Movement 113
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the magazine of the student christian movement I issue tl3 | spring 2OO3<br />
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AIpha:<br />
a chaplain speaks<br />
John Vincent's lourney'
ovemen<br />
issue 1-13 | spring 2OO3<br />
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MOVEMENI is the termly ma{azine<br />
the Student Christian <strong>Movement</strong>,<br />
distributed ftw of char{e to memberc<br />
and dedicated to an open-mindd<br />
expl o rati o n of Ch ri sti a n ity.<br />
Editor: Liam Purcell<br />
e: editor@movement.org.uk<br />
Next copy date: 28 February 20O3<br />
Editorial group: David Anderson, Liam Purcell,<br />
Elinor Mensingh, Marie Pattison, Kate Powell,<br />
Rebecca Hawthorne<br />
SCM staff: Co-ordinator Elinor Mensingh; links<br />
Worker Marie Pattison; Office Administrator<br />
Rebecca Hawthorne<br />
SGM office: University of Birmingham, Weoley<br />
Park Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 6LL<br />
r (o121) 47t2404<br />
f. (OL2L) 414 5619 mark faxes 'FAO SCM'<br />
e: scm@movement.org.uk<br />
Website: www. movement.org. uk<br />
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in <strong>Movement</strong><br />
are those of the particular author and should not<br />
be taken to be the policy ofthe Student Christian<br />
<strong>Movement</strong>.<br />
tssN o306-980x<br />
Charity number 24La96<br />
o 2003 scM<br />
llevencnt<br />
movement<br />
feature:<br />
introducinE<br />
christianity<br />
movement<br />
reviews<br />
platform David Anderson 3<br />
newsfile 4<br />
on campus 6<br />
campaigns 7<br />
diary 8<br />
a headless chicken? Neil EIIiott 9<br />
worldview: germany Ulrich Falkenha$en 70<br />
disarmin$ actions Helen SteYen 72<br />
celebrity theologian Matt Bullimore 73<br />
small ritual Steve Collins 74<br />
evangelism in a $lobalised world Tim Gorrin$e 75<br />
marketing the gosPel 17<br />
iourneying together John Vincent 79<br />
radical discipleship Liam Purcell 2O<br />
ties and binds Jim Cotter 2I<br />
life in all its fullness? Niall Cooper 22<br />
first among equals Claire Connor 24<br />
if nobody speaks of remarkable things<br />
by lon McGre$or 25<br />
the beginning stages of...<br />
by the PolYPhonic SPree 26<br />
sweet sixteen directed by Ken Loach 27<br />
a telling place by Joy Mead 28<br />
shiP of fools 29<br />
resources round-up 30<br />
serpent 31<br />
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platform<br />
just war theory<br />
ls the West waging a iust war, or iust a war?<br />
Every time it looks like Western nations<br />
are going to go to war, you get people -<br />
often bishops who should know better -<br />
who tell us that they think it is a just<br />
war. But they don't often seem to say<br />
what they think a just war is, other than<br />
that they personally mean welland think<br />
something must be done. People<br />
arguing agaanst wars don't invoke just<br />
war theory at all. But neither side seems<br />
to understand what the theory is.<br />
Just war theory requires that any proposed<br />
military campaign fulfil seven conditions:<br />
. There must be a just cause.<br />
. The campaign must be declared as a<br />
matter of last resort.<br />
. The campaign must be declared by the<br />
appropriate legal authority.<br />
. The authority must have just intentions.<br />
. The campaign must have a chance of<br />
success.<br />
. The consequences of the campaign must not<br />
be worse than those of not campaigning.<br />
. Only just means must be used in the<br />
campaign.<br />
We've had two debates in the past 2 years<br />
over whether to go to war, first with Afghanistan<br />
and then with lraq. What was worrying about<br />
both debates was that proponents of the just<br />
war seemed to believe that because the<br />
campaign tulfilled the first condition (that there<br />
was a just cause for war) and because they<br />
believed it fulfilled the sixth condition<br />
(something had to be done), it also fulfilled the<br />
other fwe. Meanwhile, some of those opposing<br />
the war seemed to believe that the only way to<br />
deny that the conditions for a just war were<br />
fumlbd was to deny that the attack on the World<br />
Trade Centre was a just cause for any sort of<br />
'action. (Whether it was a just cause for wa$ng<br />
war on the Taliban is another question.)<br />
It seems to me that if anything counts as a<br />
just cause to go to war, then a direct<br />
intentional attack upon innocent civilians is<br />
such a cause. 'lnnocent' here means that the<br />
civilians concerned are not directly engaged in<br />
violent activity. lt does not matter whether or<br />
not they are participating in or maintaining a<br />
system that causes people's deaths: killing<br />
them does not end the exploitation. lt is true<br />
that Western policies towards the rest of the<br />
world could be expected to provoke such an<br />
attack: my GCSE geography textbook<br />
predicted a terrorist attack L2 years ago. But<br />
that is not to say that anybody deserved to die.<br />
However, this still does not mean that the<br />
other six conditions were satisfied. lt is not<br />
clear that all the options for extraditing Bin<br />
Laden were tried before going to war against<br />
Afghanistan. lt is still not clear that the<br />
consequences of the campaign were better<br />
than inaction would have been: although the<br />
Taliban were a fairly unpleasant regime and<br />
Western newspapers were full of pictures of<br />
women taking off their burqas with relief, it<br />
seems that Afghans are still being threatened<br />
by starvation, as well as by unexploded<br />
bombs. lt is not clear that the campaign had<br />
a reasonable chance of success: as I write,<br />
Osama Bin laden is apparently alive and well.<br />
Furthermore, while civilian casualties are<br />
inevitable in any military campaign, the use of<br />
just means requires that one sacrifice military<br />
effectiveness to minimise civilian casualties.<br />
But one cannot assess these claims properly<br />
merely from the incomplete accounts in the<br />
newspapers. The really troubling criterion is<br />
that of just intention.<br />
The requirement that war be waged with a<br />
just intention is not a requirement that the<br />
people going to war should mean well.<br />
Everybody takes themselves to mean well. The<br />
requirement means that those waging the war<br />
should have a definite intention with which<br />
they are going to war, such that once that<br />
intention is realised they stop. lt was never<br />
made clear what the intention in bombing<br />
Afghanistan was. 'Ridding the world of<br />
terrorism' is a definite end, with the problem<br />
that it has no chance of success. 'Dismantling<br />
Al Qaida' is also a definite end, although it's<br />
not clear how far the campaign has achieved<br />
it, given that Al Qaida is supposedly spread<br />
through a large number of countries. As for<br />
bringing Bin laden to justice, the campaign<br />
has failed to do so, and no moves have been<br />
made to establish an international court in<br />
which he could be seen to be tried fairly.<br />
Therc arc limits to just war theory, and with any<br />
approach that applies rules withont refurcnce to<br />
the people who will be directly aftcted by the<br />
decisions made. But at least it is a start.<br />
As I write, internationalweapons inspectors<br />
are operating in lraq. I hope this means that<br />
war will not be declared, unpleasant as<br />
Saddam's regime may be. I<br />
David Anderson<br />
while civilian<br />
casualties are<br />
inevitable<br />
in any military<br />
campaign,<br />
the use of<br />
iust means<br />
requires<br />
that one<br />
sacrifice<br />
military<br />
effectiveness<br />
to minimise<br />
civilian<br />
casualties<br />
rnember ot the rltovemert<br />
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This issue is the first produced by our new editor, Liam Purcell. We thank Julian<br />
Lewis, now settling into life as a domestic goddess with his baby Melody Sunshine,<br />
for his hard work as editor last year, and David Anderson for steppin$ nobly into<br />
the breach as interim editor for issue 112.<br />
Liam writes... Hi. Some quick<br />
background: I graduated in<br />
English Language and Literature<br />
from Birmingham UniversitY in<br />
L997, where a Buddhist tutor<br />
introduced me to forensic handwriting analysis, t'ai chi<br />
and, most importantly, publishing. I work in my 'day job'<br />
doing design, production and editing on educational<br />
websites, books and magazines for the publisher Christian<br />
Education. But on Fridays, as my alter-ego Space Monkey<br />
Productions, I do freelance design and editing work for<br />
various small charities and a web design and music<br />
company called Silent Space (www.silence.me.uk, if the<br />
site's up by the time you read this).<br />
And now I edit Movetnent as well. I already know the<br />
magazine, as I've handled the design part of the job<br />
alongside Julian and David for the last four issues. With<br />
Julian's departure, I worked up the courage to take on the<br />
whole job, and I'm enjoying the challenge.<br />
quick guest'ons<br />
What's your favourite Possession?<br />
My PowerBook laptop. I like to pretend I'm not a geek because<br />
Apple computers are for creative people. Honest.<br />
What are you reading at the moment?<br />
Doubts and Loves by Richard Holloway, as part of my crash<br />
course in liberal and radical theolog/ and activism for this job!<br />
What is your favourite film?<br />
Clich6d studenty answer, I'm afraid - Withnail and /. And yes' I<br />
can recite all thqbest lines parrot-fashion.<br />
How do you relax?<br />
I do a bit of t'ai chi and yoga, or offer myself as a practice subject<br />
for my girlfriend, who's training in shiatsu massage. lt's a tough<br />
job but someone's got to do it.<br />
What's your favourite iourneY?<br />
Going away on holiday with a car full of friends, camping<br />
equipment and silly toys. The destination doesn't really matter.<br />
What do you like most about yourself?<br />
I have a calmer and more laid-back approach to life than some<br />
people I've known.<br />
I've already introduced a couple of changes: you'll find a<br />
report on current campaigns that groups can get involved in<br />
on page 7, and a round-up of recently published resources of<br />
interest to SCM members on page 30. These will be regular<br />
features. I want <strong>Movement</strong> to help SCM's membership around<br />
the country by offering support for their activities and inspiring<br />
them to get involved in bringing about changes in the world'<br />
It needs to be a two-way process - we want your input'<br />
Elsewhere in these pages you'll read about SCM's revamped<br />
website. We're hoping that the site can support the<br />
magazine by offering further resources backing up our<br />
special features, to help you explore the issues further. And<br />
we're planning an online discussion forum, which will offer<br />
themed debates fired off by our features, and the opportunity<br />
for you to respond to articles that excite or annoy you'<br />
and discuss them with other SCM members around the<br />
country. Comment, suggestions, criticisms and (especially)<br />
new writing are, as ever, very welcome. Send all your<br />
outpourings to me at editor@movement.org.uk. I<br />
What do you dislike about yourselfil<br />
I'm an idle slacker (see my answer to the previous question).<br />
What's your favourite word?<br />
It changes every week, usually to one I've invented myself.<br />
Currently 'pendulumularity', which I'm sure should mean<br />
something.<br />
lf you could be someone else, who would it be?<br />
President of the USA. Not that I really want the job or am qualified'<br />
but it would be hard to do wome than the present incumbent.<br />
When did you last cry?<br />
Embanassin$y, while watching The Full Monty. ln my defence, I<br />
was very tired and emotional at the time.<br />
What are you scared of?<br />
George Dubya Bush.<br />
What do you never miss on W?<br />
I like cult Channel 4 comedy like Spaced and Black Books'<br />
Anything with Bill Bailey in it.<br />
What music do you listen to most?<br />
It varies enormously - from the Chemical Brothers and Bentley<br />
Rhythm Ace to Spiritualized, Pulp, lndigo Girls, Tori Amos.<br />
What pet hates do You have?<br />
I'm a cantankerous old sod and witl grumble about anything.<br />
Particularly advertising, the media and world politics'<br />
4 |<br />
movement<br />
I
stop the war<br />
As with mct potests, the number of<br />
demonstratorc on the Stop lhe War<br />
marcfi in September ditrercd wiHly<br />
according to $rfio pu listened to<br />
after the event. Scotland Yard<br />
estimated ftat 4O,O(n peopb had<br />
tumed ouq fut inqereed that figUrc<br />
later to 150,0(n. On Sund4/, fte<br />
Obsenry quoted tthe orgpnisers' at<br />
250,000, while the Independent<br />
quoted presumably different<br />
organlses at 4(D,OOO.<br />
To me, as one of those who gathered<br />
at London's Embankment on 28<br />
September for the march to Hyde Park,<br />
one thing was clear - whatever the<br />
dispute over quantity, the quality of<br />
demonstrators was very diverse.<br />
Protesters came from all across Britain<br />
and included the UK lslamic Mission,<br />
Socialist Workers, CND, the Scottish<br />
Socialist Pafi, Saudi Arabia fuainst<br />
War, lecturers, priests, trade unionists,<br />
students and families with young<br />
children. lt emerged that many people<br />
were marching for the first time - a<br />
powerful indication of the huge guff<br />
between the govemment's support for<br />
US-planned military action against lraq<br />
and the wishes of people in Britain.<br />
The message was clear - that an<br />
attack on Bagfdad is not the way to<br />
deal with Saddam Hussein's refusal to<br />
complywith UN resolutions. The govemment's<br />
dossier of evidence did not show<br />
that the threat from lraq is any greater<br />
now than 3 years ago, and those who<br />
would suffer in the event of a war are<br />
the lraqi people, who have already<br />
suffered enough under sanctions and<br />
dictatorship. There was also consensus<br />
that American interest in lraqi oil<br />
reseryes is not entirely coincidental with<br />
the threat of military action.<br />
At the time of writing, the UN Security<br />
Council has just voted in favour of a<br />
resolution which threatens'serious<br />
consequences' if Saddam Hussein<br />
does not disarm. These consequences<br />
have not been specified, but American<br />
and British leaders have not left much<br />
room for doubt. So as time ticks away<br />
for lraq, we must not let our guard<br />
down. When the extremists push for<br />
war, the moderates must be ready to<br />
shout louder against it. I<br />
f(ate Powell, <strong>Movement</strong> editorial glroup<br />
NEWS<br />
SGM AGM<br />
On 16 November I was on a train at<br />
stupid a.m. to get to Birmingham for<br />
the AGM. There were those in our<br />
chaplaincy who were convinced I was<br />
mad, but 12 hours later I was equally<br />
convinced they were the mad ones<br />
for missing out!<br />
The day started with a fascinating<br />
address on inter-faith relations by Dr<br />
David Thomas, an Anglican priest who<br />
lectures in Christian-Muslim relations.<br />
The AGM itself opened with reports<br />
from the chair of General Council and<br />
the Co-ordinator on the website, the<br />
staff contracts and handbook, the stall<br />
at Greenbelt, the Trade Justice<br />
movement, and the annual conference.<br />
The accounts were presented, and the<br />
importance of every member taking an<br />
interest in SCM was highlighted. Liam<br />
spoke about <strong>Movement</strong>, and Silke<br />
Lechner updated us on the world-wide<br />
activities of the World Student Christian<br />
Federation.<br />
The elections for this year's GC and<br />
its first meetlng were held, letting us<br />
new members know what we had let<br />
ourselves in for. A bit of a challenge<br />
- let's hope we will rise to it!<br />
The day finished in very sociable<br />
style with cheese and wine. Many<br />
thanks to SCM staff for organising a<br />
great day - interesting, informatlve<br />
and useful, but also great fun! I<br />
Alice Grawford, SGM General Gouncil<br />
the Cospel demands action<br />
'Ghristian Aid?'The question was put to me accusingly, two months into my job as Student<br />
Worker. 'Do you really think you are doing good 'aid' work if you are pushing Ghristianity<br />
at the same time? Why can't you Ghristians just keep it to yourself.)'<br />
I was speaking to<br />
students at a<br />
careers fair in<br />
London, trying to dispel some of the<br />
myths about the work of relief and<br />
development organisations in<br />
general, and Christian Aid in particular.<br />
One look at the 'Christian' in the<br />
title was all this guy needed to start<br />
on a rant about how religion was the<br />
source of all poor people's troubles...<br />
'Actually, I'm not a Christian.'<br />
'Oh,' he said. Funny how that<br />
seems to quieten people.<br />
'We work with people of lots of<br />
different taiths. And we don't "push"<br />
Christianity. lt's an important part of who<br />
we are, and most of us are practicing our<br />
taith through Christian Aid's wort. But<br />
we are here to help end povefi.'<br />
'So if you're not... then how come<br />
you're working for...?'<br />
It's a fair question... but kinda<br />
obvious if you think about it. Loving<br />
your neighbour. Respecting diversity.<br />
Being inclusive. Even striving for<br />
sustainability. These are values which<br />
people here hold as central to<br />
Christianity... and I figure they are<br />
values that most people take to be<br />
universal. Given that, how can<br />
anyone not support Christian Aid?<br />
To me these values, derived from the<br />
gospel, require us to act, to speak out<br />
against the inequality and suffering that<br />
our neighbours experience. To what<br />
extent do you agree? Enough, of<br />
course, and I'm going to try to get you<br />
to look at www.christian-aid.org/<br />
worship and www.christian-aid.orgl<br />
students, to try and encourage you to<br />
act. Not enough? Well, hopefully you'll<br />
give me another chance to explore this<br />
idea (and persuade you!) in the next<br />
issue. I<br />
Patrick Dawes,<br />
Ghristian Aid Student Worker<br />
Look out fot Patilck's rcEulat cotumn,<br />
$artlng In our rext tssue<br />
movementl5
on campus<br />
'{)tl gelrI)pLl.i<br />
news from the universitY world<br />
united and frghtin$<br />
student campai$ners who attended the recent National union<br />
of Students conference, along with others, includin$<br />
supporters of the Gampai$n for Free Education, have come<br />
together in a new student forum with the aim of developing a<br />
broad campai$ning alternative in the student movement.<br />
The Student Campai$n Forum have a website at<br />
www.studentcamoaignforum.org.uk, where they set out their views and<br />
goals. They say:<br />
'We stand for:<br />
. a campaigning, democratic union;<br />
. fi€htin€lracism and fascism;<br />
. solidarity with workers at home and abroad;<br />
. against the privatisation of public services;<br />
Wd@me to he Sar&tl C.mF g, Forun rebsile!<br />
NEw! vistth€ ncw loruhs sedion.<br />
sd6.#rlldEhn'b:orElG<br />
d6lre6rdl)saw:ofttdd<br />
. equality, civil liberties and human rights for all;<br />
We're sorry that the anarchic black and red colour<br />
scheme doesn't corne across on the printed page!<br />
. a clean, safe, sustainable environment.'<br />
They have discussion forums and details of upcoming events on the site. lf you're concerned about proposed<br />
changes in the higher education sector, or just want to get involved in campaigning on other issues, it looks like SCF<br />
could be a good place to start. We'll update you on future developments led by SCF, and other $roups such as People<br />
and Planet, on the new regular Campai$ns page (see page 7). I<br />
Uam Purcell, <strong>Movement</strong> editor<br />
gfiassoots rcport: univercity of walest banSor<br />
iUnty people came to hear Bishop John Shelby Spong, tot 24 years Bishop of Newark, New Jersey,<br />
nunCn the Anglican Ghaplaincy lectures at the University in Bangor on Monday 7 October.<br />
The God of the Bible is immoral and unbelievable, the brains at the church door?' There are different images in<br />
Bishop said: a God who chooses some but not others, the Bible that we can use to talk of God: wind, love, rock'<br />
who drowns his enemies in the sea, who abuses his son The footprints of God are not beyond the sky but in the<br />
by demanding his sacrifice. This God is not worthy of bias in creation towards life, wholeness and consciousbelief.<br />
A God who is seen as an invader from outside ness. He is beyond all images. We don't have to think of<br />
and an examiner of all we do needs re-conceiving. lf him as a person. lf he is the source of life we need to live<br />
God can interyene to help me why doesn't he interuene fully; if the source of love to love wastefully; if the ground<br />
to help everybody? A God who does not interuene is of all being we need to make him more visible.<br />
immoral. A God who cannot is not God.<br />
!l<br />
We must get out of the stereotypical images of the past<br />
We live the other side of Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, not because they were wrong then but because they are<br />
Einstein and Freud. Faith always changes its form and irrelevant now. Evil is not a condition into which we fell,<br />
the church needs a wake-up call. Only in 1991 did the but is arrested development. Jesus challenges us to do<br />
Vatican admit Galileo was rignt - almost 400 years too more than look to our own survival, the survival of our<br />
late. We can explain miracles without the supernatural. tribe. He challenges our prejudices that exclude people<br />
lf Jesus,ascended'into heaven we know he would not fromfullcommunitybecauseof their$ender,theircolour'<br />
have gone anywhere but into orbit! There never was a their sexual orientation, and calls us to a new humanity.<br />
perfecl creation. lt is evolving. Jesus does not rescue lhe Chaplaincy lectures have been launched in response to<br />
fallen sinners but empowers a new humanity. 'l don't the events of 11 September 20o1: how can reli$ons and<br />
want to be washed in ine btooO of anybody!' cuftures live peaceably togethef How can they be creative<br />
Many reject the story because they reject the way we and credible in the 21st century? 'h was an excellent<br />
have interpreted it. We need a new Reformation, a new begfnningl, saya the University Chaplain, Revd John Butler' I<br />
Christianity for a new wortd. 'Do we have to park our<br />
6lmovement<br />
Anglican Ghaplaincy to the University of wales'<br />
Bangor - an SGM'affiliated chaplaincy<br />
?
campargns<br />
cetrr)petigrt.J<br />
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faith and social justice cannot be separated<br />
ln this new feature, we'll be reportingl on campaigns being run by SGM and other organisations:<br />
campaigns on issues specifically related to student life, and on broader issues that we think concerned<br />
Christians might feel moved to act on.<br />
M E<br />
tuople&Planet<br />
People and Planet (www.peopleandolanet.org)<br />
is a student organisation<br />
running campaigns on a range of environmental and social<br />
justice issues, often with impressive success. We encourage<br />
you to get involved in their current campaigns:<br />
Stop GATS, defend higher education<br />
P&P is campaigning against the new General Agreement on Trade in<br />
Services. GATS is being negotiated now in the World Trade Organisation,<br />
and aims to open up a whole range of seruices to the WTO's free<br />
trade rules and systems.<br />
lf education is one of the seruices opened up in this way, public<br />
funding for higher education could be made illegal as an 'unfair barrier'<br />
to free trade, 'unprofitable' courses at universities could be shut down,<br />
tuition fees would rise due to the need to compete, and academics<br />
would have to rely on private funding, threatening their independence.<br />
GATS could accelerate and lock in place the already alarming commercialisation<br />
of education, which will be even more catastrophic in Africa<br />
and the developing world than it will in the UK.<br />
What you can do<br />
P&P have prepared a detailed report on the implications, and now<br />
aim to persuade the Higher Education Minister Margaret Hodge to<br />
launch an impact assessment before signing higher education up to<br />
GATS. You can co-operate with a P&P group or work in your own<br />
group on the campaign, which has two stages:<br />
. Get action cards from P&P, and send them to the Minister.<br />
Pressure your Student Union and your lecturers' unions to get<br />
involved too.<br />
. Ask your university's Vice-Chancellor to write to Margaret Hodge.<br />
All Vice-Chancellors have already received a copy of P&P's report<br />
on GATS. P&P suggest you apply pressure to your VC by organising<br />
a petition if necessary. lf that doesn't work, protest! P&P groups<br />
nationwide will be arranging stunts and demonstrations in the runup<br />
to ttge WTO's decision on GATS in March.<br />
Kick the arms dealers off campus!<br />
Many universities invest in arms companies, allow them to recruit at<br />
graduate fairs, and even receive funding from them. ln some cases,<br />
they may be investing in regimes which oppress international students<br />
studying at those very universities. These are your universities, and<br />
your tuition fees they're spending. They can be pressured to adopt<br />
ethical policies in all these areas.<br />
Trade tustice<br />
<strong>Movement</strong><br />
SCM is a member of the Trade Justice<br />
<strong>Movement</strong>, a group of organisations<br />
concerned with the harmful impact of current<br />
international trade rules on the environment,<br />
democracy and the poorest people in the<br />
world. The Trade Justice <strong>Movement</strong> calls for<br />
fundamental change of the unjust rules and<br />
institutions governing international trade, so<br />
that trade is made to work for all. ln June<br />
2002, the TJM organised the largest ever<br />
mass lobby of Parliament, which was attended<br />
by SCM members.<br />
What can you do?<br />
. Send a greeting to the new directorgeneral<br />
of the World Trade Organisation,<br />
asking him to make it more democratic.<br />
See<br />
www.tradejusticemovement.orE. ul
diary<br />
I<br />
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\<br />
I!<br />
5{ Fobrury<br />
Sodd Rorpondbf,lly of/ln $c iortPrrollt f*cOftor<br />
Spisska Kapitula, Slovakia<br />
fhird seminar organised by the Gertral European Sub<br />
Region ol the World Student Ghristian Federation. Plans<br />
to establish a lorum for young people lrterested in<br />
ecumenical, economic and Gertral European issues.<br />
lf you would like to represert SGM at this evert, see<br />
rvww. movemert.orq.uUdiarv.<br />
8 Febntary<br />
lnioFfrlli lppm*hc to fHcbn<br />
Ammerdown Gonference and Retreat Gerte<br />
An irter-faith day on the meaning and aims of mygticism,<br />
its retevance to toda/s spiritual needs and tte<br />
techniques and elqeriences of individuals and diflerent<br />
laith groups.<br />
t20 lincludes vegetarian lunch and relrcshmentsl<br />
cr centre@ammetdown.org<br />
21-Zl Fcblllty<br />
S[oft.ild SptrlbellU<br />
SGM's annual conference.<br />
For details, see page 13 or<br />
www. movemert,orq.uUAnnualGonf erenco.<br />
21-2{ Flbrurt<br />
Soilddild(201lil<br />
The gathering ol the SPEAI( Network. A weekend of<br />
ideas, vision, prayer and discussion, tollowed by a day ol<br />
action: creative prayer and meeting illPs and other<br />
decision-makerc.<br />
E O2072494309<br />
ei soeak@soeak.org,uk<br />
r www.soeak.org.uk<br />
rK, pftars for tIre sllmmer y&l<br />
The Lingua Franca project is looking for voluntary teachers, who<br />
are willing to:<br />
. travel to Central or Eastern Europe during the summer;<br />
. teach language tor 2-3 weeks;<br />
. tearn and experience the history, religion and everyday life of<br />
the hosting country.<br />
The essence of Lingua Franca is that teachers, course organisers<br />
and students mutually benefit from the language courses.<br />
Teachers from different countries teach language for students in<br />
Central and Eastern Europe. ln an ecumenical context, all pafticipants<br />
share the histories and habits of their countries. As<br />
'payment" teachers are fully hosted and get a unique insight into<br />
the everyday life and cultural and religious traditions of the<br />
hosting country.<br />
The program was developed to help youth and students from<br />
throughout the region learn with and from each other... break<br />
down culturati tinguistic and historical barriers and help empower<br />
young people to work together.<br />
Experience a different kind of world!<br />
Lingua Franca is a program of the World Student Christian<br />
Federation, one of the otdest ecumenical organisations and one<br />
of the few world-wide working student organisat,ons.<br />
For more information and an application form, please contact:<br />
WSCF Lingua Franca, c/o Evangelikus Egretemi Gyulekezet,<br />
Maglar Tudosok Korutja 3, H-1118 Budapest, Hungary<br />
e: wscf_lf@yahoo.com I Zsuzsa Rihay<br />
LinElua Franca co-ordlnator<br />
1{-16 ttdr<br />
Wdkild TtlkWGclild<br />
A weekend in the Sheffield inner city ashram. El0lore<br />
some new realities; meet local actMsts and disciples; stay<br />
with Ashram House memberc, ilo a toumeywalkabout.<br />
ashram has produced lhe loumeyitrtroductory course to<br />
radical Ghristianitv (see pages 19-201.<br />
t40 lincludes accommodationl<br />
Revd Dr lohn Vincent, Ashram Gommunity Office, 178<br />
Abbeyfield Road, Sheflield 54 7AV<br />
t0114 243 6688<br />
15tfth<br />
Prcar h Torrlr - llnfrfrhd Bntnll for tie girdt Todry<br />
Maria Assumpta cedre, 23 Kensington Square' london W8<br />
Pax Ghristi, the international Gatholic movement lor<br />
peace, hold their fortieth anniversary conference'<br />
t10 waged/tS unwaged<br />
PilOrfttl Stlceplfs,Watfod Wry' llendon, Landon t{W4 4IY<br />
20tl dt<br />
Qdd Dryior tont<br />
Ammerdown Gonference and Retreat Centre<br />
Wth creative elements, sharing with others and time to<br />
'be', find new strendh as lesus did in the desert.<br />
t12 lincludes lunch and refreshmentsl<br />
cg centre@ammerdown.org<br />
7-13 lprll<br />
USGF tttd ttc Ecunolcd llorunent - Dl*ovedlg our<br />
rlotr ud looldlgto tltc ttttutt<br />
fuand, Finland<br />
The European Regional Assembly ol the World Student<br />
Ghristian Federation. See unu&.EgyruIl9lc,l&Eiery<br />
lor further details.<br />
a date with Marie?<br />
I am scribbling this as the 9.30 Virgin<br />
train to Birmingham pulls out of<br />
Edinburgh. I have just spent 3 days in<br />
lovely Scotland meeting SCM groups at<br />
Glasgow and Edinburgh. This is mY<br />
favourite part of my job, not catching<br />
trains in the freezing November fog that<br />
is, but actually meeting SCMers.<br />
So if you are planning your programme<br />
and would like a visit from SCM it would<br />
make my day if you were to get in touch. I<br />
have visited lots of groups and you don't<br />
have to be in a interesting city with lovely<br />
art galleries for me to agree to visit. I can<br />
turn up and chat to a group or bring a<br />
workshop with me. My box of tricks<br />
includes thought-provoking stuff on a wide<br />
range of topics, including social justice,<br />
body image, the environment, images of<br />
Christ, mission, and many more.<br />
Visiting helps me to keep in touch with<br />
you and also to bring you the latest news<br />
in what is going in the national movement.<br />
For more details about my workshops see<br />
www.movement.org.uldworkshoos or ring<br />
OL21- 47t 2404 and chat to me about it.<br />
And read about me in my guest starring<br />
role in 'First among equals' on page 24.<br />
8 | movement
headless chicken?<br />
Where now for the Ghurch of England?<br />
the church<br />
As I write this, the Ghurch of England is<br />
officially headless. Archbishop George<br />
Carey, who has headed the church<br />
through the ordination of women and<br />
the decade of evangelism, retired at the<br />
end of October, and Archbishop Rowan<br />
Williams starts in January. Meanwhile,<br />
the Church of England is wandering<br />
around twitching like the proverbial<br />
headless chicken (Proverbs 26:6).<br />
Reform and the Church Society, along with<br />
Forward in Faith, the right and left wings of<br />
the church, are in a flap about Rowan's views<br />
on homosexuality, among other issues.<br />
lrrespective of his reassurances to them, they<br />
are determined to find a liberal plot and are<br />
in the of excludi themselves from<br />
the church. A split of some sort seems<br />
inevitable, then we can just remove the<br />
entrails and roast the chicken.<br />
I suspect there are two prime causes of the<br />
problem - disappointment and (ssshh - are<br />
the children in bed?) postmodernity. George<br />
Carey was a big disappointment to the<br />
evangelicals in the Church of England. They<br />
hoped that now 'one of them' was in control,<br />
everything would be OK. The NIV would be on<br />
every lectern, the ASB would be binned, and<br />
a revised BCP would bring us back to the<br />
glories of our reformed foundation. But it all<br />
went wrong. The decade of evangelism<br />
promised much and delivered nothing.<br />
Women got ordained (shock horror). Carey<br />
disappeared from our TVs, and the future king<br />
got divorced and wanted to be the Defender<br />
of Faiths. Society kept turning away from the<br />
church.<br />
ln many ways George Carey was the last<br />
modern arChbishop, and in that he 'fails'<br />
because society has become a postmodern<br />
one. The conseruatives in both wings of the<br />
church see a liberal in Williams, maybe<br />
because he is a theologian. They are wrong.<br />
Rowan Williams is the first postmodern<br />
archbishop of the Church of England. He is a<br />
poet (even his name is poetic) and a prophet.<br />
He accepts difference, but stands clearly for<br />
his own deep understanding of faith. I believe<br />
he understands the fundamental change that<br />
has happened to our society. The issues that<br />
the conservatives have are the issues of the<br />
modernist with a postmodernist. (See the<br />
critique of Rowan Williams'theology by Garry<br />
Williams, tutor at Oak Hill College, London, at<br />
www. lati mertrust.or9theology:of . htm.)All th is<br />
makes me sure that Rowan Williams is exactly<br />
the right person to help the Church of England<br />
at this time of change. The next few years will<br />
be very painful in the Church of England. We<br />
will continue to shrink and lose both prestige<br />
and finance. Failure will be an increasing part<br />
of our experience. Major splits will occur. We<br />
will not just feel like headless chickens but<br />
trussed and roasted chickens. But out of the<br />
fire and suffering, we may discover that we<br />
are not a chicken but a phoenix. I<br />
Nell Elliott<br />
society kept<br />
turning<br />
away from<br />
the church<br />
Rowan Williams,<br />
fully kifted out<br />
to lead a beheaded<br />
chicken into the future<br />
. Noil Elllott is AnElllcan<br />
chaplain at the Unlvelalty<br />
of Gentral England<br />
movement | 9
worldview<br />
yv orl -,1 vie yY<br />
reports from other student Christian movements<br />
The German student Ghristian<br />
movement, the ESG, was founded as<br />
the Deutsche christliche Studentenvereinigung<br />
(DCSV) in 1895. The DGSV<br />
became part of the World Student<br />
Christian Federation (WSCF) in the<br />
same year. Since the DGSV oPPosed<br />
the so-called 'force into line' of the<br />
Third Reich, it was prohibited in 1938<br />
by the Nazis. The colle$e groups<br />
sought protection from prosecution<br />
under the cloak of the institutionalised<br />
Protestant churches. During this time,<br />
the name'Evangelische Studentenge'<br />
meinde' (rouglhly translated,<br />
'Protestant Student SocietY')<br />
developed. After the war, the 'Evan$elische<br />
Studentengemeinden' of<br />
individual college groups drew to$ether<br />
as the successor organisation to the<br />
DCSV, under the name 'Evangelische<br />
Studentengemeinde in der Bundesre'<br />
publik Deutschland' (ESG).<br />
The ESG understands itself as a<br />
community of lesus Ghrist and lives out<br />
the liberating message of the Bible<br />
Secrelary<br />
Generrl<br />
Office<br />
Working<br />
G<br />
b*<br />
E*,tr<br />
f<br />
General<br />
Assembly<br />
t<br />
ESG<br />
Council<br />
F<br />
about 150 local SCMs in GermanY<br />
Society<br />
GV<br />
Assembly<br />
ofKED<br />
scholarship<br />
holders<br />
\<br />
I<br />
Student<br />
Other<br />
Regional<br />
Regional<br />
* Assemblies<br />
Assemblies<br />
Until 1967, this ESG existed as one organasation<br />
in the two German states. ln 1967'<br />
the organisational separation of the ESG'<br />
into one organisation in West Germany and<br />
one in East Germany, was decided and<br />
carried out, without giving up the inner unit.<br />
Up to the year 1989, narrow relationships<br />
existed between the two organisations'<br />
which were both members of WSCF. With the<br />
union of the two German states the prerequisite<br />
for a union of the two SCMs was<br />
achieved.<br />
The ESG fights for iustice'<br />
peace and Protection of<br />
Greation. lt works in an<br />
ecumenical context<br />
Shaped through German history, until<br />
1945 the ESG always committed itself in a<br />
politically progressive and critical wdY,<br />
working outside the church. The special<br />
situation in Germany after 1945 caused the<br />
organisation to develop differently in East<br />
and West. While the ESG in West Germany<br />
kept sight of its autonomy outside the<br />
church in the context of the student<br />
movement of 1968, the ESG in the East<br />
looked for critical proximity. However, basic<br />
democratic elements were preserved in both<br />
organisations.<br />
The ESG understands itself as a<br />
community of Jesus Christ and lives out the<br />
liberating message of the Bible' lt fights for<br />
justice, peace and protection of Creation. lt<br />
works in an ecumenical context. lt is open to<br />
everybody but not to everYthing.<br />
Today about 150 groups ('communities')<br />
are members of the ESG. Each group is<br />
autonomous. The ESG is supported by group<br />
members, the EKD (Protestant church of<br />
Germany), and the government. The ESG is a<br />
member of many other NGOs and involved in<br />
a lot of activities, for examPle: ><br />
10 lmovement
worldview<br />
. Campaign for Clean Clothing - fair trade<br />
of textiles and textile production in<br />
accordance with human rights;<br />
. Adivasi-Tee-Projekt - supporting a teafarm<br />
for native lndians;<br />
. CANAAL - Camerun-Namibia-Allemagne-<br />
Project;<br />
. International meetings;<br />
. Ecumenical meetings and seminars;<br />
. Seminars and conventions on different<br />
topics relating to church and society<br />
(violence in the Bible, development<br />
politics, Europe, gender-gay issues, and so<br />
on). I<br />
Ulrich Falkenhagen<br />
Secretary General of the Evangelische<br />
Studentengemelndo in der Bundesrepubllk Deut3chland<br />
{<br />
0<br />
Jr<br />
rto<br />
! 0b wscF !<br />
Europe 04<br />
gt Q'lrl trro'<br />
SCM and the ESG are<br />
both members of<br />
World Student Christian<br />
Federation Europe<br />
The red cockerel<br />
symbol of the ESG<br />
Some different meanings of the red cockerel are<br />
. The cockerel is a biblical animal which reminds Peter in the New<br />
Testament of his betrayal of Jesus. ('Before the cock crows you will<br />
have denied me three times.') Thus the cockerel warns the church<br />
of betrayal, and shows it when it is rejecting Christ by its actions. We<br />
should not talk our way out - neither in small matters ('That's not my<br />
job', 'The responsible authorities should take care of that') nor in big<br />
matters, where fear of people leaving the church often blocks the<br />
solidarity with the poor and oppressed which is demanded by the<br />
gospel. The cockerel should admonish us, but also we - as a critical<br />
parish - need to admonish our church.<br />
. The cockerel is well-known as the weathercock on church<br />
steeples, where it shifts with the wind. Maybe the church 'trims its<br />
sails to the wind'. But with the cockerel it is completely different.<br />
It turns with its head against the wind: it crows always against the<br />
wind! The cockerel should remind us to be suspicious of opinions<br />
we are told to be normal and prevailing. We must clearly fight the<br />
'normal'xenophobia and become active, for example.<br />
. ln the age of Reformation 'the rapacious gang of peasants' (Martin<br />
Luther) placed the red cockerel (fire) on the roofs of the lords they<br />
were oppressed by. Whose side was Jesus on at the time, when<br />
Luther was on the side of the lords? Whose side is he on today in<br />
Latin America, in Africa, Asia, in all the issues of our 'two thirds'<br />
society? ... Whose side are we on?<br />
An open doo(? Migration in a European context<br />
What do you think of when you hear the word migration?<br />
Bnin dnin to the States - Aussie nurses and Indian computer technicians - Vbtnames e boat people - Refugiees<br />
trn,pped in the Channel Tunnel - Voucherc - Asylum Seekers - Fortness Europe - Green Card - lnter-religious dialogue?<br />
llout mary of your fan$y tnentets or tien& are 'lIXPlo Bitbtr' (or Webh, or Eglish, whatever) in ttre bt ttree generatiors?<br />
Did any of your family emigrate abroad? ls Britain 'abroad' for you?<br />
ls'economic' miglration more ot less important than 'political' migration?<br />
Why do so many people want to settle in Britain? Why do people want to leave?<br />
How important is Britain's past as a colonial empire for us today?<br />
Ibputt**tHslteBiE*l ban ishtd,lrecan be tnrecfiocydontr,tipue leth? ()rdoes itglue us morcresporcllt1B<br />
Did you know that in the 193Os Britain made it difficult for German Jews to immigrate?<br />
Do you know how many Brits have grandparents who settled here because of the Second World War?<br />
\r<br />
a<br />
a<br />
3<br />
a<br />
! aca<br />
Action Reconcfratin Sentice<br />
for Feace isthe UKbrancfi da<br />
@rnn l{@ set up b sed(<br />
rcconciliation with ofter<br />
\r<br />
onties afterthe Secod u/ofi<br />
!a lAhr. ln &itain tt€y hehed to<br />
tebuf,d Itlo<br />
Corcnuy Caffedral, fur<br />
n<br />
I<br />
e.amplq and tpir UK otrce b<br />
Contact: Anne Katrin Schef$uch, ARSP, 7 Priory Row, Coventry CV1 sES<br />
t: O2476 222 487 . f: O24766:1 14 48<br />
e: anne_katrin_scheffbuch@compuselve.com<br />
movement | 11<br />
rc$/ rpc to the cathedral.<br />
ARSP annually sends about 150 long-term<br />
volunteers to countries which were affected by<br />
Germany in World War !1. Presently our volunteers work<br />
in Bel$um, Belarus, the Czech Republic, France,<br />
Germany, lsrael, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,<br />
Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.<br />
The volunteers are mostly aged between 19 and 26<br />
and work in a wide variety of organisations, where they<br />
do work such as caring for survivors of the Holocaust<br />
living and working with people with special needs oi<br />
with refugees, community work, Holocaust education.<br />
ln the UK ARSP currently has a group of thirteen<br />
Polish and German volunteers.<br />
A weekend seminar<br />
All these stereotypes, images and questions are important. You have the<br />
chance to think about the truth behind them. lf these questions interest<br />
you, come to the seminar on migration organised by Action Reconciliation<br />
Service for Peace (ARSP). The seminar will take place on 24-27 May next<br />
year, probably in South Wales. As well as British students, the participants<br />
will be young people from Germany and Poland who are currently working<br />
on year-long volunteer projects in the UK. Their work ranges from<br />
mediation programmes in inner city areas or the minimum wage campaign<br />
(see page 221, to running the touring exhibition about Anne Frank that you<br />
might have seen on your campus. Together we can address all aspects of<br />
migration from our different European conteKs - on this island and on the<br />
continent as EU members or candidates.<br />
And even if you can't come to the seminar, all those questions we started<br />
with should be more than enough for you to run a workshop evening in your<br />
SCM group...
=-a<br />
disarming acttons<br />
disarming actions I<br />
helen steven<br />
A challenge too far<br />
we<br />
despenmftefiy<br />
meed fi'trrtrt]F"e<br />
wild folk<br />
with<br />
e hafllemgimg<br />
lifestyles<br />
. This is Helen Steven's last<br />
column, as she is moving<br />
on fYom the Scottish<br />
Centre for Non-Violence to<br />
work with the lona<br />
Gommunity. We thank her<br />
for all hev challenging<br />
witingi in Movenlent, and<br />
wish her every success itr<br />
her new role. FYom next<br />
issue, we will be featudng a<br />
new column on activism'<br />
written by Christian Aid's<br />
Patrick Dawes (s€e page 5).<br />
Sometimes we take the ProPhets for<br />
granted and totally underestimate just<br />
how wild and uncomfortable they really<br />
were - including Jesus of course. John the<br />
Baptist confronted the decadence of<br />
Herod's lifestyle at the cost of his life. Or<br />
take Jeremiah for example. People don't<br />
get shoved into miry pits for being polite<br />
around authority. Nor is one crucified for<br />
being kind to little children and healing<br />
the lame. They were all different to the<br />
point of being not only uncomfortable, but<br />
an actual threat to the established order.<br />
Wherr John the Baptist's disciples came to<br />
ask Jesus whether he was the one John had<br />
foretold, Jesus asked them what they had all<br />
gone out into the desert to see. What were<br />
they expecting? Almost certainly not what<br />
they got. A wild hairy man, living on an<br />
unusual diet, who ranted at them all' telling<br />
tlrem they were a bunch of snakes.<br />
John the Baptist called people to repent. And<br />
he was specific in the actual practical lifestyle<br />
changes that people could make' Repenting<br />
means turning again, giving up the old ways'<br />
being radically different: stop cheating on your<br />
tax returns, stop exploiting the poor, if you have<br />
two shirts, give one away. So where is the difference<br />
from our present day demands to drop the<br />
debt, to scrap the IMF and the World Bank?<br />
Except perhaps that it is not so much a question<br />
of shirts any more - rather houses, cars,<br />
estates, and the GNP of whole countries. A call<br />
to change our destructive ways, such as was<br />
made and ignored at Kyoto. 60,000 people are<br />
flying to the World Summit at Johannesburg' To<br />
wlrat end? How many of these are representa'<br />
tives of vested interests determined to hold<br />
back any change that might save the planet, but<br />
damage their profits? We desperately need<br />
more wild folk with challenging lifestyles.<br />
Jeremiah was an out-and-out traitor to his<br />
people. At a time of national disaster he got up<br />
and told folks that they had it coming to them,<br />
that worse would happen unless they turned to<br />
the paths of righteousness. lma$ne Jeremiah<br />
going public to the media on 12 September and<br />
saying that the chickens were coming home to<br />
roost for the rich countries of the capitalist<br />
world; that this was just the beginning of the<br />
terror they could expect. I suspect it migltt be<br />
classed as un-American activity, insensitive to<br />
the point of brutality, and downright treason.<br />
Our world is being dragged to the brink of one<br />
of the most dangerous times in its history to<br />
serve the interests of corporate America, with<br />
the UK following closely in its wake' What must<br />
it be like for an lraqi citizen to hear daily a<br />
discussion as to whether or not her country is<br />
going to be brought to its knees, bombed to<br />
oblivion? lt has been su€gested that Britain's<br />
Trident nuclear submarines be deployed in the<br />
Gulf, so that should the 'nuclear threshold' be<br />
crossed, it will be Britain that becomes the prime<br />
target and not the US. For many years now US<br />
Strategic Air Command has been talking about<br />
'full-spectrum dominance' of space, so that<br />
targets can be pinpointed anywhere in the world<br />
from space. This programme depends on the<br />
telecommunications base at Fylingdales in<br />
Yorkshire for its effectiveness.<br />
So what are we doing about it? Recently I<br />
heard of a Puerto Rican woman called Alexandrina<br />
who protested at her home in Vieques being<br />
used as a bombing practice range. She was<br />
sentenced to 35 years in prison for anti-<br />
American activities. At the present moment the<br />
nofth coast of Scotland is being used for the<br />
same purpose. So why are we not filling up the<br />
jails? Where is our un-American activity? And let<br />
us not stop at bein$ un-American, it is time we<br />
were seen as being actively opposed to British<br />
government policy. We can start with the letters,<br />
but we cannot let it rest there. We can join the<br />
Pledge to Resistance should war be declared on<br />
lraq. We need to oppose injustice and wrong<br />
until it hurts.<br />
ln previous articles I have referred to Jesus'<br />
direct action in the Temple, overturnin$ the<br />
tables. lt is only in the last week after studying<br />
with a colleague of Walter Wink that I began to<br />
realise the tull extent of the Temple Riot. Firstly<br />
the sheer size of the court of the Gentiles in the<br />
Temple in Jerusalem was about three quarters of<br />
a mile long, by half a mile. lt says that Jesus<br />
stopped anyone from carrying anything across it!<br />
How on earth did he do it? How did anyone<br />
notice a few tables being kicked over in a corner<br />
of such a huge area? How did he make himself<br />
seen and heard? lt must only have been<br />
because many other people joined in and it must<br />
have become a full-scale riot, to the point where<br />
he couldn't be arrested because of the crowd.<br />
However, in spite of their challenging<br />
behaviour, in spite of their uncomfortable words,<br />
people still flocked to see these prophets. They<br />
must have been attractive people, fun to be with'<br />
living the life of God's kingdom to the tull. These<br />
are the kind of people we are called to follow.<br />
'Christians should be without fear, happy, and<br />
always in trouble' (D Steere). I<br />
L2 | rrovenrent
celebrity theologian<br />
I<br />
fr<br />
1*.,p<br />
:iG<br />
.+-,<br />
2a't<br />
-rt<br />
Celebrity<br />
Theologian<br />
lohn Milbank<br />
Who is he, and what does<br />
he do?<br />
The Francis Ball Professor of Philosophical Theology at<br />
the University of Virginia. Previously, he was a Reader in<br />
Philosophical Theology at the University of Cambridge.<br />
What has he written?<br />
He did his doctoral worl< on the ltalian thinl
small ritual<br />
tr<br />
small ritual I<br />
Whose story?<br />
steve collins<br />
Whose story<br />
does the<br />
music in<br />
your church<br />
embody -<br />
your own,<br />
or someone<br />
elsets?<br />
lf someone<br />
elsets,<br />
whose?<br />
. Steve Collins is a wtiter<br />
and web designer in<br />
London, and is involved<br />
in alternative worship<br />
Since recorded music was invented a<br />
century ago, all kinds of music have<br />
become available to all of us. For the<br />
first time in human history, we can<br />
have any music we want, whenever<br />
and wherever we want. We choose<br />
from the $reatest varietY of music<br />
available to any society in history. But<br />
our choices are lar$ely determined by<br />
which story we want to Put ourselves<br />
into. Every genre of music embodies<br />
and evokes its own story of social and<br />
personal identity. ln listenin$ we take<br />
part in those identities, even if only in<br />
imagination. Rejection of music is<br />
often about rejecting the identity it<br />
weaves.<br />
But if music embodies life-story, what<br />
about the music in church? Whose story<br />
does the music in your church embody -<br />
your own, or somepne else's? lf someone<br />
else's, whose? Thinking in terms of lifestory<br />
takes us beyond the usual arguments<br />
over 'good' and 'bad', 'contemporary' and<br />
'traditional', and helps us see why musical<br />
style and change are such fraught issues in<br />
churches. The music we use in church can<br />
be a potent representation of our story to<br />
God. lf the music does not represent us,<br />
belongs to another story, we could be<br />
alienated at the point where we most need<br />
connection.<br />
The story embodied in our chosen music<br />
is often an inner story that circumstances<br />
will not allow to be expressed in any other<br />
way. lf this is so it's all the more important<br />
for us to use that music in our dealings with<br />
God, for honesty and freedom's sake. lf we<br />
can do this, church becomes a space of<br />
liberation, where our hidden selves can be<br />
expressed to God and to one another. We<br />
can recover our sense of who we are, and<br />
find strengfh to resist the pressures to be<br />
otherwise.<br />
But the musical menu available in most<br />
churches is very limited by comparison to<br />
the world outside. The music itself isn't<br />
necessarily bad, but the chances are it's<br />
alien both in style and in the way the music<br />
is used. ln limiting the forms of music that<br />
are permitted, churches limit the life-stories<br />
that are permitted expression. Often it has<br />
been forgotten that every story was<br />
someone's story at some time in history'<br />
and churches lapse into essentialism'<br />
saying this story is the only story for<br />
Christians, and to be a Christian you must<br />
walk in it. ln cultures where there are few<br />
musical stories this may suffice as an<br />
argument, but in our own culture we are<br />
aware of a great many musical stories, and<br />
have already placed ourselves somewhere<br />
among them as a part of our growing up.<br />
Story isn't necessarily about following a<br />
single genre. Mostly we weave several, and<br />
creatively appropriate music from<br />
seemingly different storylines into our own.<br />
Nor is it just about musical style, which is<br />
why Christian substitutes 'in the style of'<br />
don't always work. We expect artists to live<br />
up to the stories embedded in their music -<br />
in short, credibility. lt's been said that the<br />
job of the artist is to go through extreme<br />
states on our behalf, so that we can work<br />
through these things vicariously and<br />
survive. lf so it's no wonder that 'Christian'<br />
exercises in decency and moderation failto<br />
heal us.<br />
ln the light of all this, churches need a<br />
much more complex approach to music<br />
than they have generally demonstrated.<br />
Music in this context is a means of<br />
communication and expression between<br />
ourselves and God. lf the music we use in<br />
church represents us, then communion with<br />
God takes place within our own story. And<br />
since the music of our own story runs<br />
throughout our lives, when we discover how<br />
to make communion with God in it in one<br />
place it can, potentially, be a vehicle for<br />
communion with God anywhere, anytime<br />
else. Church is no longer an event outside<br />
our storyline, but an event within it.<br />
I've discussed the issue of life-story in<br />
terms of music, because music is its most<br />
potent carrier in our society, and we all<br />
understand the dynamic. But it's worth<br />
asking the question of all aspects of<br />
church, the liturgical, the visual, the<br />
theological - whose story is this? lf not<br />
mine, whose? Can I take it for my own' or<br />
would it be a charade? And what would it<br />
look like if re-embodied in my story? I<br />
14 | movement
feature: i ntrod uci ng christian ity<br />
introducin$,<br />
christianity<br />
Our feature this issue explores the various courses currently available which try to<br />
introduce non-Ghristians to the church or to Ghristian belief.<br />
The aim of all these courses is essentially to create new Ghristians - although, as<br />
we'll see, different courses may create different kinds of Ghristian! The idea of<br />
evangelasm, in this form or any other, can be problematic in our multicultural<br />
society. So we start with a piece by theologian Tim Gorringe, exploring the deeper<br />
implications...<br />
evangettbm in<br />
a €Iobattbed world<br />
Can we spread the gospel whilst still respecting difference?<br />
When delegates met in Edinburgh in<br />
1910 for the lnternational Missionary<br />
Conference, they were clear that their<br />
agenda was 'the evangelisation of the<br />
world in this generation'. No qualms for<br />
them: the map was coloured red; the<br />
sun never set over the British empire;<br />
humankind was visibly caught up in the<br />
great leap forwards, and the Christian<br />
gospel had to leaven that. What<br />
followed we all know: two world wars,<br />
the Holocaust, and then the carving up<br />
of the world for the profit of the multinational<br />
corporations. As we approach the<br />
l00th anniversary of that conference,<br />
we are in a different world. ln this brief<br />
article I willjust haghlight two points of<br />
difference. First, though imperialism<br />
remains a fact of life, there is a greater<br />
cultural self-confidence on the part of<br />
all humankind's constituents than there<br />
was at that earlier time. We recognise<br />
this in speaking of 'multiculturalism',<br />
the demand that difference be<br />
respected, and the insistence that<br />
there is no Archimedean point from<br />
which all standpoints can be assessed.<br />
Does this mean, then, that evangelism<br />
is just Western arrogance? The question<br />
is serious, and posed to Christians by<br />
many critics.<br />
A sensitive response to this question has<br />
been developed by the Jesuit Michael Barnes.<br />
The heart of his proposal is to understand God<br />
as involved in the experience of otherness.<br />
We are all familiar from Matthew 25 with the<br />
idea that we encounter God in our neighbour.<br />
ln Barnes'terms, God is'the primary Other'. lf<br />
that is the case, then openness to God means<br />
openness to others, and this is at the root of<br />
any Christian theolo$/. The aim of encounter<br />
cannot be conquest or conversion. lt is simply<br />
genuine meeting, the situation in which I<br />
genuinely hear what the other has to say. This<br />
is always fraught with difficulty, and never<br />
perfectly realised. ln every kind of meeting we<br />
always find ourselves in a 'broken middle', a<br />
relationship which is always under negotiation.<br />
Thinking of relationship like this, argues<br />
Barnes, allows us to imagine a situation<br />
where we can be passive in the face of the<br />
other without being crushed by them. He<br />
suggests that this is what we find in the<br />
famous 'Christ hymn' of Philippians 2 which<br />
speaks of Christ 'taking the form of a slave',<br />
but accomplishing redemption precisely by<br />
doing so. Christian theolory is rooted in the<br />
story of the God who is Emmanuel, the Word<br />
spoken in the 'broken middle' of the world,<br />
who still goes on speaking through the spirit<br />
which leads the disciples into all the truth.<br />
What they share is what God can do in and<br />
through human weakness. This is one form of<br />
Christian mission in a multicultural world.<br />
What about the situation of the imperialism of<br />
the multinational corporation, backed up by the<br />
might of US firepower? How does that affect our<br />
concept of evangelism? Another Jesuit, Aloysius<br />
Pieris ftom Sri Lanka, argues that evangelism )<br />
Tim Gorringe<br />
openness to God means<br />
openness to others,<br />
and this is at the root<br />
of any Ghristian theology<br />
movementl15
feature: introduci ng christianity<br />
means quite centrally addressing a society in<br />
the thrall of materialism, of Mammon. ln Jesus'<br />
he argues, the irreconcilable antinomy between<br />
God and Mammon and the irrevocable covenant<br />
between God and the poor are made flesh. True<br />
evangelism is to live this out in fellowship with<br />
the authentic spirituality and liberative<br />
dimensions of other reli$ons. Note, evangelism<br />
does not mean in the first instance displacing<br />
True evangelism is to live in fellowship<br />
with the authentic spirituality and<br />
liberative dimensions of other religions<br />
. Tim GorrinEle has wotked<br />
in parishos' taught<br />
theology in south lndia'<br />
worked a3 a college<br />
chaplain ln Oxfold' and<br />
lectuled at St Andrewg<br />
and Exeter, where he is<br />
now St Luke's Plofeseor<br />
of Thoological Studies. He<br />
was chaptain to SCM ln<br />
the 1970s.<br />
other reli$ons. On the contrary, Pieris argues<br />
that each of the great reli$ons has its own<br />
version of the Sermon on the Mount, the Truth<br />
that sets us free from being tied to things that<br />
cannot $ve us freedom. The Asian churches (but<br />
why just the Asian churches?) have to experience<br />
solidarity with non-Christians by witnessing<br />
to the spirituality common to all reli$ons (by<br />
practising the Beatitudes); and reveal their<br />
Christian uniqueness in proclaimingJesus as the<br />
new covenant by joinin$ the poor against<br />
Mammon's principalities and powers that create<br />
poverty and oppression. ln a $obalised world, I<br />
would argue, that is as true in London,<br />
Birmingham or Glasgow as in Colombo'<br />
The attempt to serve Mammon, whether or<br />
not in the name of God, is the decisive marker<br />
of what is not of God's Spirit. Whatever frees<br />
us from Mammon is of the Spirit. We experience<br />
solidarity with such anti-Mammon forces<br />
and we proclaim Jesus as the new covenant in<br />
solidarity with the Poor.<br />
lf this is a true account of evangelism it<br />
follows that mission campai$ns which rely on<br />
huSe quantities of money, or on the strength<br />
of imperial orders, are confiadictions in<br />
terms. What it actually means to make<br />
disciples of nations is to baptise them into a<br />
spirituality of nonacquisitiveness and<br />
nonaccumulativeness which guarantees a<br />
healthy, ecologically balanced sharing of our<br />
resources. The cross is not, as it is for much<br />
Protestant preaching, 'the price for sinners<br />
paid' but the price fixed by the rich who refuse<br />
to be evangelised by the poor. 'lf one day we<br />
truly take up this cross as a body and go<br />
underground and pay that price for the sake<br />
of our intimidated masses, that day the world<br />
will see the miracle it is yearning to see' a<br />
church which has been evangelised by the<br />
poor, and therefore, a church that has<br />
become Good News to the poor, as Jesus<br />
was'. As each religion discovers that in the<br />
other which liberates from acquisitiveness it<br />
discovers and renames itself precisely in and<br />
through encounter.<br />
Pieris warns that the liberating spirituality of<br />
the religions is gradually being extinguished<br />
by the wave of capitalistic techniculture that<br />
has begun to shake the relisious foundation<br />
of all cultures. 'The market economy (which<br />
thrives on the quest for profit) and<br />
consumerism (which plays to our accumulative<br />
instinct) have enthroned Mammon where,<br />
once, the human Person and the human<br />
community as well as the earth on which we<br />
live, were the sole beneficiary'. This is, I<br />
believe, the key perspective in any contemporary<br />
theoloSl of evangelism. Gospel is good<br />
news, and this has to be addressed to the<br />
situation of the day, in our case one where<br />
the possibility of the continuance of life as we<br />
know it is threatened by the rapacity of<br />
present economic practices, as '2,000<br />
concerned scientists' warned in 1996.<br />
Reviewing my ATheologr of the Built Environ'<br />
rnent, which examines these claims, John<br />
Macquarrie dismissed it as the work of 'an old<br />
fashioned Christian Socialist'. The question<br />
we are left with, though, is what the gospel<br />
can be today, other than a warning and a call<br />
to repentance in the name of the God of life?<br />
Evangelism in our context is, as it was for the<br />
prophets, a sombre business, and it is<br />
certainly not primarily about getting more<br />
bums on pews. lt is, as it has always been, a<br />
callto repentance, but not one which is made<br />
in competition with other religions. On the<br />
contrary, its primary concern is obedience to<br />
the God of life, and engagement with all that<br />
makes for death. I<br />
Tim Gorrin$e<br />
see also,,,<br />
M Barnes, Theolo$y and the Dialo$ue of<br />
Retigions, Cambrid$e: Cambrid$e<br />
University Press, 2002<br />
Pieris, Fire and Water, Maryknoll: Orbis'<br />
1996<br />
'Evangelism is a call to repentanGe, hut not one<br />
which is made in competition with other religions'<br />
16 lmovement
{<br />
feature: introducing christianity<br />
marketin$the Sospel<br />
For years, the Alpha course has been used by many churches and groups as a way of<br />
introducing'unchurched' people to Ghristianity. But dissatisfaction with the Alpha<br />
approach has led to the development of several alternative courses. We compare and<br />
contrast the different courses, and look at people's experiences of Alpha...<br />
Alpha<br />
Did you know?<br />
Accordingj to Stephen<br />
Hunt's book Anyone<br />
tor Alpha?, only<br />
3-4% of participants<br />
in Alpha courses<br />
become Christians<br />
at the end.<br />
Most 'introductory'<br />
courses are actually<br />
attended mainly by<br />
existing churchgoers.<br />
Developed at Holy Trinity Brompton over the last 20 years and now headed by Revd Nicky<br />
Gumbel, Alpha is the longest-established and best-known of the introductory courses. The<br />
organisers say that thousands of courses are now running in many countries. They also say<br />
that it's used in secular locations - prisons, businesses and schools. Alpha bills itself as a<br />
fifteen-session practical introduction to the Christian faith, aimed especially at people who<br />
don't go to church. At Holy Trinity, Alpha courses are held throughout the year and have<br />
hundreds of people attending each week. The syllabus for the course is contained in a book<br />
called Questions of Life. Some courses are held during the day, but most are evening events,<br />
with a light meal followed by a talk. Then participants break into pre-arranged groups of<br />
around a dozen people (in which they remain for the entire course) to discuss the talk. A<br />
team of around three or four 'leaders' or 'helpers' from the host church is attached to each<br />
group. There is also a weekend away focusing on the subject of the Holy Spirit.<br />
The problem for many people is that Alpha introduces participants to a very particular kind<br />
of Christianity. The emphasis is very much on the evangelical, charismatic side of Christian<br />
faith, and on participants 'accepting the Lord Jesus into their heafts' (or words to that effect).<br />
Whilst a dissatisfaction with this approach<br />
has led to the creation of at least one of the<br />
alternative courses now available, it hasn't<br />
stopped people adapting Alpha lo work with<br />
a much more open view of faith. We asked<br />
some SCM members and groups to reflect<br />
on their experiences of Alpha, and you can<br />
see what they thought below.<br />
tii"Jrot<br />
""\^Icomers' . -,..^ment with Atohl<br />
Y: "<br />
il*";,,' y:::l":t Hi!I"*l: i::r:'ffSi,i#Fl<br />
,'<br />
*tr'5fiff{*g*$$g-ffi<br />
postglraduate<br />
student<br />
everyone l".u]ll;,., armosphere.<br />
a warm and trtetrur] uu"--'<br />
,ames,<br />
Gontact<br />
Alpha lnternational, Holy Trinity Brompton,<br />
Brompton Road, London SW7 1rA<br />
:<br />
t; 020 7581 8255<br />
f: O2O 7584 8536<br />
e.' info@alphacourse.org<br />
w: www.alphacourse.org<br />
:,t^:o to hetp read an Atpha cot,,,<br />
;ffi#;lXts:,i"ul #"l:::e<br />
when<br />
aso'<br />
unr€, I was ii:- "t<br />
;t';",,#3rs<br />
tendency to rorll? ilfi ;r"J" at the<br />
;lll',rxn:rxiH;jfi"lf:#<br />
19." : rn e probtJri",-"j' ]rjls .!n at it e n co urquesttons<br />
,^, .il is that it "n."],<br />
;;ffi;#'.;1"T^,"_,f ;;;il;;:'ifr";l<br />
iiii:,:,?#'ix. e*f:["i:;ffi ? fi :l:l<br />
fl-'Tl,:",yl<br />
"; r#"J:u_ aso, €Vonererica<br />
r<br />
ffi ff :J:f "" j::"*;.y."*"SiTl?fi ;<br />
_13:u^y,tn<br />
"il;;r:"', l]lh..,'ourdn't go<br />
ffi**;*li',ffi<br />
Symon, individual SGM rnember<br />
movement | 17
feature: introduci ng christianity<br />
i;ip,;1*ildt:',i{1:{'$ii"$"ritth"ffi<br />
:ilt'H:"Tir#i^x::'"iy#l"lTiffi '<br />
ft 'i:{,riilffi ffi r*:iliL.ik:iFHl:;'diiffi<br />
ff*'ffi ffiEi#itr'H*#ff fi $g#gw<br />
The Holy Spirit weekend supplied a goo(<br />
:lrtr**l+****{tfft#fi*fff*ffi<br />
[tili*'i''ffi ,l:*i+$[ifr i:'l*i*q-qri[*'Tiffi<br />
the kingdom grow<br />
Emmaus: The Way of Faith, launched in 1996 is<br />
an introductory course developed principally<br />
tllllAul within and for the Church of En$and. The<br />
organisers describe it as an enabling resource,<br />
aiming to be flexible and suitable for a range of<br />
r |r ilAus tmditions and using effective educational and<br />
evangelistic methods. They say their theological<br />
view of Christian faith and mission is 'otthodox"<br />
A range of Emmaus books is available from Church House<br />
Publishing, the<br />
Church of England's<br />
publishing company.<br />
Over 50,000 books<br />
have been sold.<br />
Contact<br />
Sheridan James, Emmaus Co-ordinator<br />
e o20 7a98 t524<br />
e; sheridan james@c-of-e.org.uk<br />
w; www.natsoc.ord.ulr/emmaus<br />
Alpha, Emmaus and now Journey are the<br />
best-known introductory courses, backed<br />
up by publications and support networks,<br />
but there are other courses, including<br />
many smaller ones developed at a local<br />
level. Some you may come into contact<br />
with include:<br />
. Essence - just published, again bY<br />
evangelicals within the Church of England,<br />
this is apparently aimed specifically at<br />
people interested in New Age or more<br />
general spirituality. lt claims to offer a<br />
'contemporary meditative journey'.<br />
. Credo - a course written by Lindsay<br />
Owen, Bishop of Horsham in Sussex,<br />
aiming 'to bring people to faith in the<br />
Lord'.<br />
. A Rou9h Guide to Christianity - a local<br />
course in Holloway run bY Dave<br />
Tomlinson. A more open approach, he<br />
says it's suited for 'Alpha dropouts'.<br />
JOtrK N€Y<br />
EaPloulrutt<br />
Jilo<br />
hapluniP<br />
ffi<br />
JOHN VINCENT<br />
rest of this feature<br />
focuses on Joumey, with an overuiew of the<br />
course on page 19 and an interview with its<br />
creator on page 20.<br />
Journey: fuetorations into Discipleship is a new course taking a<br />
rather different approach from that of Npha or Emmaus. The<br />
emphasis is on questioning and exploration, and on a practical form<br />
of Christianity taking its form firstly in social and communal action<br />
rather than specific belief. lt's being developed and run by the<br />
Ashram Community, an experimental Christian community in<br />
Sheffield which has a history of working together with SCM groups.<br />
Joumey promises to offer an honest and fresh way of introducing<br />
people to Christianity in a multicultural society, and of helping people<br />
to think critically<br />
about faith. The<br />
Contact<br />
Ashram Community, 178 Abbeyfield Road,<br />
Sheffield 54 7AY<br />
t: OL784 456 474<br />
e:@or<br />
linda@petermarshall.cix.co.uk<br />
God Made<br />
Simple<br />
,sa<br />
resource<br />
#-." from SCM<br />
which<br />
gives a lively and<br />
accessible synopsis<br />
of many common<br />
questions about God<br />
and theologiical<br />
responses to them -<br />
an excellent resource<br />
for new Christians.<br />
See page 3O for<br />
details of how to<br />
order publications<br />
from SCM.<br />
18 | movement
feature: i ntroduci ng ch ristian ity<br />
1<br />
journeyins<br />
af<br />
toSether<br />
lohn Vincent is responsible for the radical introductory course lourney: Explorations into<br />
Discipleship. This article is based on a talk he gave at the Greenbelt festival in 2002.<br />
Why'Journey'?<br />
I got groups of people all round the country to<br />
meet with me and prepare sections of this<br />
introductory course to radical Christianity. We<br />
thought of the word 'Journey' fairly early on,<br />
and said, 'Let's talk first about people's own<br />
personal journey. Let's assume that faith<br />
takes place in a person's life, and isn't just<br />
related to specific "religious" actions.'<br />
Secondly we tried to look at the journey of<br />
Jesus and see how far it provides an example<br />
of what makes sense of existence for people<br />
today. lf only we could describe the life of<br />
Jesus Christ in such a way that people say,<br />
Yeah, that's something worth following', then<br />
we might have a new version of Christianity<br />
that was based not upon arguing about<br />
people's beliefs, but upon people setting their<br />
own life journey and commitment to God within<br />
the compass of the obediences that they feel<br />
called to in a contemporary violent world.<br />
Thirdly we said, 'This group of people who<br />
get together, hopefully in each other's homes<br />
without benefit of clerg/, needs to take a<br />
journey.' This is not a course where some<br />
clever (or unclever) person delivers lectures,<br />
and everybody asks questions about the<br />
wisdom (or ignorance) that has been<br />
revealed. This is a course where the leaders<br />
are fellow pilgrims. They don't have all the<br />
answers, but they are committed to Jesus<br />
and to discipleship.<br />
We encourage groups to find places where<br />
Christian stuff is going on, and visit them. lt<br />
could be the local charismatic church where<br />
they've got a house group, a group of radical<br />
Ghristians running a coffee bar, a group of<br />
people related to Greenbelt or a local lona<br />
Community group. And within this journey that<br />
the group makes together, we sugg;est that<br />
the fiesorrrces<br />
Jou&Ngy<br />
6<br />
I<br />
ltu<br />
fr&d'A+<br />
m<br />
they go on retreat with a religious community,<br />
and that they spend a weekend in an inner city<br />
Christian community, which confronts you with<br />
visible discipleship to Jesus Christ.<br />
The nature of Christian discipleship<br />
ln the gospel of Mark - the guide behind a lot<br />
of the teachingin Journey - discipleship does<br />
not begin in your head or your heart, it begins<br />
with your feet. The first word in discipleship in<br />
Mark is, 'Follow me'. And the people called<br />
knew pretty much nothing about the caller.<br />
The second thing in Mark is your stomach -<br />
you have meals together. The third thing is<br />
your hands -<br />
you engage in mission. Jesus<br />
sends his disciples out on a mission to teach,<br />
preach and heal, and cast out demons, when<br />
what little they know about him is completely<br />
wrong. And yet he keeps involving them in his<br />
own mission, which I find rather merciful and<br />
useful, as my practice should always be<br />
ahead of my understanding. lf my<br />
understanding had to come before my<br />
practice, I would never have been where I<br />
was as a disciple, and never have made the<br />
discoveries that I've made through my life.<br />
So, begin with your feet, move to your<br />
stomach, move to your hands, and then<br />
perhaps to your heart. Only in chapter 8 of<br />
Mark are the disciples asked, 'Who do you<br />
say I am?', and their answers happen to be<br />
wrong. lt makes absolutely no difference to<br />
Jesus - he couldn't care less whether you call<br />
him Messiah or Son of Man or Saviour or Lord<br />
or anything else. What really matters is what<br />
you do with your guts and your hands and<br />
your feet, and your commitment as a person<br />
in the modern world. I<br />
John Vincent<br />
faith takes<br />
place in a<br />
personts<br />
life, and<br />
isn't iust<br />
related to<br />
specific<br />
'religious'<br />
actions<br />
. John Vlncent lB a former<br />
Prosldent of the<br />
Mothodlst Church,<br />
Dhoctor of the Urban<br />
Communlty In Sheffleld.<br />
The book Journey: Explorations rn Discipleshlp is arranged as a workbook, with twelve stages, each<br />
accompanied by a visual symbol which becomes part of the Joumey programme. lt can be used<br />
alongside a Journey Diary, so that through the twelve stages of the journey, participants have a<br />
workbook that they can do their own journey search in. lt's not prescriptive but it's encouraging. Most<br />
of the questions that we ask are practical ones, like 'Where are we going?', 'Why Jesus?' - what to go<br />
for in life, who to be with, how to act, how to prophesy, how to find appropriate communities, and so<br />
on. They're about the journey a person takes on when they become a disciple of Jesus Christ.<br />
There is also a Group Leader's Guide. The first page which tells you how to be a leader is very helpful,<br />
because it tells you that you're no good and that you'll do better by allowing the leadership to become,<br />
as soon as possible, a corporate activity of people who together will find out the way you should go.<br />
lourney t6 O Diary tJ2 O Guide E! O Postage fI O trom Ashram Press (address on page 18)<br />
movementl19
feature: introduci ng christianity<br />
radical dtbcipleshiP<br />
ln this interview, lohn Vincent, the creator ol lourney, talks about its usefulness for<br />
students, and lays down a challenge for SCM members!<br />
There needs<br />
tobea<br />
recognition<br />
of the widest<br />
possible<br />
number<br />
of options<br />
available to<br />
people. We<br />
have nothing to<br />
fear from this<br />
lnspired by John<br />
Vincent's ideas of<br />
community<br />
discipleship?<br />
Then contact the<br />
Ashram CommuniV<br />
(see page 78).<br />
And see Common<br />
People, an SCM<br />
resource about<br />
rnodels of Christian<br />
community, available<br />
for the special Price<br />
of f,2.5O (including<br />
postage) until April<br />
2O03. See page 30<br />
for details of how to<br />
order SCM resources.<br />
<strong>Movement</strong><br />
20 lmovement<br />
Does .lourney address the interrelationships<br />
between Christianity and other faiths?<br />
We have a section which just asks, 'What was<br />
Jesus' attitude to other faiths?' He didn't<br />
obserue some of his own faith's rituals, he<br />
challenged the Old Testament interpretation of<br />
the law, he challenged the Jews' monopoly on<br />
God and called religious leaders hypocrites. He<br />
went beyond basic moral requirements in his<br />
attitude to the Samaritan woman and in the<br />
parable - talking about 'The Good Samaritan'<br />
then was like talking about 'The Good Muslim'<br />
now. And the Samaritan leper who comes back<br />
and says thank you. And the Gentile centurion<br />
who calls him son of God' These are all people<br />
who are raised up by Jesus. And the parable<br />
says that entrance to the kingdom doesn't<br />
depend on saying, 'Lord'to Jesus. Those things<br />
are very important. We're in a postmodern time<br />
and there needs to be a recognition of the<br />
widest possible number of options available to<br />
people. We have nothing to fear from this. The<br />
sooner we get out of a Christendom situation'<br />
in which people are under oppression by any<br />
denomination or religion, the better. ln that<br />
sense, I think people who live in inner cities are<br />
very privileged, because they can see and<br />
welcome the pluralistic situation that in the<br />
end is going to come to all of us.<br />
lourney is intended to be used by small<br />
groups outside church institutions, and you<br />
talk a lot about the future of Christianity<br />
lying in 'para-communities' outside the<br />
traditional church. How do you think that<br />
would affect campai$ning organisations'<br />
such as Jubilee 2000? Willwe lose some of<br />
the ability to co-operate on a national level?<br />
No, I don't think so at all. I think that you would<br />
have to say, instead of 'Christian Churches<br />
Together in Britain and lreland', 'Christian<br />
Communities Together in Britain and lreland'.<br />
And you've got to find out what the alternative<br />
Christian communities are in your area. There<br />
are already many Christian churches - black<br />
churches, community churches, charismatic<br />
churches, house churches, and so on - that<br />
don't belong to the so-called Churches Together.<br />
So this is all going to happen in the next 10 or<br />
2O years. What is important is that there should<br />
be radical Christian communities alongside the<br />
much more conservative ones that invariably are<br />
the ori$n of the house church movements.<br />
Given the pluralism and multiculturalism of<br />
our society, why should 'outsiders' want to<br />
explore and $et involved in Christianitf<br />
I think that Christianity is a viable way of<br />
confronting the contemporary world with a<br />
radical challenge to alternative living. And I<br />
don't see that radical challenge coming from<br />
any other source. There is great interest in<br />
other faiths, in New Age, in all kinds of spirituality.<br />
What I'm interested in is getting a<br />
hearing for radical Christianity as a challenge<br />
to the normal waY of living life.<br />
Do you have anY comments on using<br />
lourney in a universitY setting?<br />
It has been used in a number of university<br />
contexts. I expect it should work there pretty<br />
well, because university students would<br />
respond to the practical approach: going round<br />
visiting places, being exposed to different<br />
Christian communities and philosophies'<br />
meeting Christian disciples, with the intention<br />
of forming some kind of alternative group to<br />
discover what the discipleship and vocational<br />
implications are for Christians. I think that this<br />
element has been missing from the Student<br />
Christian <strong>Movement</strong>, actually. There was a time<br />
in the sixties and seventies when SCM was very<br />
closely allied to experimental Christian<br />
communities in inner city areas. The Ashram<br />
Community in the seventies used to work very<br />
closely with the university chaplaincies in<br />
encouraging people to consider a year or<br />
longer of experiential and vocational<br />
'testing', if you like, in inner city communities.<br />
This all bears out what l've said about the<br />
importance of location, and of experimental<br />
living with one's life: firstly as a way of discovering<br />
what wisdom is, what reality's about, but<br />
secondly as a way of exposinS oneself to<br />
influences outside of the university academic<br />
world - which would determine the way that<br />
people get called into doing significant things'<br />
I can remember times when I would be<br />
visiting half a dozen SCM Eroups every year'<br />
talking about vocation, talking about the<br />
Urban Theologl Unit's study year, talking<br />
about the possibilities of people taking a year<br />
out to do inner city experience. I think that is<br />
a vital element, and I would hope that we<br />
could see a return to that kind of interest from<br />
SCM groups, in practical pieces of community<br />
disciPleshiP. I<br />
Lian Purcell
ties and binds<br />
I<br />
ties and binds I jim cotter<br />
innocence and experience<br />
Crocodile Dundee was an 'innocent<br />
abroad'. What we mean by the word<br />
'innocent' in that sentence is that he<br />
was inexperienced in city life, that he<br />
wasn't streetwise enough for Los<br />
Angeles. ln a subsequent film he was,<br />
what shall we say, 'bushwise' in the<br />
Australian outback, leading a bunch of<br />
city roglues a merry dance - merry,<br />
that is, for Grocodile Dundee.<br />
(Whoops, I hope I haven't given the<br />
Republican Party in America a new<br />
adjective for their President...)<br />
Back to the word 'innocence'. A baby, an<br />
infant who is not yet conscious of the<br />
motives and consequences of human<br />
behaviour, is innocent in two senses:<br />
without much experience and without $uilt,<br />
not yet mature enough to be held to<br />
account for his or her actions. Of course in<br />
a court of law we seek to establish<br />
innocence or guilt in very particular circumstances,<br />
those of a crime which the<br />
accused may or may not have committed.<br />
When both those meanings of innocence'<br />
are combined in the person of the very<br />
young, we can see why we are horrified<br />
when a baby is tossed on the bayonet of an<br />
enemy soldier. So it is that nearly every<br />
report of an atrocity, say a bomb which kills<br />
a dozen people or more in a bus or cafe,<br />
contains a phrase like, 'innocent people<br />
were killed'. I know what the reporters<br />
mean but I am uneasy. They were<br />
bystanders perhaps, but'innocents'? I can't<br />
help thinking that there is a subtle implication<br />
that it might have been all right to blow<br />
them up if they hadn't been innocent:<br />
summary execution of those thought to be<br />
guilty, but without the due processes of law.<br />
The trouble is that we are so used to think<br />
only of tlie innocence or guilt of individuats<br />
in relation to specific acts. We rarely reflect<br />
that there is no adult who has no share in<br />
adding to the gonewrongness of things,<br />
either by actions that harm or by colluding,<br />
even by silence, with injustices and crimes.<br />
I can hope that I shall not be caught up in a<br />
terrorist attack, random in its selection of<br />
those who are killed, but if I am I wonder in<br />
what sense I could call myself innocent', a<br />
reasonably comfortable and well-fed<br />
westerner who could have done more and<br />
could still do more to help eradicate the<br />
causes of such attacks. I am convinced, by<br />
reference to any mature system of law, that<br />
those who perpetrate such terrible acts are<br />
indeed guilty, but so are those retaliators<br />
who, on the basis of secret information and<br />
suspicion, can fire a weapon from a 'drone'<br />
more than 20,000 feet above the ground<br />
onto a jeep whose number plate has been<br />
identified from a powerful camera. And if<br />
such a weapon goes astray and kills a<br />
farmer and his family, I want to cry out with<br />
those reporters, 'But they are innocent of<br />
great offence'. ln the Middle Ages soldiers<br />
returning from the wars had to confess to a<br />
priest if they had killed anyone, and the<br />
more they had killed they greater their<br />
penance. Even if the conflict had been a<br />
'just' one, they were still guilty because<br />
they had killed fellow human beings. How<br />
much more so if you can kill at such a<br />
distance by computers and buttons!<br />
I offer these reflections without any<br />
solutions, but I do think it important that we<br />
are as precise as we can be when we<br />
handle such an ambiguous word as<br />
'innocence'. And there is one further<br />
thought. I wonder if the word can apply to<br />
the attitudes and actions of a few rare<br />
people, usually elderly, experienced (not<br />
innocent in that context), those who have<br />
seen it all, know what is in the human heart<br />
- including their own - and have become so<br />
forgiving that it would be impossible for<br />
them, even for a moment, to contemplate<br />
harming others ever again. Come to think of<br />
it, a bit like Jesus of Nazareth, and maybe<br />
the God he embodied... I<br />
there is no<br />
adult who has<br />
no share in<br />
adding to the<br />
gonewrongness<br />
of things, either<br />
by actions<br />
that harm<br />
or by colluding,<br />
even by silence,<br />
with injustices<br />
and crimes<br />
. Jim Cotter runs Cairns<br />
Publishing, an<br />
independent Christian<br />
imprini<br />
movement |<br />
21
poverly<br />
Iife in aII its fullness?<br />
Gan you help challenge debt on your own doorstep?<br />
CHURCH ACTION<br />
ON POVERTY<br />
Church Actlon on Poveltt/t<br />
vlalt ld4&gbglgts<br />
I9tgtE4It&I|&r wrlte to<br />
Church Actlon on Povertyt<br />
Gentral Bulldlngs, Oldham<br />
Strc€t, Mancheeter M1 lJT,<br />
or call 0161 236 9321.<br />
Throughout the Bible we read how God<br />
and his prophets railed agaanst<br />
injustices, inequitable treatment of the<br />
poor, the vulnerable and the most<br />
marginalised in society. Jesus called<br />
the poor 'blessed' while he talked of<br />
sending the rich away empty. Through<br />
Jubilee 2OOO, the churches were<br />
immensely successful in highlighting<br />
the modern day scandal of international<br />
debt. But have we Elot what it takes to<br />
tackle poverty and debt on our own<br />
doorstep?<br />
How we fail the poor<br />
Whilst it's true that the government has made<br />
a commitment to 'ending child poverty within<br />
a generation', the reality is so far falling way<br />
short of the rhetoric. For all the government's<br />
best intentions, poverty, debt and low wages<br />
continue to blight the lives of millions of<br />
people in this country.<br />
We had a month of living on f,25 per week<br />
(Child Benefitl because we didn't get paid<br />
until the end of the month and it took 2<br />
weeks for the Working Families Tax Gredit<br />
to be sorted out. By the time things were<br />
sorted out we already owed money.t<br />
Penny, mother of two, from the<br />
In the work that Church Action on Poverty<br />
has done with people in poverty over recent<br />
years, one theme which consistently crops up<br />
is the way in which poor peoPle feel<br />
'invisible'. People's own direct experiences of<br />
poverty, and their own attitudes and ideas<br />
about what can be done to tackle it, are held<br />
to be of no value whatsoever.<br />
Debt on our doorstep: time to act<br />
Mary, a lone mother living on a council estate<br />
in south London, struggled to make ends<br />
meet. Her weekly income from child benefit<br />
and income support was barely enough to<br />
keep a roof over her family's head. So when<br />
a neighbour proposed a f-2OO loan to help her<br />
pay off some bills, and buy a pair of new<br />
shoes for her child, she jumped at the offer.<br />
With no job and no bank account, she was in<br />
no position to apply for a loan from a<br />
mainstream lender.<br />
However, Mary ran into difficulties with the<br />
repayments. The neighbour reassured her by<br />
offering her another loan of f,,500 to cover the<br />
outstanding balance. Again, Mary strug$led to<br />
keep up regular payments. This time she was<br />
offered a f,,1,000 loan to help 'settle' the<br />
debt. By last month, what began as a 92OO<br />
loan to pay for bare essentials had turned<br />
into a f.1,,L7O debt she had no means of<br />
paying.<br />
Mary was charged a rate of interest that<br />
anyone familiar with the world of credit cards,<br />
personal loans and overdrafts would consider<br />
extortionate. The loans she took out were<br />
charged at between LTOo/o and 330% APR.<br />
But Mary was not the victim of an illegal loan<br />
shark. Her neighbour was an agent for<br />
Provident Financial, a completely legal<br />
company which, since Victorian times, has<br />
specialised in offering home credit to people<br />
living in communities bypassed by the banks.<br />
Provident Financial is just one of a growing<br />
number of companies reaping huge returns<br />
from the financially excluded.<br />
This is why GAP set up the Debt on our<br />
Doorstep Network - a coalition of over 150<br />
organisations committed to campaigning for a<br />
fair deal for people currently being exploited by<br />
extortionate lending. Compared to many other<br />
EU member states, where caps on interest<br />
rates and tough licensing laws keep check on<br />
lenders targeting the poor, the UK industry has<br />
been left to run a devastating course. lt is an<br />
issue the government is doing little about. >
poverty<br />
Four ways to make a differcnce<br />
) Make a difference with your MONEY:<br />
Join a credit union<br />
Credit unions are mutually co-operative<br />
enterprises, through which people can<br />
save and bonow money at very low rates<br />
of interest. lt is you saving together with<br />
your friends, and provides saving and loan<br />
facilities convenient to you or your<br />
workplace. Your savings could help to<br />
provide loans for those who need them at<br />
a realistic and affordable interest rate.<br />
To find your nearest credit union,<br />
contact the Assocration of British Credit<br />
Unions on O767 832 3694 or visit<br />
www.abcul.or4.<br />
t Make ytxrr nxrney WORK FOR fiE POOR<br />
How much do you $ve to charities that<br />
make a difference? Forget fluffy<br />
animals, your money can work for<br />
change, help tackle social injustice and<br />
give a chance to people who otherwise<br />
wouldn't get one. Give by direct debit or<br />
standing order - it's much more efficient<br />
than one-off donations.<br />
+ Help tackle DEBT ON OUR DOORSTEP<br />
Debt on our Doorstep is a coalition of<br />
over 150 organisations including CAP,<br />
Oxfam, Child Poverly Action Group and<br />
New Economics Foundation, committed<br />
to campaigning for a fair deal for people<br />
currently being exploited by extortionate<br />
lending. Support the campaign to put<br />
an end to e)dortionate lending!<br />
Find out more at<br />
www. debt- o n - o u r- doorste p. co m.<br />
t Sagn the LIVING WAGE pledge<br />
Many of us are members of churches or<br />
have connections with organisations<br />
(including most universities and<br />
colleges) where cleaners or caretakers<br />
are low-paid. Try and get them to sign<br />
CAP's Living Wage Pledge - a public<br />
commitment to pay a 'Living Wage' of at<br />
least f,5.80 an hour.<br />
Find out more at<br />
www. ch u rch - povefty.or g. u k.<br />
'llUhat is<br />
poYerty?<br />
Poverty is a<br />
battle of<br />
invisibility,<br />
a lack of<br />
resources,<br />
exclusion,<br />
powerlessness<br />
... being<br />
blamed for<br />
society's<br />
problems.t<br />
A Living Wage church?<br />
While company directors compete to award<br />
themselves the big$est pay rise, the poor<br />
struggle to scrape together enough to<br />
maintain a decent standard of living. With a<br />
refreshing frankness, the new chairman of<br />
the Low Pay Commission, Adair Turner - a<br />
former director-general of the CBI - has<br />
admitted that he 'couldn't possibly envisage'<br />
surviving on National Minimum Wage of<br />
t4.LO an hour.<br />
The churches themselves have much room<br />
for improvement. Research carried out for<br />
Church Action on Poverty in Greater<br />
Manchester has found that nearly two in<br />
three people employed by churches are paid<br />
less than a Living Wage of 95.80 an hour.<br />
You too can make a difference<br />
What Bono has said of Third World debt could<br />
equally apply to poverty close to home:<br />
'What's on trial here is Christianity itself.<br />
You cannot walk away from this and call<br />
yourself a Christian and sit in power.<br />
Distance does not decide who is your<br />
brother and who is not. The church is<br />
going to have to become the conscience<br />
of the free market ... and stop being its<br />
apologist.'<br />
And according to Jim Wallis, activist preacher<br />
and long time anti-povefi campaigner in the<br />
States: 'Our vocation is not only to pull people<br />
out ofthe river, but to go upstream to find out<br />
what or who is pushing them in.'<br />
So how can we start to go upstream? What<br />
practically can we do to enable others to live<br />
life in all its fullness? Partly this is about being<br />
attentive to real needs and where people are,<br />
but it also involves creative thinking and a real<br />
commitment to sharing. See the box above for<br />
four ways you can make a difference.<br />
lf our society, economy and politicians<br />
continue to fail the poor, we as Christians still<br />
have the power to make a difference. Let it not<br />
be said that we have been found wanting. I<br />
Niall Gooper<br />
D<br />
F,cft)<br />
[orvty<br />
. l{iall Cooper Is Natlonal<br />
Co.ordinator of Church<br />
Actlon on Poverty
first among equals<br />
first among equals I claire connor<br />
Lucy Symons' second term as co'ordinator of an SGM<br />
group begins with a tale of mice and iazzmen'..<br />
There's<br />
an alarming<br />
amount of<br />
sherry, not to<br />
mention the<br />
green ginger<br />
wine, but it'll<br />
make a change<br />
from Bacardi<br />
Breezers<br />
Claire Connor is Catholic<br />
Lay Chaplain at GKT<br />
medical schools, King's<br />
ColleEle London<br />
January 9th<br />
3.00pm Happy New Year! 9 days into 2003<br />
already, and term's about to begin. lt's a bit of a<br />
hassle coming back early and the committee<br />
meeting's not until Friday, but as a sign of my new<br />
economy drive (see new year's resolutions) I<br />
decided to get the cheaper train ticket and travel<br />
today. Mum sent me off loaded down with all the<br />
leftover Christmas cake (why does she do this?)<br />
but a/so the leftover drinks from the festive<br />
season, 'in case you have a little party'. There's an<br />
alarming amount of sherry, not to mention the<br />
green ginger wine, but it'll make a change from<br />
Bacardi Breezers. Think Dad must have stolen<br />
back the whisky when he put my bags in the taxi.<br />
Humph. Right, not much food in, so off to have a<br />
bit of cereal and then do some shopping'<br />
3.75pm Odd. Cereal is almost completely gone'<br />
I'm sure I left a full box of strawberry crunch...<br />
8.OOpm Sitting in ftont of the telly with a $ass of<br />
sherry, watching Corrie. (Slightly worried I may be<br />
tuming into my nan, actually.) Pretty much ready for<br />
the meeting tomonow, hoping Jeremy will have<br />
taken fufther steps on the road back to normality<br />
over Christmas. We managed to persuade him only<br />
to do the unbuttoned-shirt-gold-medallions look on<br />
special occasions, but he still calls me'doll'and has<br />
taken up the trumpet. lt's a bit ... off-putting. I<br />
pointedly gave him M&S vouchers for Christmas.<br />
Anyway, new year's resolutlbns:<br />
1 I will not shout at Jeremy when he calls me<br />
'doll' and does the cool-swagger walk.<br />
2 I will be economical with mY cash.<br />
3 I will not forbid Kevin from organising SCM<br />
socials (despite the fireworks pady debacle,<br />
during which he set fire to most of the rare<br />
plants in the vicarage garden and created a<br />
towering inferno instead of a bonfire. Not to<br />
mention a certain someone who put their foot<br />
through the greenhouse while trying to swagger.<br />
Guess who had to explain to the fire brigade<br />
and replace the plants for Tom's wife...)<br />
4 I will not get into rows with housemates over<br />
sharing food or cleaning rota (although I do<br />
hoover, whatever Jenny says, and I couldn't<br />
care less about her wretched courgette bake<br />
that Saturday night).<br />
Think that's all. Oh, and obviouslY:<br />
5 Will lose half a stone, get up before 8.O0am<br />
and go to lectures looking effortlessly stylish<br />
and not like I've just got out of bed.<br />
January 10th<br />
77.30am Am going crazy. More of my cereal is<br />
gone and I bought a new packet yesterday!<br />
Cannot be Jenny or Dom as they're not back.<br />
What is going on? No time to investigate'<br />
everyone due round in half an hour.<br />
3.O0pm Planning meeting went brilliantly. Am<br />
confident that Jeremy is regaining his former self -<br />
he even ofiered to pick up Marie, the SCM links<br />
wod
eviews: books<br />
revleyvs<br />
J<br />
cinema... books.,. television... art... music...<br />
speakinS in remarkable prose<br />
An impressive first novel, longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002...<br />
I began to read if nobody<br />
speaks of remarkable<br />
thrnds because I had been<br />
told by people whose opinions I<br />
trust that it was a good book.<br />
However, after reading the first<br />
few pages, I felt that I was being<br />
made to work quite hard to find<br />
the plot amongst the artfully<br />
arranged words. The whole book<br />
is written in prose in a style that<br />
is somewhere between Jeanette<br />
Winterson'sWriften on the Body<br />
and Simon Armitage's poem<br />
'About His Person'. Both the<br />
prose and the characters'<br />
different perspectives of<br />
overlapping periods of time<br />
present difficulties for those<br />
who like to scan-read books in a<br />
matter of hours, and also those<br />
who like to dip into a book at<br />
irregular intervals over an<br />
extended period of time. Trying<br />
to read this book too quickly led<br />
me to feel frustrated at the lack<br />
of instant gratification<br />
regarding the plot - the story<br />
comes together slowly as you<br />
put toglether the emotions and<br />
perspectives of the personalities<br />
whose lives it describes.<br />
I deliberated for quite some time<br />
before writing this review about<br />
whether or not I should try to give an<br />
outline of the plot at all, and came to<br />
the conclusion that it would spoil the<br />
experience for other people, and that<br />
I would probably be doing the author<br />
a disservice by trying to simplifl it in<br />
any way. Once I stopped trying to<br />
if nobody speaks of remarkable things<br />
Jon McGregor I Bloomsbury I 913.95<br />
rush through the book to see what all<br />
the fuss was about, I began to really<br />
enjoy it. Jon McGregor makes the<br />
ordinary seem beautiful, and is<br />
startlingly perceptive. Having felt<br />
that this book might be primarily of<br />
interest to slightly pretentious arts<br />
students, I was surprised to find that<br />
parts of the book made me cry,<br />
whilst others made me want to read<br />
it to friends to see if they felt the<br />
same about it, or to ask them if they<br />
thought a character reminded them<br />
of people we knew.<br />
The whole book shows a series of<br />
moments, some happy, some not, but<br />
so acutely observed that they are<br />
emotionally engaging, and I found<br />
myself wanting to know what would<br />
happen to the characters with whom I<br />
could empathise. Reading about the<br />
private emotions of the characters<br />
feels a little voyeuristic at times, but<br />
the book has been written wellenougfi<br />
for it to be superior, deeper and<br />
perhaps darker than the surface<br />
'reality' presented by reality television<br />
or fl y-on-the-wall documentaries.<br />
if nobody speaks of remarkable<br />
thrngs made me think. lt made me<br />
wonder how much I see of what is<br />
going on around me, how well I really<br />
know the people I'm surrounded by,<br />
and whether they know and<br />
understand me as well as I think I<br />
know them. 2 weeks later, I'm still<br />
thinking. The only part of the book<br />
that really disappointed me was the<br />
ending, because although the main<br />
story was concluded in the logical<br />
place, I was left wondering how<br />
I<br />
of<br />
remarkable<br />
things<br />
things turned out for many of the<br />
characters.<br />
if nobody speaks of remarkable<br />
thrhgs is worth buying in hardback,<br />
taking the time to read thoroughly,<br />
and I'd recommend it to anyone who<br />
likes their recreational reading to be<br />
inspiring, and to provoke thought<br />
about the way they interact with<br />
those around them. I<br />
if<br />
nobody<br />
speaks<br />
.l')ll lt)( j.(<br />
-! -!r)t<br />
""" *XrttT.1,T<br />
Jon McGregor will be writing on<br />
'the importance of story in a<br />
soundbite culture' in issue 114<br />
of <strong>Movement</strong> this April.<br />
The theme of issue 114 will be<br />
'Story and Spirituality', following<br />
on from SCM's annual conference<br />
in February. Not booked<br />
your place yet? See page 13.<br />
movementl25
eviews: music<br />
happy-clappy hippr-es<br />
Do you ever wish you'd been<br />
around in the 1960s hippie era,<br />
or do you dream about being<br />
transported back to it? Listening<br />
to the Polyphonic Spree's new<br />
album will take you there, with<br />
its mellow, Beatles-like psychedelic<br />
sound. However, be<br />
warned! Although individual<br />
tracks may be uplifting, listening<br />
to the whole may make you<br />
stressed or ratty! Hopefully this<br />
wasn't the desired effect!<br />
For those ofyou who haven't heard<br />
of the 2lz-yeaFold Polyphonic Spree<br />
(PS), the group was 'discovered'when<br />
they played at David Bowie's<br />
Meltdown Festival, and their spectacular<br />
live performances have resulted<br />
in an overnight success! lt would be<br />
difficutt not to make an impact with a<br />
group of twenty-five (yes, twenty-five<br />
no less) Texans dressed in white<br />
robes singing and making music on<br />
stage. Why the white robes, you ask?<br />
Tim Delaughter, the lead singer and<br />
co-ordinator of PS, explains in an<br />
interview on the Student Direct<br />
website that the robes express a<br />
sense of unity. They could have gone<br />
for uniformity in less attentiongrabbing<br />
outfits, but the robes have<br />
provoked some interesting discussion<br />
The Be$innin$ Stagfes<br />
of the Polyphonic Spree<br />
The Polyphonic Spree<br />
about whether they are making a<br />
religious statement or not. Some<br />
references to PS describe them as a<br />
group of happy-clappy Christians,<br />
while interviews with Delaughter<br />
suggest that he sees the music and<br />
the experience of performing live in<br />
PS as spiritual in a broader sense.<br />
Delaughter apparently chose the<br />
name 'Polyphonic Spree' because it<br />
summed up the diverse sounds he<br />
wanted to bring together in the<br />
music. They have certainly achieved<br />
this, with instruments ranging from<br />
harp and tablas to synthesiser and<br />
French horn.<br />
The lyrics are<br />
full of optimism<br />
(cynics would say nailetyl<br />
Their album The BeSinnhg Stages<br />
of... came out in October 2002 and it<br />
will be interesting to see if it is as<br />
popular as the live show. A CD<br />
consisting of ten sections (songs to<br />
the rest of us), Beginning Stages<br />
contains a good mix of tracks -<br />
except for the last one, 'A Long Day',<br />
which consists of a 35 minute long(!)<br />
/lilYffrli'ifl' fi,'$,\tr$\\'' l\<br />
irritating droning<br />
noise that makes you get up and<br />
check that your CD player isn't bust<br />
or that you're not being pursued by a<br />
swarm of wasps!<br />
The repetition of simple lyrics by a<br />
multitude of voices (in the style of a<br />
divine mantra) and the intriguing<br />
mixture of instruments give the<br />
album a soothing and hypnotic feel.<br />
The lyrics are full of optimism (cynics<br />
would say naiVety). Lyrics like 'Hey,<br />
it's the sun and it makes me want to<br />
shine... makes me smile' or 'Take<br />
some time, get away, suicide is a<br />
shame, soon you'll find your own way,<br />
hope has come, you are safe' in 'lt's<br />
the sun', sung by fifteen vocalists<br />
and accompanied by spontaneous<br />
celebratory-sounding percussion,<br />
can't help but make you feel inspired<br />
and at one with nature! Catchy tunes<br />
like 'Soldier Girl' imprint themselves<br />
on your brain and leave you humming<br />
them for days.<br />
I thoroughly recommend buying this<br />
CD if you like to try experimental<br />
music that's a bit different! Alternatively,<br />
you could borrow it from a<br />
friend and copy the tracks you like so<br />
that you don't have to pay for the 35<br />
minute long weird track - not that I<br />
would dream of encouraging students<br />
to make illegal copies of CDs! I<br />
Ellie MensinSh<br />
SCM Co-ordlnatol<br />
ls it a choit2 ls it some Mormons?<br />
No, it's the Polyphontc Spree<br />
in their enormous entireV.<br />
Not a bunch of religious weirdos,<br />
apparently.<br />
26 |<br />
movement
eviews: film<br />
srryeet sixteen?<br />
Ken Loach's latest gritty offering requires a strong stomach - but it's wotth the effort.<br />
Sr'xteen<br />
by Ken Loach<br />
Ken loach's latest film is not<br />
for the faint-hearted. The story of<br />
lS-year-old Liam preparing<br />
against all the odds for the<br />
release of his ex-heroin addict<br />
mum Jean from prison does not<br />
pull any punches. Sometimes<br />
quite literally. Liam's mum's<br />
boyfriend Stan and his grandfather<br />
try to get him to smuggle<br />
drugs into the prison for Jean to<br />
sell, and when he refuses, they<br />
beat him up. Liam wants to help<br />
his mum get clean and away from<br />
Stan, and sets his sights on<br />
buying a caravan for them both to<br />
live in. But to get it in time for<br />
Jean's release, he needs to make<br />
money fast. With his mate<br />
Pinball, he muscles in on Stan's<br />
business and starts dealing<br />
drugs, only to find himself up<br />
against the local baron. Liam<br />
starts working for him and at first<br />
it seems the new life he so<br />
desperately wants is within easy<br />
reach, until it becomes clear he<br />
is being drawn ever deeper into a<br />
vicious crime world and increasingly<br />
out of his depth.<br />
The film is set in Greenock, near<br />
Glasgow in the shadow of the closeddown<br />
shipyards, where lives are stifled<br />
by unemployment, crime, family<br />
breakdown and lack of opportunity.<br />
There's an inevitability about Liam's<br />
decision to Sell drugs - Loach and his<br />
screenwriter Paul lavefi met many<br />
kids like him when researching the<br />
film. The director says:<br />
'lt's a door into another kind of<br />
lifestyle ... if you're living in a<br />
place like that, you don't have a<br />
snowball's chance in hell of<br />
affording that lifestyle unless you<br />
get involved in dealing. For a 16-<br />
year-old with nothing, it is quite<br />
attractive.'<br />
There is an irony in the initial<br />
success of Liam's drugs<br />
business. His scheme to get<br />
locaf pizza delivery boys to<br />
double up as heroin couriers is<br />
comically enterprising and a<br />
pointed inversion of the<br />
Thatcherite, capitalist forces<br />
that have crushed his<br />
community. He is a<br />
businessman, determined to<br />
exploit local demand for a<br />
product, albeit an illegal one, to make<br />
money. But he is also just a boy -<br />
when he steals Stan's drugs stash, he<br />
also pinches his grandfather's false<br />
teeth in mischievous revenge. This<br />
prank and others provide welcome<br />
comic relief from the overall<br />
downbeat mood of the film, but also<br />
draw attention to his youth and the<br />
fact that the responsibility he bears<br />
for his family is too great for his age.<br />
Liam is played by Martin Compston,<br />
a t7-year-old professional footballer in<br />
the Scottish League who has never<br />
been in a film before. This is typical of<br />
Loach and it pays off- Compston plays<br />
the part with an immediacy and verve<br />
which makes us care deeply about<br />
what happens to him even as we are<br />
shocked in the latter part of the film by<br />
the choices he makes. This is also<br />
because they do not always seem like<br />
conscious choices - Liam is blinkered,<br />
determined to get what he wants at any<br />
cost and blind to the effect he is having<br />
on others. Unable or unwilling to see<br />
beyond his own situation, he propels<br />
himself on a collision course with<br />
disaster. Even so, the end does seem<br />
rather melodramatic and sentimental,<br />
thougfr not enough to detract fiom the<br />
overall impact of the story.<br />
The sense of progression is very<br />
strong - perhaps because each scene<br />
of the film was shot in order.<br />
Compston comments:<br />
'We shot it in sequence and it was<br />
just a great way of working. I've<br />
just done a W thing and they shot<br />
the ending first and it just took<br />
the fun out of it.'<br />
Loach says he uses simple filming<br />
techniques deliberately and enjoys<br />
paring down to the essence of the<br />
story and the characters: 'The simpler<br />
you are, the more powerful you are.'<br />
Take for example the simple juxtaposition<br />
of two shots - one of the<br />
smashed-up contents of Liam's<br />
bedroom strewn across the front lawn<br />
of his house by Stan and his grandfather,<br />
followed by a cutaway shot of<br />
the mountains around Greenock, the<br />
lake and a rainbow over the town's<br />
rooftops. The location is centralto the<br />
film and both the director and screenwriter<br />
profess great affection for<br />
Glasgow. Loach says:<br />
'lt's such a good place to work.<br />
Everything that's happening in<br />
Britain, you can see in one form<br />
or another. The people have spent<br />
generations struggling and that<br />
has developed a very tough, funny<br />
and sharp culture.'<br />
He makes a feature of the local<br />
dialect from the outset by putting a<br />
written statement on screen to say<br />
that the dialogue will be subtitled for<br />
the first 15 minutes of the film but<br />
that after that 'you and Liam are on<br />
your own'. This is effective on two<br />
levels. Subtitles help a non-Glaswegian<br />
audience get accustomed to the<br />
characters' accent but they also<br />
highlight the fact that for many<br />
viewers, Liam's world is foreign<br />
territory. His story is a real-life story<br />
of real-life alienation and hopelessness<br />
and it takes a gritty, political<br />
director like Loach to tell it. Go and<br />
be told, but take a strong stomach<br />
Kate Powell<br />
with you. I<br />
<strong>Movement</strong> odltodal Elroup<br />
movementl2T
eviews: books<br />
wild Soose chase?<br />
A self-confessed liturgy anorak is sorely disappointed..'<br />
ATellin{, Place<br />
Joy Mead I Wild Goose Publications<br />
When A Telling Place arrived in<br />
the office for review, I leaped on<br />
it with eaEler anticipation. But<br />
now, as I sit down to write this<br />
review, I'm struglglling to explain<br />
why I don't like it.<br />
The book is a collection of meditations<br />
which centre on the women in<br />
the biblical narratives. The author<br />
attempts to draw on the experience<br />
of the biblical women who are on the<br />
margins of history and telltheir story,<br />
which has long been ignored. She<br />
says that the book is 'not a book of<br />
certainties and answers but of<br />
explorations and of questions', which<br />
is the sort of thing we like to hear at<br />
scM.<br />
They were women<br />
who must have<br />
loved, raged, lusted,<br />
laughed and relaxed,<br />
feeling and thinking<br />
much as I have done,<br />
but the book did<br />
not help me<br />
to relate to them<br />
One of the stories which inspired the<br />
author is the story of Jesus and the<br />
Samaritan woman at the well, which<br />
has long been one of my favourites.<br />
The front cover shows a picture of<br />
some women at a well which, when<br />
added to the lovely calligraphic titles<br />
and illustrations, makes the book very<br />
visually pleasing. lndeed, there are<br />
many reasons why I thought I would<br />
like the book:<br />
. I'm a self-confessed liturgl anorak<br />
and have quite a collection of<br />
litur$/ books.<br />
. I'm inclined to judge a book by its<br />
cover and this one looks so lovely.<br />
. l'm a bit of a fan of literature which<br />
sees biblical stories from the point<br />
of view of the women in them.<br />
. I love the stuff Wild Goose publish.<br />
So I'm left to ask myself why it is,<br />
when it seems that the book is just<br />
my kind of thing, that I can't like it. I<br />
wondered whether it was because I'd<br />
read too much similar stuff and it was<br />
like the time of year when you never<br />
want to see another mince pie as<br />
you've sickened yourself on them<br />
over Christmas.<br />
I looked at the meditations again<br />
and I realised why it was I didn't like<br />
them. None of the women felt real to<br />
me. The author says 'we see how<br />
emblematic the stories of these bible<br />
women are - how intimately our own'.<br />
lronically, that is exactly what I felt<br />
was missing from the book: a sense<br />
of identification with the biblical<br />
women. They were women who must<br />
have loved, raged, lusted, laughed<br />
and relaxed, feeling and thinking<br />
much as I have done, but the book<br />
did not help me to relate to them.<br />
The women in the book do things<br />
which have been stereotyped as<br />
womanly. They weep for generations<br />
yet unborn, they await their own<br />
flowering, they outburst the frames<br />
described to hold them, they offer<br />
the sweet womanliness of their free<br />
flowing hair, and they have lifeblood<br />
flowing from them. The author likes<br />
to draw on images of bodiliness and<br />
blood a little too much for my liking.<br />
It all feels too much like bad liturgical<br />
dance.<br />
The author likes to<br />
draw on images of<br />
bodiliness and blood a<br />
little too much for my<br />
liking. lt all feels too<br />
much like bad<br />
liturgical dance<br />
I read it aloud to my friend in the<br />
hope a fresh viewpoint might help<br />
with the review. We put our finger on<br />
a problem: who will use this book? I<br />
couldn't read it aloud with a straight<br />
face, so that rules it out for corporate<br />
worship. 'And if you used it for private<br />
prayer you'd feel like a freak', she<br />
commented.<br />
So l'm afraid l'll have to say that if<br />
you are after some reflections which<br />
are rooted in reality and still have a<br />
beautifully poetic quality to them, try<br />
anything else Wild Goose have<br />
published, but don't try this. I<br />
Marie Pattison<br />
28lmovement
overview: web<br />
touched by the hand of Ned<br />
A vidual but vibrant community.<br />
Ship of Fools<br />
www.shiooffools.com<br />
Shrp of Fools: Ned Flanders. He's<br />
what it's all about. Ned is our<br />
icon. Ned is our leader, Ned is The<br />
Man. Ned is also Homer's Godbothering<br />
nextdoor neiglhbour off<br />
Ihe Sllmpsons, and according to a<br />
survey in 2001, the public figure<br />
most associated with Ghristianity<br />
on American college campuses.<br />
Which inspired the editors of Ship<br />
of Fools (wvuw.shiooffools.com) to<br />
arrange a very special ni$ht at<br />
Greenbelt 2OOt, replete with Ned<br />
lookalikes, sanctified songs, and<br />
fashion from the House of<br />
Flanders. lt was so successful<br />
that they did it again the following<br />
year. Twice. What kind of<br />
Ghristian outfit is it that can get<br />
away with orElanising an event<br />
celebrating a quite frankly lame<br />
(and, indeed, yellow) cartoon<br />
character and get it into the<br />
national press?<br />
Shrp of Fools has made a sometimes<br />
tongue-in-cheek, sometimes passionate<br />
examination of Christianity its stock-intrade.<br />
Ori$nally a paper magazine run by<br />
Simon Jenkins and Steve Goddard<br />
between L977 and 1983, for the last 4v,<br />
years Shlp of Fools has had a presence<br />
on the net.<br />
The whole ethos of Shrp of Fools is<br />
tied up in its subtitle, 'The Magazine<br />
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of Christian Unrest'. The Ship, as it's<br />
affectionately known by its devotees,<br />
exists to help people make sense of<br />
the Christian faith - to look at<br />
Christianity critically and honestly -<br />
to celebrate the good but to attack<br />
false religion wherever it's found. I<br />
think it succeeds in this admirably.<br />
But then, I'm a contributor to the<br />
Ship, and I'm biased.<br />
We have our very own Soul-Saving<br />
Supersonic Spiritual Celebrity in the<br />
shape of the Revd Gerald Ambulance,<br />
and he, with an army of columnists,<br />
some humorous, some serious, but<br />
all with offbeat perspectives,<br />
challenges the preconceptions and<br />
absurdities of the Christian World.<br />
ln the Fruitcake Zone you can find<br />
dozens of links to some of the<br />
strangest, weirdest, and scariest<br />
Christian websites out there. And I do<br />
mean 'out there' - from the Christian<br />
Naturists' Association through to the<br />
Christian Guide to Small Arms, and<br />
the perennial favourite, Rapture<br />
Ready, where a guy called Todd works<br />
out the percentage chance of the<br />
Rapture happening in any given week,<br />
with an index based on a peculiarly<br />
right-wing view of world events.<br />
Gadgets For God shows you exactly<br />
where you can buy those essential<br />
WWJD? underpants (with the false fly,<br />
of course). Urban Myths explodes<br />
those fictional e-mail forwards we all<br />
get, while Si$ns and Blunders keeps<br />
a record of strange Christian notices,<br />
bumper stickers and typos.<br />
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esources<br />
resources round-up<br />
Some other publications you may find useful...<br />
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FAITH<br />
WORRS<br />
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Faith Without Hostagies<br />
By Haniet Hanis, SPTCK<br />
A fresh look at Bible passages relevant to<br />
Lent and Easter, encouraging thought<br />
and reflection to link them to the world<br />
today. lncludes questions for personal<br />
reflection or group discussion. 87.99<br />
t; 0845 762 6747<br />
e: mailorder@sock.org.uk<br />
Faith Works<br />
ByJim Wallis, SFCK<br />
A powerful call by a leading US activist for<br />
Christians to put their faith into action<br />
and address issues of poverty and<br />
injustice. lnspiring stuff. tL2.99<br />
t: O845 762 6747<br />
e,' mailorder@sock.orE.uk<br />
Piltrim Prayer<br />
Compiled by Jim Cotter, Cairns Publications<br />
A new collection of prayers by <strong>Movement</strong><br />
columnist Jim Cotter (see page 2L). A<br />
companion for pilgrimage, with an order<br />
of prayer for each day of the week.<br />
Bilingual, in Welsh and English. Hardback<br />
912; paperback 98<br />
t: 01766 761 368<br />
e.' office@cottercairns.co.uk<br />
Praying with Our Hands<br />
By Jon M Sweeney, Wild Goose Publications<br />
A book of reflections with photographs,<br />
showing how our bodies can give<br />
meaning to prayer. Covers spiritual<br />
practices from a broad range of reli$ious<br />
traditions. A beautiful book for private<br />
prayer or group worship. t10.99<br />
t: OL41 3326292 . f: OL4L 332 1090<br />
w'' wu4&iol!ab99!9,.o0!n<br />
Who rs My Nei(hbour?<br />
Churches Together in Britain and lreland<br />
A report from a delegation to the Middle<br />
East. Challenges churches to build<br />
solidarity with Christians in the region,<br />
and to endorse churches in the Middle<br />
East's call for lsrael to end the occupation<br />
of the Palestinian Territories. s5.95<br />
t;020 7898 1300 ' f;020 7898 1305<br />
w' www,chbookshoo.co.uk<br />
have you seen SGM's books?<br />
I<br />
si?nificnnt<br />
#-<br />
-,5* r-'<br />
=i* *$##<br />
30lmovement<br />
others<br />
A range of publications is available ftom<br />
SCM, examining Christianity and society<br />
ftom a radical an$e. lnclusive, aware<br />
and challen$ng - invaluable resources<br />
for study, reflection and action, suitable<br />
for indMduals or groups.<br />
Titles currently available include:<br />
Common People - Christian ideas of<br />
community - currently on special<br />
offer, f,2.50 including postage!<br />
God Made Simple - a lively synopsis of<br />
the questions about God which have<br />
occupied philosophers and theologians<br />
Significant Others - a fresh look at<br />
relationships<br />
Raging in the Streets - activism and<br />
ministry in the twenty-first century<br />
The Dying Game - attitudes to life,<br />
death and mortality<br />
The F-word - exploring fundamentalism<br />
Fleshing out Faith - looking at the<br />
relationship between Christianity and<br />
our bodies<br />
No More Mr Nice Guy - theological,<br />
personal and political pieces in search<br />
of a Jesus that bites<br />
Find out more<br />
or order books now!<br />
Ring Ot21, 47t 2404<br />
or e- mail scm@movement.org. uk<br />
or write to:<br />
Student Christian <strong>Movement</strong><br />
University of Birmingham<br />
Weoley Park Road<br />
Selly Oak<br />
Birmingham<br />
B29 6LL<br />
or visit www. movement.org. uk/<br />
oublications<br />
q<br />
(brlttlan
the serpent<br />
TOO BUSY TO PRAY?<br />
Then get some earnest<br />
Christians to do it for you. A<br />
postcard landed on the<br />
doormat of my serpently den<br />
recently, promising that<br />
Christians from local<br />
churches would be<br />
pleased to pray for<br />
anything I'm concerned<br />
about if I would just<br />
return the form to a<br />
local Prayer Point.<br />
But do they<br />
discriminate? Will<br />
they pray for<br />
anything? Would<br />
they put in a word<br />
for a lowly serpent<br />
like me? What if the<br />
fanatic on my street<br />
sends in a deluge of<br />
cards praying for a<br />
plague of<br />
South<br />
American tree frogs?<br />
How irresponsible.<br />
And does it wort like Nectar<br />
points? Can I build up<br />
credit and ask for a<br />
really big pmyer at<br />
Christmas?<br />
I think it's a<br />
great idea<br />
that could be<br />
extended to other<br />
areas of church activity. You<br />
could have a Worship Point<br />
where you hand in cards<br />
asking someone to speak in<br />
tongues, or a Prophecy Point<br />
where you ask someone else<br />
to do all that troublesome<br />
frothing at the mouth. You<br />
could even get fire and<br />
brimstone called down on<br />
Methodist Central Hall by<br />
proxy.<br />
Everything<br />
must Eo<br />
I was<br />
delithted<br />
to see that<br />
all my<br />
labours<br />
have paid<br />
off. Get in<br />
quick and<br />
you could<br />
get some<br />
perfection<br />
at rockbottom<br />
prices.<br />
I<br />
t! .[|,,[<br />
THE GREAT DEBATE<br />
Of course, I diligently read all<br />
the church papers, and it<br />
seems that everyone wants<br />
the good Rt<br />
J<br />
Revd<br />
Dr<br />
Williams<br />
to endorse<br />
whatever<br />
theY<br />
I<br />
are<br />
selling<br />
these<br />
days. I'm half<br />
expecting him to<br />
turn up on posters<br />
at the local Tesco's<br />
advertising cat food.<br />
But not Remington or Gillette,<br />
although I imagine he needs<br />
something to keep that fine<br />
prophetic facial fungus in<br />
check.<br />
ln the run-up to Christmas<br />
we will, no doubt, be<br />
hearing the future<br />
Archbishop's opinion on<br />
Brussels sprouts. And<br />
evangelical groups will protest<br />
at the revelation that he has<br />
previously commended the<br />
i<br />
lr<br />
ET<br />
eating of sprouts, which are<br />
of course an abomination in<br />
the eyes of the Lord. Then<br />
there'll have to be a forum on<br />
vegetation in the church, with<br />
yet more 'integrities' and<br />
special bishops catering for<br />
the break-away broccoli<br />
brigade.<br />
HOW WOULD JESUS HANG?<br />
I was horrified beyond words<br />
to discover that young<br />
evangelicals can now<br />
get some assistance<br />
with mortifying their<br />
flesh, in the form of<br />
'What Would Jesus<br />
Do?' boxer shorts.<br />
What's a serpent to<br />
do? Now young<br />
nubile types are<br />
protected from temptation<br />
by their very undenruear.<br />
You can picture the<br />
scene. The young<br />
Christian couple slips<br />
from the straight and<br />
narrow, straying from<br />
the righteous path of<br />
keeping one foot on<br />
the floor and<br />
touching<br />
nothing<br />
above the<br />
knees or<br />
below<br />
the<br />
neck. Just<br />
as they slip<br />
into<br />
clutches<br />
my<br />
and<br />
^-.<br />
prepare to make the<br />
beast with two backs, they<br />
look down and see those<br />
words emblazoned in holy<br />
letters across their<br />
waistband, and see the error<br />
of their ways.<br />
It's not right. And moreover, I<br />
have it on good authority that<br />
Our Lord favoured a more<br />
loincloth-based garment in<br />
the undenvear department.<br />
EMERGENCY SERVICES<br />
The firefighters dispute may<br />
have ended by the time you<br />
read this, but you'll soon<br />
see that it's all part of a<br />
great plot, to which I myself<br />
am a party, and Andy<br />
Gilchrist's promise to bring<br />
down New Labour is but the<br />
tip of the iceberg. We've<br />
already forced the government<br />
to use Green<br />
Goddesses - sounds pretty<br />
pagan to me. And of<br />
course, Hell doesn't have<br />
too much call for fire<br />
protection, so we're sitting<br />
pretty. Fear a Satanic plot?<br />
Dial 666.<br />
A more responsible citizen<br />
than myself might also point<br />
out that their behaviour is<br />
somewhat thoughtless.<br />
Fancy lighting whacking<br />
great braziers all around the<br />
country during a firefighters'<br />
strike!<br />
STOP THE STATISTICS<br />
The Stop the War coalition is<br />
planning another mass<br />
protest in February about<br />
Dubya's antics. ln keeping<br />
with statistics for previous<br />
such events, the organisers<br />
have confidently predicted<br />
that, oh, zillions of protesters<br />
will turn up, while the police<br />
expect two men and a very<br />
small poodle.<br />
AND FINALLY...<br />
You couldn't make it up.<br />
The Vatican believes that<br />
the Russian Orthodox<br />
Church is running a<br />
'despicable operation' to<br />
ruin its reputation,<br />
o<br />
by accusing<br />
Franciscan monks<br />
of setting up a<br />
brothel in<br />
Moscow.<br />
A Russian<br />
newspaper<br />
featured<br />
photos of a<br />
nun in a habit<br />
o 31i,",'n'?jil<br />
oo<br />
li::*iffi:. ,o<br />
exptatn now you<br />
could see the<br />
undies beneath the habit),<br />
and claimed that a<br />
monastery turned out to be<br />
a 'bordello'.
I<br />
\<br />
ff<br />
Name:<br />
Cbri$'nn<br />
tr Please send me further information about joining the Student<br />
Ghristian <strong>Movement</strong>, and tell me where my local group is.<br />
U I would like to subscribe Io <strong>Movement</strong> magazine. I enclose a cheque,<br />
payable to SCM, to the value of f,,7.00 for my first three issues.<br />
Address:<br />
Telephone number:<br />
E-mail address:<br />
University or college (if applicable):<br />
Postcode:<br />
Post to: Student Ghristian <strong>Movement</strong>, University of Birmingham,<br />
Weoley Park Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham 829 6LL<br />
t: OL21, 471-2404 | e; scm@movement.org.uk I w' www.movement.org.uk