It only took a tweet from the Archbishop of Canterbury fo me to break my promise to stop writing for Christmas. This was the resulting thread:
Justin Welby, as Archbishop of Canterbury, was pontificating on Twitter yesterday. I noted he said he said ‘The Magnificat turns the world upside down'. I agree, it does. So trust me, this is all about economics, and why the Church is failing on this key issue. A thread....
This was Welby's tweet:
Now, let's look at the key bits of the Magnificat, which is from Luke 1:46-55, and so very much part of the Christmas story. For those not familiar, set to music it is part of standard, everyday, Church of England evensong, and so should be said or sung every day in church.
The Magnificat is in four parts. It is the third, critical, part to which Welby seems to be referring. I quote this in the next tweet, using the Book of Common Prayer version:
He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
This is radical stuff. It is Mary's summary of what she thinks the mission of Jesus will be about said before he is born. Now, of course you can doubt that, but the point is that this is right there at the start of the Christian story. It is what Luke thought it was about.
And to reiterate the point, Luke returns to the theme when discussing what Jesus said he thought his own ministry would be about when giving his first ever public ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth. In Luke 4: 18-19 he said (next tweet):
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
That's the Christian manifesto. But some care is needed, because some of the meaning has been hidden by translator's. Who are the oppressed? Debtors are. What is the year of the Lord's favour? That is a Jubilee year when in Jewish law are debts were wiped clean.
Jesus was clear in the original language: as the Magnificat foretold his mission was to declare radical economic transformation by liberating poor people from debt.
This is also reflected in the Lords' Prayer. Many will be familiar with this, also found in Luke. The core economic messages come in three ideas: ‘Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.'
So, we have a right to survive. I agree, we do. But the bit about trespasses is more interesting. The Church often interprets this as sin. But the original text can be translated as debts. So, forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who owe us. That's what this was really about.
And that is clear too from other teaching. His actions in the Temple made it clear how Jesus viewed those who traded on religion. My favoured version is from Mark (next tweet):
When they arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves.
This was not Jesus ‘meek and mild'. This was Jesus the angry, social and economic revolutionary in action, willing to upset the powers that be and those that made the money that kept them in positions of power. No wonder they killed him.
So, Welby is right: the Magnificat did change everything. Whether Mary said it or not does not matter. What it did do was frame a radical economic philosophy laid out by a man called Jesus of Nazareth.
That narrative was proclaimed with the intent to overthrow the economic and social order of the day, with the explicit goal of bringing down those with economic power that would then be transferred to the poor. That would have changed everything. So they killed him.
Now let's roll forward to the present day. The teaching written in the first century still has a massive impact on the world, even if the number of active Christians in the UK is relatively low. But is that surprising when the Church doesn't teach what the gospels said?
All those references to economics got quietly forgotten as the powerful adopted Christianity as a tool to advance their own causes. References to debt got replaced by references to sin. So much better as a means to keep a population under control, until contraception ended that.
And far from bringing the might down from their seats of power, the Church upholds them. If you doubt me, tell me why it is that Welby will crown Charles III next year? If ever there was a proud man needing humbling it is our king, but Welby will even declare him his boss.
And far too often the likes of Welby (Eton, Cambridge, the City and then ordination) seem (I stress, seem) to put more value on links to wealth than they do the need to transform society for the benefit of the poor.
I always remember a previous Dean of Ely telling me it was his job to wine and dine to raise funds to keep the cathedral going. I believed him. He was good at it. But it made me question the whole point of the Church to whose fabric but not meaning he was dedicated.
If Welby really believed that the Magnificat changed everything then he would be supporting striking workers, and he would be challenging the Bank of England on interest rate rises. He would be saying increased taxes on low earners are wrong. He would be calling for wealth taxes.
He would not care what Tory MPs say. His real boss would, I am quite sure, be overturning tables right now. And the bishops can do this. They are in the Lords after all. But I rarely hear anything like that.
They are good on Rwanda policy, I agree. But on economics that might bring down the mighty? The grade given has to be ‘poor'. And that is on the issue that is their whole reason for being for heaven's sake (almost literally, for once).
You don't have to do God to think the established Church is failing in its purpose. Anyone can see that. I'll declare my own position though: brought up by active Anglicans I am a Quaker, because I couldn't see the point of the CoE when it does not walk its talk.
So, this Christmas what I want is that the Church start talking about the necessary bias to the poor that it must evidence in everything it says and does. If it has a role it is to champion the cause its founder lived and died for. Is it too much to hope that it might do that?
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Thank you for this, Richard. Will the tables ever be overturned? We can live in hope. Happy Christmas.
I will keep overturning them
I actually did once, accidentally, when I left a Methodist meeting at their Central Hall where the questioning was so right wing antagonistic that I decided I had suffered enough of the hypocrisy of those attending, and left in protest
It was the only time I have ever done that
I agree that hypocrisy is just one of the worst things. In my professional life, those who have enough or ‘sufficient’ are the happiest, those with too much wealth the most miserable. Some, but not enough, make the leap from hoarding ‘wealth’ to giving and gifting and all of these individuals express great relief in doing so. Having worked as a financial adviser for over 30 years, it is my experience that the simplest, clearest, approaches are best, rather than the layers of complexity (i.e. more hands in your pockets) we are ‘encouraged’ to promote. Stick to straightforward products like annuities for retirement income, be risk-averse, use insurance where necessary, save and become free of debt as fast as possible. These things work. I despair when I meet so many people heavily in debt and leading the life of serfs. Something has to change, soon, and a terribly disruptive, cathartic ‘reset’ seems to be coming down the line. Then people will discard notional ‘net worth’ for the real value of what they have. Family, friends, helping others. We can but live in hope.
Agreed
My sons always asked me why I left the Big 4 career track I was on and I have always been able to assure them it was because I would have been utterly miserable if I had stayed, but a lot more materially well off
Sad that the Methodist Church has lost the radicalism of its founder. I was bought up to see the Labour Party as the political wing of the Methodist Church…. but Methodism, Labour have changed. Me, too, I am sure.
Well said Richard, I totally concur with your article, being a Quaker myself.
Thanks
Nero fiddled while Rome burnt.
Now Sunak et al fiddle the books while the UK burns
The words of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, I forget which verse:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
Surely, that is the reality of organised Christianity, rather than the Magnificat?
A truly terrible hymn
You wonder why it was taught in schools? I don’t
It was first published in 1848 and I had not realised until now that the author was the daughter of an Irish land agent, which given the time and place perhaps puts it in context.
On the other hand, just two years before, she published a similar verse:
“The poor man in his straw-roofed cottage,
The rich man in his lordly hall,
The old man’s voice, the child’s first whisper,
He listens, and He answers all.”
So is this verse really about divine providence and just desserts, or about equality before god.
It is problematic enough to be left out of many hymnals.
With reference to the verse of All Things Bright and Beautiful.
I don’t think anyone in this day and age can possibly appreciate the depth and pervasiveness of religion in Europe (which, of course, includes the UK) from at least the Reformation until very, very recently.
I don’t know how the belief emerged from a religion developed from the birth of an illegitimate baby to a girl who, if not a peasant, was not far off; the child being brought up as an artisan but turning out to be the Son of God; but at some stage it was firmly established that the strata of a society into which you were born was divinely ordained and ‘additionally, your position in that society determined your worth and who you deferred to and who deferred to you. Your superiors were truly believed to be ‘superior’ and your inferiors were truly ‘inferior. There was nothing to be done about this, no escaping it and no questioning it. The hierarchy was accepted as fact.
It had always puzzled me that in Pride and Prejudice Lizzie Bennet was so utterly horrified, and mortified, when her cousin Mr Collins spoke to Mr Darcy without having been introduced to him; not only that, but he spoke to Darcy first! Once I grasped the notion of one’s divinely ordained station in life it became clear that this was an unthinkable way to behave with a superior . Now, Jane Austen was a very intelligent lady with a fine eye for the ridiculous and the illogical, but, clergyman’s daughter that she was, she accepted this doctrine absolutely. Everyone did apart from a few uppity artisans.. An aristocratic lady being told about Methodism in the late 18thC said that she couldn’t believe that God expected her to be on the same level as the labourers who had become Methodists.
So when our Irish land agent’s daughter wrote that verse no-one (or very few) thought about it in the same way we do today.
Oh, and having been brought up Hugh Church Anglican in the 1950s and 60s, that is NOT the way that the Anglican church was organised then or is organised today…
Happy Christmas everyone.
Thank you Richard. Most thought-provoking and a challenge to those of us within the church world. How one goes about changing things – I don’t know. Will do my best to share.
Thank you for this enunciation of the Christmas message. It is one that I completely subscribe to.
Certainly from Welby’s background and his work as an executive with the oil giant Elf and other companies before entering the church, ensures he is not going to upset the neoliberal capitalist order, let alone challenge the big corporations on climate change. His predecessor Rowan Williams may have been slightly more progressive. Occasionally the Anglican church does throw up someone a a bit more radical like Hewlitt Johson the former Red Dean of Canterbury who was a communist.
Or the former bishop of Durham, David Jenkins
You certainly have to scratch around, Wilberforce? Maybe the bishop of Chichester critiscising the mass bombing in the Second World War. The Quaker busness families like the Cadburies, Frys, Rowntrees etc who made a bomb and still do from manufacturing chocolate and what not but at least made sure their workers were paid decently and had good accommodation such as the Cadbury Bourneville estate. Enlighted capitalism.? Maybe not all, the Gurneys founded a bank that became the behemoth of Barclays……….i
“You don’t have to do God to think the established Church is failing in its purpose. Anyone can see that. ”
Very well said Richard – an excellent and most timely post.
I’m one of those who don’t ‘do God’. It took me a long time be able to declare – first to myself and much later more openly – that I am a non-believer. Born during WW2 into a nominally Christian family who – like many at the time who identified as CoE – rarely attended church other than at Christmas, I still remember the guilt I felt when – already seriously doubting – I passively allowed myself to be confirmed at age 14 because I didn’t have the courage to oppose my mother when she suddenly announced it was time for that.
But my now firm non-belief in any sort of God figure doesn’t prevent me from continuing to admire and respect what I understand to have been the radical mission of the man Jesus of Nazareth as exemplified notably by the turning of the tables of the money-changers in the temple, for which he was put to death in the cruel manner of the time. And I have never been able to understand how anyone calling him/her self a follower of Christ can at the same time be a Conservative (at least of the likes of Rees-Mogg, to cite just one example). Indeed, the established CoE is too timid by far.
May I add my very best wishes to Richard and all here for the festive season, with family or friends or quietly at home.
Thank you
I’m an atheist, but it always amazes me how many churchgoers claim to be Christian while displaying not one single characteristic that Christ advocated.
Merry Christmas to you Richard and I hope you shake off the covid effects in the new year.
Thanks. I am hoping that too
Richard, you set the lofty sentiments of the Magnificat beside an analysis of its use by Welby and the Church that ‘draws it teeth’, and reconciles it with the status quo.
This is not peculiar to the Magnificat in Christianity and our Reformed Tradition. Read St.Paul on slavery (1 Corinthians 7:21-24) authorised version, which was central to Reformed Tradition beliefs on the matter. St.Paul’s somewhat evasive compromise (I am resting my interpretation here on the work of the leading modern Pauline interpretor, JMG Barclay) was ingeniously exploited in the 17th-19th century by the intellectuals, politicians, and even the Churches; and used widely to reconcile the prime British purpose to build an Empire that established in the Atlantic world the largest, systematic development of a modern, laissez-fare, highly profitable slave economy conceived or executed in the whole early modern, mercantilist, free market commercial world.
We are still attempting to come to terms with this history in Britain; and – I submit – scarcely wrapping ourselves in Christian glory with the historical apologetics to which the problematics of this approach have, too often given birth.
Thanks
Slightly off-topic but your comment reminded me that the British Empire, like many others, had God on its side… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUZGGFOV6FM
I am quite sure God was not asked
If you have not already read it, you might find this book by Michael Hudson interesting:
“ – – – And Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year”
I have it…..
I am glad that you chose to comment in this, Richard, because these things need to be said.
In recent times, it has been very interesting to read the words of Michael Hudson on the subject of debt, because he traces this right back to antiquity, examining how the ancient Middle Eastern civilisations and societies recognized the problems it has always created, and had mechanisms in place to overcome them. They managed to last much longer than Rome, which was fatally undermined by the interelationship of oligarchy and debt, which occured under imperial rule. We clearly have much to learn from those times, because I think we are in a comparable situation.
While this doesn’t jibe 100% with your position (as I understand it, I may be wrong), I think you might enjoy this short piece by Aaron Bastani: https://youtu.be/o0Crw6V-mcM (Was Jesus a revolutionary Socialist?).
Your comment reminded me of something I said t my teacher in Religious Education (he was a Priest and it was a Catholic Grammar school) that my reading of the gospels seemed to me to indicate that Jesus was in fact a Communist. (I referred to his suggestion that if you have two coats/cloaks you should give one to your brother. Seems to echo the mantra of communicam, from those that have – to those that need).
As you can imagine, it didn’t go down very well. Happy days (late 60s)
Read the opening chapters in Acts on the early church in Jerusalem
I thought something might catch your attention and how apt it is.
Even I as an atheist have managed to work out that Jesus’ main concern was the plight of the poor. Of all the characters in Christianity – apostles, saints etc., Jesus is the most compelling to me at least.
Why?
Because he seemed to suggest that it is in the here and now – how we treat each other today – where we can make heaven on earth. We do not have to wait for death so that we can claim some sort of ‘deferred benefit’ (yeah right). Or some other cult like Helegianism (the requirement to suffer).
We can realise that better world now if we want to.
You are right to pull the church up on this at this time of the year.
When I moved to England from Scotland, aged 8, I remember being embarrassed by reciting the Lord’s Prayer wrongly – as I had learned it in my Scottish Primary School – saying ‘debts’ instead of ‘trespasses’.
Keep overturning the tables Richard!
Brilliant!
Is that Church of Scotland?
Church of Scotland, Lord’s Prayer (from its website):
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever.
Thank you
Trust Scots to get it right
I confess I thought it ended:
“for ever and ever,
Amen.”
I claim no special illumination.
Depends which version you read….
It was what we were taught in school.
My father was an elder in the kirk but became a Quaker later.
They got it right
i thought the priority was to spend valuable time with your family.. it seems you will find any excuse not to..
Written when no one else was around or at least awake
And if you want the story in more detail I recommend ‘And forgive them their debts’ by Michael Hudson. I read it last month. Hudson has worked on this for many years with archeologists and historians.
The Ancient civilisations -Babylon and Assyria-worked on this principle. If debtors were taken into bondage the free peasantry would decline. Some people would become rich and get ideas about replacing the King or Emperor.
The Jewish kings abandoned the practice but the priesthood then took it up as a religious duty. In Christ’s day many of the priests had also abandoned the idea -hence Biblical accounts of Christ criticising them and Jesus not being their favourite preacher.
He goes on to show the Roman Empire had no jubilees and wars, bad harvests, pestilence and so on , caused many to fall into debt-like the peons of Latin America. The rich had huge estates -latifundia-which could produce more cheaply making things worse for the free peasants. At this point I could see a lot of modern parallels. The number of corporations contract and grow richer while the masses are no better off. A draining of power from the Emperor to the Oligarchs.
When the Barbarian armies, or rebel armies, came to call, there was no incentive to fight. What had they to lose? The feudal system then followed. The Eastern Empire -Byzantium-did keep the idea of the jubilee.
The present problems of increasing private debt -partly caused by low pay-is one which doesn’t get the same attention as state debt ( because it suits the narrative of those who hate the idea of state provision ).
International debt does get periodic attention. We have economic system which funnels wealth upwards both nationally and internationally. If the west is to provide a model to the developing world and not lose whatever allegiance it has, in an age of climate crisis, it needs to re-think the model. And likewise if it is to serve the needs of our own population.
Hudson is a major influence on this
Every post I read in your blog is edifying, but this is very special – award winning! It captures the spirit of your mission and melds it with the core Christian message.
Best to you and yours in the Christmas season and the coming new year!!
Thanks
Richard, thanks for this latest blog even though you were suggesting a quieter time through Christmas! I would like to thank you for a short comment you made – ‘Or the former bishop of Durham, David Jenkins’. You have reminded me I bought a secondhand copy of ‘Market Whys & Human Wherefores – Thinking again about Markets, Politics and People’ by David many years ago and never got to read it. Christmas reading – many thanks!
Enjoy
I think I have that somewhere
“….the Archbishop of Canterbury was “pontificating”….”. Hang on, didn’t Henry VIII put a stop to that in 1534? Welby clearly didn’t get the memo.
🙂
But Welby went to Eton. Come on! You don’t expect it apply to him like it does us Plebs?
A very seasonal and apt diversion from your usual blog subjects. (Though overlapping). Aspects arising from Welby’s comments picked up by the Guardian tonight as well.
It is always worth recalling that Christianity started off as a radical political movement. As did some of its breakaway sects. But in almost all cases they reverted to a mean of establishment conformity, just as non-religious radical political movements tend to do.
We need to remember that many more of us these days have no allegiance at all to formal religion but still are (whether we acknowledge it or not) cultural Christians, so that radical intention is totally pertinent. Interestingly many Jews – and quite a few of the Muslims I know – would define themselves much more in relation to their cultural background than the formal religion; it would be good if more of us who come from the Christian tradition similarly acknowledged their culture and recognised that the underlying egalitarian and altruistic intentions are more enduring than the belief in a specific God.
(And actually, despite his background, we need to recognise that Welby is moderately successfully managing to navigate both his specific role in an established religion, and as shown here the wider function of a religious leader of provoking deep and pertinent national discussion).
The entanglement of indebtedness with sin (debts are “forgiven “) is an interesting idea. David Graeber’s “Debt, the first 5,000 years” is an astonishing and mind-changing read, and deals extensively with the idea of debt related thinking as a lens through which the Abrahamistic religions an be examined. Well worth a read.
It influenced this
I was raised in the Christian faith, protestant, although my mother was Catholic and excommunicated for marrying my father. I attended Sunday School, then Bible Class until I was 14 so was well versed in the ways of Christians.
I’m now an atheist and marvel at the arrogant hypocrisy of Christians of all, or at least most, persuasions.
I have, though, retained my morality as taught to me by my parents and later on by the teachings of others.
It seems to me that most ‘Christian’ politicians lack any understanding of what morality is.
Richard, I wholeheartedly agree with your views. I’m afraid, though, that it’s too late for humanity to ever learn the lessons of fairness and sharing.
I live in hope
Lovely read, thank you Richard. If Jesus were with us today I’m sure we’d find him out there with the strikers on the streets overturning the tables. Strike action appears to be gathering momentum and long may it continue until we are free from this quagmire called neoliberalism in which so many countries including our own are stuck.
It was a shock reading that. I could have written something similar. I am atheist but a big fan of the Gospels. As you point out, the message is revolutionary. I often quote passages to people who think of themselves as Christian. I many times wished I could have confronted that “committed Christian” Theresa May about her policies. I was disappointed when I watched a program about Christmas at Blenheim Palace by accident because it came just after Channel 4 news, and the place is less than 5 Km from where I live. There was zero mention of the origin and message of Christmas. The most amazing Christian I ever came to know, who became a personal friend, is Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili. He is rare and revolutionary.
Thanks
Thanks for that; it makes sense.
This is not a dig. Can you say how the Quakers are more successful in their position and effect? Does it work successfully outside its members?
Norman
The honest answer is I can’t sy Quakers are more successful. And both membership and attendance are open to anyone. It works for some people. That’s enough. There is no evangelism. No attempt to recruit. It’s for each to find their way.
The core beliefs are explained here. The whole site is within looking at. https://www.quaker.org.uk/about-quakers/our-history
Richard
Happy Christmas, Richard !
Yes thank you for this Richard. It’s nice to know that you and so many who contribute on here are people of faith. Faith and radicalism seem to me inextricably linked. Merry Christmas to you!!
Thankyou for this thoughtful and insightful article, Richard.
If anyone needs convincing about the profligacy of both the Roman Catholic’ church and the CofE, then look no further than the two cathedrals in Liverpool.
As the information states in the RC one, the parish priests were tasked with extracting as much money as possible from the local residents who were on their uppers and then went round again when not enough money was raised.
As for the CofE monstrosity, I asked a verger why it was so built on such a huge scale (the nave alone holds 1000 people). His reply seemed to me to be full of the arrogance of a narcissistic institution; he said, ‘Because we could.’
I rather think that Jesus of Nazareth would have made sure that the building equipment was sabotaged at such an attitude as this.
I can only agree with you Richard about what the Magnificat says about what the Gospel actually means in practical terms – God is putting all things to rights (through Jesus and those who follow Him) and this is what it looks like. As you rightly identify, this is grounded in the Hebrew Scriptures (apologies to the Jewish community because I know ‘Scripture’ is not how you describe these sacred writings). Read any of the later prophets and they could be describing the society, and its values, of today., while Mary’s message and the ‘Nazareth Manifesto’ are deeply rooted in Jewish teachings (the words you quote from Matthew are, of course, Jesus reading Isaiah, which He then follows with ‘today, these words are fulfilled in your sight)
But is the charge against Archbishop Justin and the Church totally fair? In part, I think it is and too much of the Church has bought into the idea that its sole job is ‘saving souls for heaven’ despite the Bible being clear that God’s revolution will take place on earth. I think you are correct that the compromise was to allow an accommodation with the rich and powerful of this world, yet still the Christian faith of many of the great philanthropists and campaigners drove them to change the way ‘the establishment’ thought things should be.
Today, whether directly linked with a church or not, so many charities have a far higher proportion of Christian volunteers, running food banks, debt advice centres, mental health support, ‘Street Angels’ – and I list only a selection of activities in my own town (the nearest to The Prime Minister’s constituency mansion)run directly by churches or with many Christian volunteers. In the House of Lords, Bishops often speak on subjects no one else will raise. Former Bishop of Durham Tom Wright still regularly recalls how he was the only only one to keep raising unaffordable Third World debt when the Lords debated bailouts to banks after the financial crash, while also describing all the work in the community that was and is done by the Church in the diocese he led, often telling North American audiences of these things.
But another interesting thing here is that I happen to have spent quite a bit of time in the last day or so listening to sermons and lectures by and interviews with Archbishop Justin. I can tell you he does talk of the transformative power of the Gospel in the real world – constantly – but, thing is, it seems the media, no doubt controlled by their offshore owners, seem less willing to highlight this by picking a fight – it doesn’t get reported the same as what they see as overtly ‘political’ contributions. Why? Perhaps because the last thing those supposed guardians of ‘truth’ (who adopt the Pontius Pilote approach to ‘truth’ of ‘truth is what I make it’) want wider society to realise is that the Church DOES have something to say that is relevant to them – and that something is summarised by Mary in the worlds of the Magnificat, and is indeed ‘good news’ for the poor, the oppressed and the marginalised – and there are plenty even within the Church who see THAT as bad news for them!
Thanks
I admit I like Tom Wright’s NT translations
Your comments remind me to revisit Amos too
I have been an atheist for as long as I can remember, despite my parents who were, probably, cultural Christians, sending me to a primary school run by one of the most rabid Christians you could ever meet. She and I had a few discussions when I was 10.
To my mind Christianity (and the other monotheistic religions) exist because the ruling class saw the huge advantage of a religion teaching that 1 entity in charge was the proper way of doing things. So Caesar and the Emperors and the Kings and all the other despotic controllers of people, were sanctioned by holy writ.
Whether there was ever anything else in the original teachings, it has long been lost.
Your suggestion as to the use of religion is right, I think
The teaching is rather oddly still there though
I’ve ordered the Michael Hudson book. All you people who keep recommending books on this blog are costing me a fortune!
Richard, like others commenting here, I avidly look forward to what you are going to say next, and follow up the discussions. I hope you get a decent break over Christmas and shake off the Covid which clings so closely.
For me radicalism in the Lord’s Prayer starts with ‘Our father’. When I pray the LP is usually the most I can manage: when I am angry (which happens often) those first two words compel me to think of the people I am angry with as siblings, not enemies.
I also have that book problem….
Yes – books are a problem but there are also other sources – here’s how I first read Michael Hudson’s work on debt cancellation in the old world:
https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/HudsonLostTradition.pdf
I think there are other versions too.
Merry Christmas.
When I hear all the hype and hypocrisy about Christmas, that starts in September and seems to get earlier every year, I think “Thank God I’m an atheist and not involved in all that nonsense”.
I enjoy reading your blog posts, Richard – keep up the good work!
Great to see this fine post has had so many responses
Maybe a number of those interested in what Richard has very ably said -and with which I agree- may enjoy a version of the Magnificat with a few other scriptural supporting quotes or allusion thrown in: https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DF9QeTmRCpW4
That link does not work
I got Taylor Swift instead….not my style
It’s possible that link might not work -it’d be this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9QeTmRCpW4 if it fails above.
Much more my style
And clearly the Magnificat
The great thing about Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings Cambridge – is as I think with your quote of the Magnificat Richard the lessons are from King James Authorised version – so much more poetic and sonorous than current translations . William Tyndale’s translation – although not usually acknowledged – apparently comprises over 80% of the King James New Testament. Tyndale was strangled and burnt at the stake for heresy – bringing the Word to the people. Hopefully the same will not happen to the Murphy’s and the Blanchflowers of our own time – for saying that the there is money to pay the nurses.
Sobering thought
I listened and enjoyed the service
Merry Christmas Richard and all the community on the blog
And to you and everyone on here
Don’t some people think Judas betrayed Jesus because he was disappointed that Jesus showed no sign of organising politically to overthrow the rule of the Romans?
Jesus is reported as telling people to obey the law and pay their taxes.
I am a humanist – atheist.
The Christian church is an amazing edifice that has been built. Belief in its religion seems compatible with any sort of other belief- any politics.
It’s quite amazing that Jesus is reported as saying some lefty things totally incompatible with rightwing thinking but they have never I think been taken seriously by the church .
No. Judas betrayed Jesus because he had to so that the myth that the Jesus legend was written to follow, was fulfilled.
Which always makes me feel a little sorry for him
And makes me wonder what really happened
I think the important thing when considering any religion, or ideology for that matter is whether it is a force for good or evil. The main tenet of Christianity is that you have to believe in the veracity of the virgin birth in a Palestinian cowshed 2022 years ago and a resurrection from the dead 33 years later. I t is difficult to draw any ethical conclusions from these premises unless you go through the Old and New Testaments with a fine tooth comb and find some suitable quotes. The same examination is required when looking at the main emphasis of other faiths whether of Mohamed, Budha, Confucious, the Hindu gods or whatever denomination or sect you care to mention.
Merry Yule, Saturnalia, Wassail…………..
I know many Christians would question your claim
David Jenkins called the resurrection a conjuring truck with bones
And Mark makes no reference to a virgin birth
I think you may be overstating your claim
Points taken, If Jesus is the Prince of Peace, good for him, if he is promoting Love They Neighbour, good for him. However the main history of Christianity does not follow these good intentions on the whole when you look at the- barbaric Spanish inquisition and others, the Valentine massacres etc and other wars wars in Europe, let alone the colonialist policy of a Bible in one hand a gun in the other and the mostly authoritarian attitude of church heirarchies in their support of the powers that be.
True
The worst word in the world is billionaire. Get us a scandinavian capitalism and equality
Scandinavian countries may be more equal, but there are more billionaires per million population in all four Scandinavian countries, according to Forbes in March 2022.
There are 49 in the UK, and 45 in Sweden.
One of my daughters in law is Danish. There are 9 in Denmark, starting with the head of Lego, which is twice as many per million head of population than the UK.
That’s not denying that I would prefer a Scandinavian system to what we have, but your premise is wrong.
I read the other day there are now 177 billionaires in the UK.
Relative to population it is a lower ratio than Sweden’s.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-billionaires-20-pandemic-cost-of-living-crisis-b2247823.html#comments-area
Ian Robert Stevenson, what are the numbers for Sweden and Denmark? It doesn’t get away from the fact that there are still billionaires in Denmark and Sweden. The equality comes from the fact that they cannot avoid paying their taxes as the British ones can.
This is a wonderful thread that I unexpectedly got on refreshing the blog’s Home key.
So much colour has arisen from the comments. I do find myself wanting to debate with the professed atheists as to the tenability of their position although this is not the forum. I’d just suggest keeping an open mind about what, and how, things happen as life goes through them.
I do think Welby took aim at privilege and greed on the occasion of the Queen’s funeral, probably as much as he would get away with in the circumstances. It will be interesting to see if he can build on that.
The late Queen had a number of opportunities via Jubilees to hand back her wealth, and didn’t. So it’s a further insult that Tax Free Charlie should start where she left off.
Perhaps Welby could encourage the prospective monarch in advance of any coronation ceremony to return a sizeable proportion of his inherited estate, not to be swallowed by the Whitehall coffers, but transparently to those at the bottom of the pile in greatest need of it. Particularly as CR seems to acknowledge the current plight of many citizens.
It could be a recognition of Gods expectations of him as a prospective Fid Def that he do so. And a massive example to lead with, although I’m sure it would be resisted by all the HM cohort hanging to his coat tails and living in the shadows behind him.
But this change of monarch is an opportunity presented to be taken advantage of and not one of allowing the incumbent to steer past into safe harbour.
So step up Mr Welby. This is your moment in history. Put this Institution on the spot.
i gave a talk a few years ago ‘Is spirituality just a nice idea?’
Much of he Bible is myth -myths being stories with meaning-not history.
I have always looked for evidence of another dimension. Jeffery Mishlove gives a good summary of it.
https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/docs/1st.pdf
I used , in my talk, some of same points Mishlove cited.
There is evidence from near death experiences, after death communication (through mediums and so on) , altered states of consciousness and past life memories. They do seem to blend together but J Haldane had a point when he said the universe was not only queerer (stranger) than we suppose but queerer than we can suppose.
Surely I can’t be the only one who gets a sense of deja vu?
In 1955 the majority of Brits, especially the Scots, went (to use the American term) ‘batshit crazy’ over the latest phenomena to come from the states.
I refer to the Rev Billy Graham.
The late former BBC journalist, Kenneth Roy sums it up brilliantly here:-
https://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy416a.html
I had a great aunt who was as you describe about him
In fairness to my parents, they told their sons why they did nit share the enthusiasm even though both were regular Anglican communicants (nit that I could tell what difference that made to their lives).
In respect of Empires, the Bible is quite clear that God is not keen but I suspect tolerates them as long as He finds them useful – the Roman communication systems proved very helpful to the early church…..
For anyone wanting to be more familiar with what the Bible actually says (as opposed to what some Christians like to think it says….), the Bible in One Year app (or book) from Alpha is an excellent resource and this morning’s texts had much to say about the very sort of (very interesting) debates we are having here. Proverbs 31: 10-20 is interesting in that it describes an enterprising businesswoman but ends in its description of her virtues of hard work and enterprise with ‘She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy’.
Revelation 18 describes the fall of ‘Babylon the Great’ – by the time the words were written, the city and empire of Babylon were already quite ancient history, but here the name is used to make a coded attack on the empire of that age – Rome. However, the words of warning apply to all who boast in their own luxury and ignore the cries of the poor, who worship trade and commerce but forget people and creation. Whether you believe these to be a vision from Christ or simply acknowledge them as an ancient wisdom that was fulfilled three centuries later (and the dating of New Testament texts is pretty accurate just as the number of manuscripts to work from is vast) in respect of Rome but also hints at a strange ‘what goes around comes around’ element even the strongest humanist or atheist would probably agree seems to exist – certain actions have consequences, wherever they come from.
Finally, Nehemiah 5 could be seen as boasting, albeit humbly (if that is possible!) of how Nehemiah committed himself to the task he was given (rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem) and did not take advantage of the privileges of his office – how unlike many in positions of power today.
These may be ancient texts, but whatever can be justly said about the church falling short of them and hence perhaps preferring to focus elsewhere in Scripture, the fact remains that they are not hidden but the ‘radical economics’ of which Richard speaks lies at the heart of the Biblical narrative of fallen humanity and divine rescue. Furthermore, any Ancient Greek or Roman would find themselves agreeing with corporate greed and excusing misuse of power far more readily than considering that the weak, the poor, the disadvantaged and the marginalised had any value at all. In 2,000 years, something has changed – and the argument that it is simply ‘human progress’ falls down at the ready regression we seek in corporate greed, political and financial corruption and state violence. Even the political movements of left themselves collapsed into cronyism, corruption and oppression. Humanity somehow knows it should be capable of being ‘better’ but also seems incapable of sustaining it, yet ‘progress’ is made, and some people seem to find a strength to drive through abolishing slavery, ending Apartheid and helping the sick and poor. Perhaps those words of Scripture can still have an effect, by some power, no matter how badly the supposed custodians of them – the church – itself fails.
Thanks
But the poor have continued to be oppressed throughout history, people starve or are taken into slavery or are abused, as they always have been. So what use has that religion been over the last 2000+ years?
Or, to put it another way, are christian teachings merely there to make the wealthy feel better because they have an excuse??
The Church of England has always puzzled me since it puts our head of state at the top of it – cultural appropriation if I ever saw it. There is something antithetical about having a very rich person atop an institution apparently dealing out morality and equality and ministering to the sick and poor.
Does God tolerate sharing the limelight? Did we ever get his opinion? I believe he once said something about not worshipping ‘false Gods’.
Where I work, we we work with a number of C of E churchman – one leads a successful coffee roasting company that employs drug addicts (he is a former drug addict himself) , another spends a lot of time bringing people together to solve problems in his diocese. You can’t fault their application and drive but when you talk to them about the upper echelons of the church, they admit that it is not a good look.
Having just read Emma Dent Coad’s ‘One Kensington’ about the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the background to Grenfell, if it were not for local Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious groups in the area, the victims of that awful night would have had even less help than they got from the council.