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In this second of two podcasts, Ian Mobsby dialogues with Professor Philip Sheldrake about Spirituality, Contemporary Culture and the Church. Philip is a well-known international authority in the areas of Christian Spirituality, Public Theology and inter-religious dialogue. He has written a number of leading books and articles on these significant subjects. This second podcasts looks at the themes of spirituality informed economics, and the understanding that the market was supposed to be about building a better world. Philip shares his hope that we begin to see that consumption is not an end in itself, and that we recover a sense of a just and human centred society.

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POSTED 11.11.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments Off

Following on the discussion about the riot, I have some other reflections on the theme of scape-goating. At the weekend retreat we looked at the issue of power and scapegoating, and I have been reflecting how this street violence maybe an expression of this.

When I was at a comprehensive school I was in quite a rough class, and there was one guy who I would now recognise for being gay, who was constantly being picked on. Not only was he gay but he came from quite a poor family – which stood out in his clothing and sports kit. He was relentlessly bullied by the richer more able kids from the affluent suburbs. One day, he could not take it anymore, and he flipped out and raged beating up a class room and our possessions one lunch time. He simply could not take the violence expressed at him anymore – and in his rage and powerlessness – he took out his rage on the only thing he had the power to do – on his environment.

For the last year we have as a society been doing economic violence to the poor and young with reductions in social and health care, the ending of projects to reduce poverty and the effects of poverty – and now huge unemployment particularly of the young – where all the resources are still being held by the boomers who had grants for education, a free health service and a lot more possibilities.  These opportunities have been squandered by greed and selfishness and are now not available to anyone but the rich. In the cuts sure-start and many many worthwhile projects seeking to challenge and eleviate poverty have ended – creating ghettoisation in our now market society that actively excluded the poor. In a world where everything is about competition rather than co-operation we have recreated a society modelled on the rules of the class room I mentioned earlier.

Just may be the poor including the excluded many young people who have experienced the violence of exclusion and economic injustice have expressed their rage and anger at the only thing they can – their environment in front of them again like that class room. Scape-goating is when the powerful project their violence and raging at others – and just may be this is what we have done as a society justified by the language of prudent economics.

A final thought – are the unspoken rules of a class society. The rich express their crime through sociopathic gain by manipulating others such as the politicians expense scam, many of this is expressed power abuse to those perceived to be over lower class. This is then expressed down the chain to those who are at the bottom who are expected just to absorb the violence – like the victim of a bully. May be some of the anger I hear on the news is because of peoples anger that some of the most marginalised people in our society didn’t just take the abuse of our current unjust social system – may be our anger is because they have expressed their anger back at society – breaking the rules of a bully – and our anger is because the scapegoat has fought back by naming their anger against the shops as the environment.

I find it interesting to see the anger that starts with the actions of those who did the rioting. No one is asking what caused this rioting to act out all round the country – why are we unwilling to ask what is the cause? May be it is because we would then need to face our responsibilities for creating an unjust society whose values of competition will always do violence through the language of competition? In so doing we are collectively the bully and we are collectively scapegoating…

POSTED 10.08.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (11)

The Standing Group of St Mary Aldermary have agreed to the need for a new voluntary co-opted position onto the Guild Council, to help us shape up our activities around economic, social and ecological justice.  This role will include the practical advice about assisting the community to reduce our carbon footprint, recycling and fairtrade at St Mary Aldermary.  The role will also promote justice as a part of our New Monastic Rhythm of Life and an important element of the spiritual practices.

We have drafted a role description to be discussed at the Community Council this Sunday.  Please see below.

justice-officer

POSTED 23.06.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments Off

The Craftivist Collective are a group of people who campaign for Justice and aim to expose the scandal of poverty through the mode of craft.

Check out our latest campaign, “Don’t Blow It”, which encourages a positive approach to engaging with our MPs. MP’s have a great opportunity to make positive change in our society and we want to encourage them in what they’re doing and make sure they know that we’re counting on them to not blow it!

The project is easy: Get a handkerchief, sew on a personal message that is encouraging your MP, then give it to them when they arrive back after their summer break on the 6th September. If you don’t already know your MP this is a great way to get to know them, allowing you to go back and talk to them about issues like climate change or tax injustice!

For more information visit the craftiest collective website.

POSTED 16.06.11 BY: hannah | Comments Off

For many like me who have avoided watching the news regularly after the political elections, the policies of the current coalition government are becoming increasingly worrying. Many of us in Moot have understood that Christ had much to say through a political understanding of the Gospels around social, economic and ecological justice – and immigration and the free movement of peoples through this country is an important area of life that should be informed by justice principles.

I was shocked and horrified by David Cameron’s speech on immigration, and was very pleased to see that at least Vince Cable had the guts to stand up against this. As Christians, I think it is very important that we seek the common good, and that justice and the poor are of great concern to God. We need to be careful about an increasing hardness about the poor and the increasing divide between the privileged haves and those with very little opportunities – the have nots. It is true that you can judge the health of a country by the way we treat the mentally ill, the physically disabled, the sick, the elderly, families and hospitality to migrants and refugees. On all these counts, many like me, think this Government has used a smoke screen to bring in economic cuts and hardships that reflect the political rhetoric of the well off to the detriment of the poor and less privileged.

A good example of this madness is Meghan, member of this community, who is wanting to return to this country to do a PhD, which would bring investment and work to this country. So she now has to face an increased difficulty coming to study here because of Government policy for foreign students (utter madness when this brings work and money to the country) and also most universities involved in the humanities and the arts have had their budget cuts. In the area of sociology and post-colonial studies – central government has cut the total grant, making it almost impossible to study here. Many universities have cut their humanities departments, with theology being hit very hard. Many of us do believe this is yet another cynical ploy to privatise the universities to again over privilege the already over privileged.

Some of the language used by the Prime Minister around Immigration is shameful, and encourages unhelpful fear and ignorance and to be blunt – prejudice. So as Christians, we really do need to reflect on these things, as the UK is becoming an increasingly unequal and unjust society – where budget cuts have been used as an excuse to under fund welfare and health, and again withdraw from the important role of giving people from unprivileged backgrounds, a fair chance to play their part in our increasingly immoral market society.   One thing you can do is to see how some of the church are responding to this situation, and Ekklesia I think are a very good thing to get a balanced position – see here.

POSTED 15.04.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (2)

It’s a very long time since I heard such hard faced dispassionate plans as are now coming out of the current UK Government, and I think it is time to respond. You hear it said quite a lot that you can tell the health of a society by how it treats those who are most vulnerable, which I take to be the old, ill, mentally ill and unemployed. This Governments plans around Big Society is little more than a smoke screen for the absorption of the unrestrained market, to dehumanise and degrade to lift the affluent even higher. Enough is enough. Why not join the national protest in March 2011.

I will be joining my mum, uncles and aunts who are sickened by this betrayal of the heart of what was our benevolent society.

POSTED 12.11.10 BY: ianmobsby | Comments Off

Why not visit the DEC website to quickly and easily send money to the relief in Haiti?

POSTED 14.01.10 BY: admin | Comments Off

What’s the Plan?

• Assemble: 12pm, Grosvenor Square
• Climax: 3pm Encircling of Parliament
• Dress code: Blue!
• Map click here

POSTED 09.10.09 BY: admin | Comments Off

I’ve just come across a great article by George Monbiot on the subject population growth.

Published in the Guardian, he shows how climate change has nothing to do with population growth, but is in fact related to consumption and wealth of and by the rich.

You can read the full article, but consider this quote:

“People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less; they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock’s words, “hiding from the truth”. It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.

So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against superyachts and private jets? Where’s Class War when you need it?

It’s time we had the guts to name the problem. It’s not sex; it’s money. It’s not the poor; it’s the rich.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Read the full article in full.

POSTED 29.09.09 BY: admin | Comments (3)

Not sure if people have seen this advert on the tube. It always hits me as having a deep spiritual meaning that I don’t like very much. You see a man who on first glance seems to be in a prayerful pose before a board of stockmarket figures reflected back onto itself. On closer inspection you see that he is not praying but holding onto some form of communication device. The advert pushes the importance of receiving the right information to be able to be in control.

The sad thing about this and other adverts, is that many are not facing up to the real reason this all went wrong, the over emphasis on markets and capitalism to mediate everything to do with our culture. In an earlier post I talked about the fact that we now have an unrestricted market society, and this is something some of us really think impoverishes our humanity and community. It seems that people are now turned back to information technology to help rebuild a sense of certainty in the fluidity of our complex market society.

This makes me sad. It was interesting yesterday also to hear on a Radio 4 programme, of an America Company that was focusing on the very same strategy it had before the crash in the States, because it believed it did not need to change, even though it had been bailed out by tax payers money. It seems many are addicted to a market economy and can not re-imagine another way of being. This is really why the church needs to be more engaged with seeking a better mixed economy, than the mess we have got ourselves in. I am hopeful that people will see that the real God is not a market, and our mutual welfare as a community is not dependent on our economic value to sell or buy things. Christianity has much to say on this matter, so we really need to challenge what seems to me to be, the idol of a market society.

POSTED 15.07.09 BY: admin | Comments Off