Fairtrade again - Public lecture by the CEO of Cafedirect

John Steel, CEO of Cafedirect, will be speaking at the University of Reading at 6.15 next Wednesday (4 March). The event is jointly organised by the University Chaplaincy and the Department of Economics and is open to members of the public as well as staff and students.

Climate change, social enterprise and business values are all likely to be under discussion. Entrance is free but booking is essential and there are more details here.

Lenten Challenges - Engaging the Powers

As we arrived at church yesterday we were each given a copy of the St John's and St Stephen's Creation Care Challenge for Lent 2019. Adapted by Richard C from a challenge used at St Aldate's in Oxford, it is a mixture of daily challenges, meditations, prayers and talking points to help us tread more lightly on the earth. This week's tasks are a gentle preparation - I think week three is when I'm going to start really struggling: when we get to avoiding plastic wrappings on our food.

After the service, and before the monthly church lunch (in aid of Bed for the Night this month) Hamish P shared some of his wisdom on another challenging topic - engaging the powers that keep people across our world in poverty. He began with Desmond Tutu's point:

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

Then he explained the importance of educating ourselves on how the system works that keeps the poor poor and enables a tiny minority to be phenomenally rich, drawing especially on Walter Wink and Joseph Stiglitz. He'd brought a number of briefing papers, summarising key books on topics of globalisation, inequality and the economy. There is lots more to read and inspire action at www.engagingthepowers.org.

Dazzled in Creation Season

This Creation Season began with a wonderful new initiative - Dazzle - a St  John's festival in conversation with the Festival of the Dark. Many elements were very relevant to our EcoChurch journey, including Kate Raworth's inspiring talk on Doughnut Ecomonics, two theatrical pieces (sadly I couldn't make it to these - there'll no doubt be write-ups in Newt), community gardening and many of the talks at the day symposium with which we finished. This was a real variety of information, leaving those of us who stayed all day reeling slightly from the information processing! Gary and Vincent offered us some fascinating theology and striking poetry, Dave Richards inspired us with a call to dig for a different kind of victory, Kester Brewin invited us to rethink attitudes to education, Alison Webster embraced boundary-crossing, Colin Heber-Percy examined what humanity means and Helen Bilton enthused about outdoor learning. There were also information stalls -  the most challenging for many of us to think on were the Vegan society.

For the Common Good

Today Hamish shared in church copies of his latest briefing paper - a summary of Herman Daly and B Cobb Jnr's For the Common Good: Redirecting the economy towards community, the environment and a sustainable future. It is not yet up on his Engaging the Powers website but anyone interested will find papers on similar themes here.

After a particularly tough week I very much appreciated Gary's sermon on moments of mountain-top wonder - plenty of food for thought about our experience of God through Creation. I've not read The Solace of  Fierce Landscapes, although it rang a bell when he said it, and I'm thinking this 'explanation of apophatic mysticism' might prove good Lent reading.

Engaging the Powers

Last Sunday, over coffee after the service, the congregation were invited to listen to a debate of the sort that regularly happens in the church cafe between Fr Vince and Hamish about theology and social justice. It was fascinating and thought-provoking stuff. The occasion was to launch Hamish's new website  which Dominic has put together for him to make accessible various user-friendly digests of important books about the Powers which affect our world, to arm ourselves to respond intelligently to major issues that organisations like Christian Aid respond to. The website explains:

‘The Powers’ today are the big international corporations, the international financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and also the governments of the rich Western powers, particularly those of the US and the EU which includes the UK. 

Churchgoers and those of Christian sympathies are all too familiar with the devastating effects of famines, wars, floods and other natural disasters around the world, and they commit themselves to offering support in the form of cash, practical help and in many cases personal work at disaster sites.

The activities of ‘the Powers’ are less well understood. Campaigning charities like Christian Aid and Global Justice Now draw our attention, fairly forcibly, to their more direct depredations such as the ruthless exploitation of indigenous people in areas where gold and other mineral mining take or to the exorbitant and unfair demands that big corporations make on poorer countries as the price for bringing them foreign investment.There is today a growing body of literature which sheds light on the activities of ‘the Powers’ not only in more detail than media headlines can convey but also revealing the enormous increase in their activities and influence over the past 30 years, much of it hidden from public view.

The website gives us the opportunity to understand the arguments without having to find time to read all the books.

Chasing the Moneylenders from the Temple of our Democracy

Back last October I advertised Ann Pettifor's talk at the University. It is now possible to view this (and other chaplaincy lectures) here.