I was horrified this morning to hear this news story:
“Shocking" sexual violence is being carried out by children against other children as young as 11, according to an official report.
The Office of the Children's Commissioner for England said the perpetrators could be 12 or 13, and rape is seen as "normal and inevitable" in some areas, especially among gangs.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25090896
The news report itself is shocking enough but on TV and radio actors read some of the transcripts from some of the young people interviewed. And those comments are seriously concerning. One in particular horrified me. It was from a teenage boy saying about how he had taken part in a gang rape of a teenage girl. And from the transcript he seemed to think “the girl was asking for it” as she’d already had sex with a number of other boys and so he'd not done anything wrong. Though he added “I suppose you could call it rape”!
According to the news reports I heard, one of the reasons the researchers found for this abuse is the widespread use of on line pornography by the boys carrying out the abuse. (I think we can assume we’re not talking Page 3 pin ups here.) Consequently young boys’ sexual relationships are solely that – relationships based solely on sex. And abusive sex at that. If indeed you could call it relationships.
So although this is shocking, to me it wasn’t surprising. In part because of a conversation I’d had just last week with a secondary school teacher. The teacher shared with me a situation with a student at school. The girl confided in her form tutor how she’d “been made to do things she didn’t like doing” by a boy. I will spare you the details but it would have been worthy of the report.
What have we come to? And how on earth are we supposed to get children to realise that sex isn’t some video game? Sex is real, it is powerful, it can be wonderful. But it must be founded on love not abuse. And in Christian theology sex is a gift from God who himself is love.
I recognise that the world has moved on over the two generations since the Swinging Sixties (when I suppose people’s views about sex changed dramatically.) And I recognise that sex is no longer seen as something for the marital bed. That mightn’t be right but that is where we are. However, with or without marriage, sex should be an act of two people loving each other. And this report suggests that is a message young people just don’t get.
How on earth do we start to make sure they do?
Tuesday 26 November 2013
Sunday 17 November 2013
Earn all you can, Save all you can, Give all you can
This is the text of a talk I was due to give on BBC Wiltshire on 17th November 2013. As the presenter and I got talking about other things I had to abridge it somewhat.
Last week some people clearly decided to start their Christmas shopping early.
Firstly someone somewhere will find a painting by Francis Bacon of his friend and fellow artist Lucian Freud under their Christmas tree. The painting was sold at auction in New York for $142m (£89m, 106m euros) in New York. The most expensive artwork ever sold
The price eclipsed the $119.9m (£74m) paid for Edvard Munch's The Scream last year.
Secondly A diamond known as the Pink Star has sold for $83m (£52m) at auction in Geneva - a record price for a gemstone. The diamond measures 2.69cm by 2.06cm (1.06 inches by 0.81 inches) and is set on a ring.
The Pink Star was sold to Isaac Wolf, a well-known New York diamond cutter who has renamed it the Pink Dream.
The winning bid surpassed the $46.2m paid for the Graff Pink diamond three years ago, which was half the size of the Pink Star.
In the space of 24 hours almost £150 million was spent – just like that.
While auction records were being set in New York and Geneva, on the other side of the world the people of the Philippines were coming to terms with the deaths of loved ones, with lack of shelter, food and clean water. The news about the purchase of a picture and a pink diamond probably passed them by to be honest. They’ve got other things on their minds. Probably just as well, as I dare say they’d be wondering what they could do with £150 million. It would go a long way to helping those people I imagine.
Meanwhile, those of us who are more likely to have china ducks on our walls as opposed to Francis Bacon paintings, were responding to the disaster in the Philippines and to the BBC Children in Need fund raiser. So far £31 million – a record – has been raised for Children in Need and so far over £30 million has been given to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Philippines appeal.
One of the verses of the Bible that is frequently misquoted is found in Pauls’ first letter to Timothy. The misquotation is
money is the root of all evil..
In fact what St Paul said was
10 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
It is a verse from a much longer passage in which Paul warns about the temptations of wealth.
9 But people who are trying to get rich fall into temptation. They are trapped by many stupid and harmful passions that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some have wandered away from the faith and have impaled themselves with a lot of pain because they made money their goal.
I suppose what this means is that people who get swept up with wealth, and the trappings of wealth, are in danger of becoming detached from what it means to be a caring compassionate person. And instead become more interested in having the expensive paintings on the wall and the biggest diamond on the finger.
Of course not all wealthy people are like this. Some enjoy what their wealth brings but at the same time look at ways of helping the under privileged. Bill Gates is a good example as he gives away millions of dollars through his Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. And it may be that the buyers of the painting and the diamond give generously to good causes.
The founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley once said that our approach to money could be summed up like this
Earn all you can, Save all you can, Give all you can
Not a bad template for life.
Last week some people clearly decided to start their Christmas shopping early.
Firstly someone somewhere will find a painting by Francis Bacon of his friend and fellow artist Lucian Freud under their Christmas tree. The painting was sold at auction in New York for $142m (£89m, 106m euros) in New York. The most expensive artwork ever sold
The price eclipsed the $119.9m (£74m) paid for Edvard Munch's The Scream last year.
Secondly A diamond known as the Pink Star has sold for $83m (£52m) at auction in Geneva - a record price for a gemstone. The diamond measures 2.69cm by 2.06cm (1.06 inches by 0.81 inches) and is set on a ring.
The Pink Star was sold to Isaac Wolf, a well-known New York diamond cutter who has renamed it the Pink Dream.
The winning bid surpassed the $46.2m paid for the Graff Pink diamond three years ago, which was half the size of the Pink Star.
In the space of 24 hours almost £150 million was spent – just like that.
While auction records were being set in New York and Geneva, on the other side of the world the people of the Philippines were coming to terms with the deaths of loved ones, with lack of shelter, food and clean water. The news about the purchase of a picture and a pink diamond probably passed them by to be honest. They’ve got other things on their minds. Probably just as well, as I dare say they’d be wondering what they could do with £150 million. It would go a long way to helping those people I imagine.
Meanwhile, those of us who are more likely to have china ducks on our walls as opposed to Francis Bacon paintings, were responding to the disaster in the Philippines and to the BBC Children in Need fund raiser. So far £31 million – a record – has been raised for Children in Need and so far over £30 million has been given to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Philippines appeal.
One of the verses of the Bible that is frequently misquoted is found in Pauls’ first letter to Timothy. The misquotation is
money is the root of all evil..
In fact what St Paul said was
10 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
It is a verse from a much longer passage in which Paul warns about the temptations of wealth.
9 But people who are trying to get rich fall into temptation. They are trapped by many stupid and harmful passions that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some have wandered away from the faith and have impaled themselves with a lot of pain because they made money their goal.
I suppose what this means is that people who get swept up with wealth, and the trappings of wealth, are in danger of becoming detached from what it means to be a caring compassionate person. And instead become more interested in having the expensive paintings on the wall and the biggest diamond on the finger.
Of course not all wealthy people are like this. Some enjoy what their wealth brings but at the same time look at ways of helping the under privileged. Bill Gates is a good example as he gives away millions of dollars through his Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. And it may be that the buyers of the painting and the diamond give generously to good causes.
The founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley once said that our approach to money could be summed up like this
Earn all you can, Save all you can, Give all you can
Not a bad template for life.
Wednesday 6 November 2013
Power struggle
Over the last few weeks there’s been a lot of publicity given to the big 6 energy companies here in the UK and how they’ve raised energy costs by around 10%. Apparently one of the reasons given by the companies is that the green energy taxes imposed upon them are a way of funding cleaner energy.
Last weekend we had a visit from two friends from Germany. And we got talking about energy.
As you may know, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the German government decided to close Germany’s nuclear power plants. There has long been a vocal opposition to nuclear energy in Germany and for many years Germany has been encouraging alternative energy.
We last visited Germany in in 2011 and noticed then how many homes had solar panels and how along the sides of autobahns (motorways) were miles of solar panels. Our friends told us how since then there has been a great uptake in green energy. For example many villages are now investing in wind turbines so that the village will be self-sufficient in electricity. (The villagers set up a cooperative and establish small wind farms.)
Apparently over the summer (so our friends told us) Germany was exporting solar generated electricity to the Czech republic as Germany couldn’t use all the electricity being produced.
When we explained how there is opposition to wind farms here our friends said they couldn’t understand this. They thought Britain had an ideal climate for wind power and with our coast line why weren’t we investing in wave power? Good question.
I don’t why know people are so opposed to wind farms. Yes I must admit none of us wish to see hoards of wind turbines covering the countryside. But surely there could be ways around this? One or two turbines serving villages (as in Germany) or factories having one or two turbines. (The Honda plant in Swindon wanted to do this and the local Nimbys managed to put a block on this idea.) By the way, were people years ago opposed to windmills because they looked unsightly?
Our government has made much of how it wants to reduce the national debt as it doesn’t want to leave a legacy for future generations. But what of the legacy we are leaving for future generations by building new nuclear plants? 30,000 years’ worth of legacy in the form of toxic waste?
Meanwhile the energy companies just seem content to make money, pay their shareholders large dividends and their fat cat directors bonuses. And 340 MPs claim for the cost of heating their homes on expenses including Swindon North MP Justin Tomlinson who claimed £336. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/340-mps-energy-bills-paid-2671053 (Why by the way can MPs claim this on expenses? I work from home and I have to pay my gas and electricity. I can claim a 25% tax allowance.) While at the same time elderly members of my congregations worry about whether they will manage to be able to heat their homes.
I find it disappointing that Christians aren’t taking a more active role in challenging the Government over its energy policy. We believe that people are on earth to be stewards of creation. So shouldn’t we Christians in the western developed world be taking the lead (as is Germany is) on renewable non fossil
Last weekend we had a visit from two friends from Germany. And we got talking about energy.
We last visited Germany in in 2011 and noticed then how many homes had solar panels and how along the sides of autobahns (motorways) were miles of solar panels. Our friends told us how since then there has been a great uptake in green energy. For example many villages are now investing in wind turbines so that the village will be self-sufficient in electricity. (The villagers set up a cooperative and establish small wind farms.)
Apparently over the summer (so our friends told us) Germany was exporting solar generated electricity to the Czech republic as Germany couldn’t use all the electricity being produced.
When we explained how there is opposition to wind farms here our friends said they couldn’t understand this. They thought Britain had an ideal climate for wind power and with our coast line why weren’t we investing in wave power? Good question.
I don’t why know people are so opposed to wind farms. Yes I must admit none of us wish to see hoards of wind turbines covering the countryside. But surely there could be ways around this? One or two turbines serving villages (as in Germany) or factories having one or two turbines. (The Honda plant in Swindon wanted to do this and the local Nimbys managed to put a block on this idea.) By the way, were people years ago opposed to windmills because they looked unsightly?
Our government has made much of how it wants to reduce the national debt as it doesn’t want to leave a legacy for future generations. But what of the legacy we are leaving for future generations by building new nuclear plants? 30,000 years’ worth of legacy in the form of toxic waste?
Meanwhile the energy companies just seem content to make money, pay their shareholders large dividends and their fat cat directors bonuses. And 340 MPs claim for the cost of heating their homes on expenses including Swindon North MP Justin Tomlinson who claimed £336. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/340-mps-energy-bills-paid-2671053 (Why by the way can MPs claim this on expenses? I work from home and I have to pay my gas and electricity. I can claim a 25% tax allowance.) While at the same time elderly members of my congregations worry about whether they will manage to be able to heat their homes.
I find it disappointing that Christians aren’t taking a more active role in challenging the Government over its energy policy. We believe that people are on earth to be stewards of creation. So shouldn’t we Christians in the western developed world be taking the lead (as is Germany is) on renewable non fossil
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