on whether they believe or not ! As an evangelical I find that cheap, nasty and not even worthy of the daily mail.George , you should be ashamed of yourself!
January 30, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Having read the whole of Lord Carey’s article I didn’t get the impression that he was suggesting that the bishops should be interested in public opinion. It looks like the Mail has lifted that sentence out of his piece as it sounds controvertial on its own
I think that he is annoyed with them, because in his opinion they failed to grasp the desperate need for welfare reform and that although their motives to protect children are right, their methods are wrong and counter productive.
January 30, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Nick, you need to catch up on some sleep after your journey back from the States. By all means disagree with him but I would have though my Dad had taught you to read the sources when you studied theology at Trinity. And Jonathan Veira, there was nothing in the Daily Mail article about a distinction between those who believe or not.
January 30, 2012 at 10:37 pm
Andrew, don’t patronise me. I said in the post that I was taking it from the Daily Mail article and that there might be other sources. Did he not make the point about the bishops being out of touch with popular opinion – a possibility I allowed for in my post?
January 30, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Nick
It would have taken you one click to go back to the original source. I was not patronising you merely pointing out that perhaps you owed it to a teacher of yours to perform that action. After all, you are always criticising journalists for not being faithful to their sources.
January 31, 2012 at 2:48 am
I call the Mail the Dully Maul because it mails people dully. It is most often a disgrace, rare exceptions.
January 31, 2012 at 6:46 am
An interesting conflagration.
With respects to the rights and wrongs, I think I would side with the Bishops rather than Lord Carey.
Firstly this is an immensely complex economic Mess / Meltdown and there are no easy solutions.
As however we tend to prefer simple dualistic thinking (because it makes it easier to declare ‘we are right!!’), then the response to the mess in this particular regard might be expressed thus
Either, “Times are Hard, thus we make sure that the undeserving don’t get anything even if it means some go without essentials because we MUST protect the Economy!” – Or,” we make sure that no-one goes without even at the expense of being overly generous to some because when times are hard we MUST protect the vulnerable”.
Of course that is to simplify and it does matter where one draws the line, but I think the account of the God and Father of our Lord tends to err on the side of generosity – the late coming labourers get all they need, the complaining Israelites still get fed, it rains on the righteous and the unrighteous (OK perhaps this metaphor doesn’t work quite so well in the North of England 🙂 ), the ‘Farmer’ is carelessly prodigal with his seed etc. Jesus rebukes the penny pinching pharisees ‘carefully’ measuring out their tithe of herbs, whilst lacking any extravagance in matters of righteousness and justice, and of course finally dies for The Whole World – which in Economic terms is of course utterly ridiculous as for heavens sake we can all think of those who don’t deserve this – we can read about them every day in our newspapers 🙂 (or look at them in the mirror)
Walter Brueggemann’s excellent essay “The Myth of Scarcity’ (easily found on the internet) throws a very helpful sidelight on all of this.
What it exposes more than ever, were it needed is our idolatry of Economics. The Bishops in their stance I hope are at least in part suggesting that there is a more powerful myth at the heart of the world than the Terrifying god of Economics. It is that of Generous abundance made flesh in Christ.
January 31, 2012 at 7:51 am
Andrew, I’ve read the original article in The Daily Mail written by your father, or at least with his name on the byline and Nick’s quote is accurate. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091330/Lord-Carey-benefits-cap-Fuelling-culture-welfare-dependency-immoral.html What was your point? You haven’t disagreed with Nick’s comment or claimed your father is inaccurately quoted, only challenged his source which is the same paper in which your father wrote the original article.
I thought +Tim Stevens was right in The Telegraph to ask why Lord Carey hadn’t turned up for the debate on the amendment and I wonder why, if he felt so strongly, he hadn’t made his own contribution in the House of Lords debate? I also thought Lord Carey’s article was misleading in that it suggests the bishops opposed the Governments welfare cap when they did not,they proposed an amendment to remove Child Benefit from the cap and successfully argued their case.
January 31, 2012 at 8:37 am
Andrew what troubled me was the implication that popular opinion as personified by your average”hard working hard pressed churchgoer ” was what essentially should persuade your average errant and out of touch Bishop.now I haven’t read the whole of your fathers article but I would have thought that even that snippet would demonstrate a highly questionable thesis!A “common sense”( my words ) approach to this subject unfortunately doesn’t tell the story of a system that yes, needs change but not simply at the expense of a generation of the most vulnerable children( which is essentially what this pact of bishops is trying to protect)in our society.i think in this respect your father , respectfully is off the mark.
January 31, 2012 at 10:30 am
I always tell myself to think before I send an email (which has potential to bite back) and at least to sleep on it before I send. I didn’t follow my own rules on this occasion. Sorry Nick for addressing you in the way I did. I shouldn’t really have contributed to this thread.
January 31, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Andrew, you are perfectly at liberty to defend your father and contribute to this thread. But, I think the grounds of your defence should be clearer. Secondly, I think you will know by now that I am not easily offended and you needn’t apologise. I have now read the article and do not wish to change what I wrote originally in the post.
January 31, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Thanks Nick. I apologised because this was your space and my comment broke my own rules for posting anywhere (too much of the ad hominem rather than addressing the subject). I’m mystified that you should read the article as making that point about public opinion, rather than a simple observation that Christians are in disagreement about the benefits cap.
February 1, 2012 at 5:57 am
Mark, Jason and Jonathan, I have removed your last comments on the grounds that ad nominee attacks are not appropriate here. Please argue the case, Mark, but generalised attacks on Lord Carey for stuff not pertinent to the matter being discussed are not for this blog or this thread.
February 6, 2012 at 11:12 pm
The benefit issue illustrates how wealthy we in the UK actually are.
The world median income is $1700 pa
£26k pa( ignoring the free education and health care) actually puts such claimants in the 1% of the world’ s wealthy – much disliked by the ” Occupy ” Movement.
When we in the UK speak in terms of hardship we really need to take a moment to count our blessings.