All the BBC wanted was "Happy Birthday!

Having been invited to sing 'Happy Birthday' on the sixtieth birthday of the BBC,  Archbishop Justin Welby managed to provide a fair bit of attention by failing to notice the inflammable material scattered all around him as he lit the candles (or should that be 'blue touch paper'?).

As one who is a master of the fine art of Logopodeia (that's 'foot in mouth' disease) I can but applaud Justin's actions as he addressed the BBC's institutional failures and called on it to have some integrity. Would that he had remembered the advice given to people in glasshouses regarding stone-throwing as many consider the birthday advice to be deep and damaging hypocrisy.

Helping the BBC to get a feel for what was needed, Justin paraded the integrity he obviously feels that the C of E and RC churches has shown with their own child abuse scandals - and this was not a good move at all! The Gibb report (An Abuse of Faith) is a good start, but that's all it is and whilst witch-hunts are never good, neither is the token offering of eighty-one pages of report wrapped around with an (according to some who have engaged me) hollow mea culpa!

There\s too many people out there with horror stories and untreated wounds inflicted on them by people in church leadership. The 'long shadow' spoken of by Dame Moira Gibb is still evident and the 'dark area' which Justin considered the BBC to be surely exists in the same shadow.

Justin, speaking for the C of E as he does, has surely opened a challenging can of worms here. Unless he wishes to own the accusations of engaging in “breathtaking hypocrisy”  he needs to deal with the abuse survivors have hurled at him (and the church he leads) by being seen to be doing it right. I for one trust the bloke to be that man and look forward to seeing where this debacle takes him, and us, his brothers and sisters in Christ.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, a radio interview with one of those who have be subjected to abuse in a church setting spoke of the, “Evasion, denial and silence that those claiming abuse had been met with”. A man who stopped me outside of our town centre church asked my opinion on the sacking of George Carey (a former archbishop of Canterbury) as a result of the Gibb Report. His view was that it was an 'easy hit' and that many of those wearing dog-collars (and purple shirts) were equally, or even more, culpable and yet were hidden within the protection the C of E. Whether this is a true assessment of the situation, time alone will tell.

Just read the book and apply it!

So a few pleas:

i.    Please stop beating Justin up - he was doing his job when he spoke regarding the BBC's shadow.

ii.   Please pray for Justin - and all in ministry - that we would act wisely and deal with abuse
      wheresoever we find it.

iii.   Ensure that your church engages in a robust (yet not oppressive) safeguarding practice. We not
        only have an organisational duty of care but we have a personal biblical call to protect those in
        our congregations and beyond.

iv.   Take the time to get yourself trained up so that you can have a basic awareness of safeguarding:
       You can do this through the C of E Safeguarding portal - which you'll find @
        http://bit.ly/2i3TdYV




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Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good

The answer is probably, 'Quite a bit, but what for this time?'

And the answer is that on a day when Rolf Harris is found guilty of sexual offences against girls it appears that others are coming forward to add to the allegations as Harris, like Savile, crashes and burns and, quite rightly, is brought down.

But what confuses me is a conversation on a radio programme where an 'expert' from some group was talking about the fact that compensation was the key to many of those abused 'finding their healing' - a comment that stopped me in my tracks and brought my full attention to what was being said (it was almost background noise until then).

The speaker continued along the lines that it was act of stripping the abuser of their money and possessions and possessing what had been theirs that brought 'healing' for many. It's not just about justice, it's about 'getting your own back'.

A small voice in the back of my mind reminded me of Romans 12 (17-end):

'Never pay back evil with more evil. 
Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honourable. 
Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. 
For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the LORD. 

Instead, 
If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. 
In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.

Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.'

Years back I encountered many who had been abused (and a few who had been abusers) and saw them come to a place of wholeness and healing through the power of God's love. What I saw during that period was that those who sought revenge and harboured bitterness, malice and a desire to inflict pain were brought down by various afflictions in body, mind and spirit. Those who found a place of forgiveness and peace within themselves were the complete opposite, they flourished and grew. Not theory but true, empirical, evidence of the mechanisms that bring healing.

I guess what we are seeing is the fruits of our emerging post-Christian society. A society where (Micah 6) justice and mercy are put aside for revenge and malice (but don't think these two awful traits are not found in Christians or that I'm knocking those who are not Christian. I could take you to the homes of many in the town I inhabit who have these traits sharpened, honed and perfected ;-(  ).

Once more it all comes down to the fact that we always have a choice in the way that we think and behave.

Prevention or something more sinister?

I listened this week to a most unsettling interview relating to Jimmy Saville and how, having reached five hundred potential victims of his brand of wickedness, we should be turning our attention to those who gave the man access to the people he abused. One of those speaking said that they would like to see a new law created to prosecute the people who 'stood by' and let act as he did. Now, to be honest, I thought that being an accessory to such things was already illegal so I was a little surprised.

My surprise turned to something approaching despair as the person continued to say that we should punish everyone who had been in charge of the hospitals and other places because 'they needed to be made to pay for what they had done.' What followed had little to do with justice but appeared to be all about revenge. It had little to do with ensuring such awful acts never happened again, learning from the impotence, weakness and sloping shoulders syndrome that aided the bloke but everything to do with 'making them pay'.

'Those who stood by and did nothing should be ashamed,' they said; and indeed those who knew  should for it is true that stupidity and weakness is often at the root of shame. They continued, 'And no matter how old they are, they should be prosecuted and made to pay!'

 Pay?

Pay with what?'

The Bible tells me that those who permit wickedness are judged by God to be as guilty as those who do it. But don't take my word for it, let's look at Ezekiel chapter three (17-19):

'If God says to the wicked, ‘You are going to die,’ and you don’t warn them then they will die and you're responsible. But if you warn them and they continue sinning them then their fate is in their own hands, but you, having done the right thing, have saved your life.'

But of course this is a 'then' penalty and, wanting 'justice' in the 'now' it is simple for us to be an imprecatory people and being generally a godless people too - to seek redress, vengeance and a desire to inflict painful responses - rather that that which is right.

Justice rather than revenge. Mercy rather than something more primal. A knowledge that their is accountability, that even in the world of Christian Grace there is a judgement - a 'day of reckoning' - brings with it a justice that is tempered by mercy. Lacking in this knowledge brings something by which the whole world dies just a little bit more.

The beginnings of the harvesting of the fruit of a world where God is perceived not to be: The basis by which Burke's, 'Evil triumphs when good men fail to act,' is both the effect and the cause as the feedback persists and the noise becomes deafening.

Removing knighthoods and other stupid acts!

I see that that great bastion of all that is morally right and proper (The Sun) is calling for Sir Jimmy Savile to be stripped of his OBE and knighthood. That's the way to do it, hit the man where it hurts!

Oh yeah, forgot that he is dead and so taking away the honour would do? Exactly nothing, unlike taking Freddy Goodwin's knighthood from him in an act of public vengeance. Now that did something (didn't it?).

How I wish that we would stop the bitter, revenge-ladeen, bleating that is so much a part of this society of ours. We don't seek justice nor do we engage in dialogue that seeks understanding and craves peace but instead we lash out to redress the balance and gain the upper hand (regardless of how Phyrric it might be).

Four years ago the prime Minister of the day (Gordon Brown, remember him?) launched a bail out of the banks and promised a balanced and more moral banking system as a result. here we are four years on and the Chancellor (George Osborne - wouldn't you like to forget him?) is talking about cutting benefits to the tune of £10bn to help balance the books of a financially (to go along with morally) bankrupt nation, thanks to the Bankers and the Labour Party (who last week with their sans Gromit leader promised more 'spend. spend. spend' profligacy).

Seems we have three undesirable parties vying for power  and bankers still living as they did and making money at the top end whilst the drones find themselves redundant and paying for the excesses of the privileged (much like the Church of England according to one critic this weekend!!!).

Forget knighthoods and throwing stones at dead people and let us instead concentrate of those who knew and were complicit in the acts that Savile did. Let us ask questions of those who were, and are, in power regarding PFI scams, the imminent demise of the NHS (a jewel in our nation's fast dimming crown), the excesses of bankers and the so many other real, and accesible, excesses and errors. Let's call upon the Lord for justice (for He does hear and does act).

As for revenge?

Paul has a good thought for the day in the words of Romans 12: 19:

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, "I will take revenge; I will pay them back," says the LORD.