Category Archives: Miscellany

HIV Kings Of Europe

Miscellany, , ,

According to yesterday’s Metro, the UK is HIV king of Europe.

Tragically I’m not surprised.

Whenever we hear the latest statistics that tell of Britain ‘leading’ Europe in some new way the response is that we need more or better sex education. This follows the premise that information is what sexually active men and women are lacking.

I’m not buying it. I don’t believe the solution rests in some golden calf of sexual education that focuses on precautions. I think that there’s little more that can be done in school.

We are an incredibly condom-ised society but we also have such a ready proliferation of post coital birth control that cure (of pregnancy) appears preferable to prevention of sexually transmitted life (be it viral or human).

No, I think that the fact Britain leads the way in teenage pregnancies, abortions and sexual disease is because somewhere in our national psyche we don’t value relationship with one another as we ought with the result that sex isn’t seen as something of consequence. It’s casual, not special.

For chunks of my peers, promiscuity is grounds for respect. Sexual conquests are celebrated as an end in themselves. People are reduced to objects of gratification. Lily Allen’s most recent offering says that being bad in bed undermines anything positive in a relationship.

But in a throwaway world it’s hardly a surprise. Britain is a place where the temporary reigns. And more often than not it is a selfish idea of temporary which doesn’t think about the consequences. Dishearteningly that message is reinforced by the media, in politics and through fractured families.

The Pope was recently attacked for saying you don’t fix AIDS with condoms. The church is ridiculed for saying that abstinence and faithfulness should be higher priorities. This alternative is easily mocked, just another irrelevant sermon from a completely irrelevant group of people.

The “Death of Christian Britain”, as sociologists call the 1960s, has much to commend it. Not least it changed the dynamics of gender (or recaptured New Testament values of equality), beginning a process that sadly has not yet reached completion. But, in addition, by supplanting singular ideas with pluralistic ideals it gave space to people of all faiths, and none, to express their ideas without prior conditions. True pluralism is foundationally about loving your neighbour for who they are and what they think even if that person is someone you would hate to be. But it is critically undermined when it isn’t a two way dialogue.

People should not have ideas foisted onto them or be required to live according to my expectations. That’s neither gracious nor loving. However, if we don’t offer the alternative what’s left behind is a vacuum. And that too fails on both counts. When it comes to sex and relationships I think the squeezing of God to the margins has been a bad thing. So called ‘free love’ seems to have resulted in slavery rather than freedom and painful hollowness instead of loving delight.

I have no doubt that loving and respecting one another unconditionally and selflessly is the model for relationship and I believe that the public commitment of modelling that forever is what makes marriage the perfect context for sex. What I could do is use that to stand in a corner and judge. To jump around on top of the moral high ground claiming victory after a battle that knows only losers. True, I don’t think condoms are the answer but in the developing world so much time and effort goes into standing alongside people to tackle the issue. In Australia the Red Cross have little stalls outside night clubs doing that whilst handing out condoms.

The sexual revolution has had side effects. For some reason Britain has borne the brunt of them. But if we’re interested in people’s lives being transformed by grace and hope could we have done more to support it? Could we take a lead from those Aussies and stand outside nightclubs offering condoms ourselves (alongside our bottles of water and street pastoring)? Not to condone the things we disagree with but to engage with the reality of brokenness around us. To love them by serving them on their terms, not ours.

Too often the problems of the world become the church’s pornography; we get to analyse without being involved. We toy with the idea of being part of a culture that has sex on tap. We moralise about its perils. But we keep doing it from Christian holes in the ground that people might, if they’re lucky, fall into.

This is why Conversations is exciting.

It’s gloves off church because it’s passionate about authentically seeking God’s heart for transformation. On Wednesday the theme was ‘Loving The City’ and Dave Magill spoke on Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. He asked us what metaphorical walls need rebuilding in York. As someone who lives in the shadow of a broken family (of Christians no less) it’s strange this didn’t occur to me then. Getting back to the basics of relationship is fundamental. It is impossible to stress the importance of rebuilding relationships built around selfless appreciation, respect and compassion. Sex and everything that is glorious, or sinister, about it lives or dies on the basis of whether those things are present.

We love because we were loved first.

As I saw on Sunday there are people living within touching distance who might never have known what it is to be loved unconditionally, just for being alive.

Except that we know they are.

God loves you; because he loves you; because he loves you; because he loves you; because he loves you; because he loves you; because he loves you…

All we need to do is get that message through.

My 2 Cents (at the current rate of exchange that’s actually 0.014p)

Miscellany, ,

So this evening, Ben and I went to St Mike’s to watch a screening of The Passion. Rather predictably, we were about 5 minutes late, so arrived as Jesus was praying in the Gethsemene. This was the first time I’d seen the film and I’m still, to coin a phrase from Alyson, ruminating over it, and thought I’d use my first post to try to make some sense of what I’m thinking. (please bear with me, I’m not always the most articulate and lucid of bods)

I thought it was a brilliant film. Extremely, and unsurprisingly, moving. However, I couldn’t quite shake off a strange sensation that the film was almost trying to manipulate my feelings in places, although I’m not entirely sure how… I’m no film buff, so I’m not sure exactly what cinematic story-telling devices were used… and I didn’t like the feeling that I almost felt sceptical in places…(is it so predictable that I even feel a teensy bit guilty about that?) Was it that I was too shocked by what was shown – I don’t think so. I fully expected a film that was brutally and honestly graphic about the kind of torture our Lord endured.

I think that I felt (feel) that the story is (should be) moving enough without having to employ such cinematic techniques. Or maybe my English blood is exherting it’s influence, and pushing me into cynicism too readily. I felt that I should be more upset than I was. In short, I expected to bawl my eyes out. I don’t often get emotional at films, only when they are really moving. (most notably, I still to this day can not watch the stampede scene in the Lion King, I have to fast forward past the bit where Mufasa dies – mainly because my dad took me to see the film at the cinema, but that’s an issue for another day…) I don’t think I’m cold and unfeeling, I was very moved by the film, especially by the two Mary’s. But I knew how the story would end, and perhaps that was why I didn’t feel as sad as I expected; I knew that he would rise triumphantly from the grave.

I must confess to not an insignificant amount of disappointment that more wasn’t made of the resurrection. I wanted them to show more of what happened after and what that means for our world today. Although I suppose there would then be too much to cover in one film (at this point Ben suggested that they produce a sequel – something along the lines of JESUS 2: THE RESURRECTION).

I’m not sure how to end this post, which is in a way I suppose fitting as I’m still mulling over the film. I suppose I’ll watch the film again someday, and expect I’ll feel completely different.

…

A little bit about me

Miscellany,

I am Benjamin Welby. I live in York. Moved here in 03 to study History, fell in love with my wife (the brains of this outfit, she’s doing a PhD in Chemistry) after which I did an MA in Post-War Reconstruction.

I’m a Christian. Our church meets at Vodka Revolution.

I support Bradford City. I lived there 88-95 before moving to mid-Devon.

I work in Hull. I’m coming to the end of the Council’s graduate scheme and have worked with schools, nurseries, bins, highways, spreadsheets, maps, consultations, funding formulae, comms, customer services and now, finally, the public through a project supporting housing standards for migrant households.

I’m a student. The council fund us through an MSc in Public Management from the Institute of Local Government (INLOGOV) that sees me deep in my dissertation.

I’m passionate about relationships and community. As a result I’m delighted to see the reimagining of the interaction between citizen and state that’s underpinning so much government innovation at the moment.

I’m excited by the potential of mashing up local government expertise and international development. Maybe we take bureaucracy too far but we shouldn’t forget how effective our local governance is. In post-conflict or development scenarios it’s often under valued or resourced which makes corruption and a lack of confidence inevitable.

I’m incredibly lucky to be exploring this at the moment. Hull is twinned with Freetown, Sierra Leone (where I did my MA research) and I’m part of a project that’s building procurement and contract/asset management capacity in the council there. The ambition is to help develop a waste strategy. Exciting stuff.