Thoughts from the mind of Ben Welby

Tag: June 12

@chrisdjmoyles

At Pentecost the BBC broadcast a service from Kingsgate Community Church in Peterborough. I caught some of it and was very impressed that Pentecost in 2009 still looked like the fun times Acts suggests took place. But stylistically it wasn’t a surprise to me. I’ve been around the church my entire life and I know that church isn’t all BCP Morning Prayer (beautiful but a struggle to engage with if your discourse comes from post-modernity) and I know it isn’t all the guilt and despondency which quite a lot of people reckon church is.

And in that situation it’s no surprise that people could be led to believe that God is dead. Their experience of church seems to indicate a weekly mourning of his passing rather than a celebration of his living.

Anyway, I caught a bit of Chris Moyles and his breakfast show discussing this. Continue reading

Transparency = Clarity = Trust?

At the heart of this furore about expenses is a breakdown in trust.

We think that our politicians have been shafting us and getting away with naughtiness for years. The activities of 20 to 30 of the 650 elected members in Westminster is provoking the kind of outrage and, at the same time, apathy, that has sent Nick Griffin (“RT @TiernanDouieb: In mythology, the Griffin is part lion, part bird. Yet Nick Griffin of the BNP is all cock”) and his odious ideas to Brussels on behalf of the British.

The solution, we cry, is for political reform; for shining brighter lights onto the activity of government and scrutinising everything that our political leaders do. In the attempt to find a way of governing the nation that works, we want to ramp up and ramp up the organs of checking up on it. Continue reading