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Thinking For a Change

The weekly ezine from Ekklesia
exploring belief, politics and culture
 
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In This Edition
Care and control at life's end by Savi Hensman
Cultivating the discipline of peace by Jill Segger
Quota: Niall O'Brien and Kim Fabricius
Research Focus: Writing peace out of the script
Media and web debate
Event: How does the Gospel question our policies?
Thinking in Action: Making the 'disappeared' visible
Reading allowed: Defenseless Christianity
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Faith and Politics After Christendom by Jonathan Bartley here 
 
 
 
 
Threatened with Resurrection
by Simon Barrow here 
 
 
 
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Issue: # 56 9 October 2009
You can almost hear an audible sigh of relief from the British media as the party political conference season draws to an end. For the large parties (there are honourable exceptions like the Greens and Plaid Cymru) what were once genuine debating forums have now become largely PR exercises, with millions of pounds being spent to spin voters round to their way of thinking.
 
Modern media is not just a vehicle for news, but part of its very existence. Vast resources are poured into trying to persuade journalists to listen and report in a particular way - by campaigning groups and NGOs as much as by politicos and corporate lobbyists with a profit to grind.
 
How fairs religion and belief in the midst of all this? Issues of faith and non-faith are attracting attention as never before, but not always in an illuminating way. This weekend media experts and representatives of religious bodies will gather in Windsor to discuss the issues and look at how reporting and commentating practice can be improved.
 
To coincide with that (Ekklesia is contributing to this event) we will be publishing an extended version of our research on 'Writing peace out of the script', which takes the 2005-6 Christian Peacemaker Teams' Iraq hostage crisis as an example of the way in which news values are formed in very particular ways - often assuming as 'normal' the very practices which those working for social change are wanting to challenge.
 
In addition, this week's bulletin includes a number of items which will struggle to make it into what PR Week magazine calls "the mainstream media" (see Media Debate): a European tour to highlight the plight of the abducted and disappeared in countries like the Philippines (Thinking in Action), a new book on 'defenceless Christianity' (Reading Allowed) and a forthcoming lecture on 'How the Gospel questions our policies' (Event).
 
Last but not least, our quotations of the week indicate that different ways of looking at the world, religious and otherwise, are intimately bound up with different patterns of behaviour and responsibility.

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Care and control at life's end
By Savi Hensman

It is disappointing that so many people who are passionate about the assisted dying debate (whether for or against legalisation) do not seem nearly as concerned to tackle violations of dignity which can be prevented at present, says the author - an Ekklesia associate, Christian commentator and voluntary sector worker in health, social care and equalities in the UK. 
 
Read the whole article here 
Cultivating the discipline of peace
By Jill Segger
 
 
It has been well said that peace is not the absence of noise, trouble or hard work - rather it is to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. In the first of a weekly series on the Quaker Testimonies, the author, a member of the Religious Society of Friends and Ekklesia's associate editor, looks at the disciplines involved in practicing and developing peace in a violent world. 
 
Read the whole article here
Quota
Sayings from the week and wisdom from the tradition
  
"Reconciliation is the ultimate aim of non-violence because non-violence holds not only for the absolute inviolability of the human person, both friend and enemy, but maintains that human beings are ultimately one family, brothers and sisters to each other."
- Niall O'Brien, Columban priest in the Philippines
 
"God the world-maker is God the care-taker. Humans properly stand over other creatures only as they stand with other creatures, showing them love, giving them space, and granting them 'rights'."
- Kim Fabricius
Research Focus
Writing peace out of the script 
 
How does the media cover non-violence and non-military interventions in situations of conflict? In the context of Tricia Gates Brown's edited collection on the 2005-6 Christian Peacemaker Teams hostage crisis in Iraq, '118 Days', Simon Barrow and Tim Nafziger contributed a chapter examining, through detailed research, the difficulty involved in projecting alternatives to violence in a media environment conditioned to 'normalise' it.
 
In conjunction with the Cumberland Lodge 'Religion and the News' conference this weekend, Ekklesia will publish a fuller text on this topic in our research section. The book can be viewed and purchased through us here

Ekklesia has launched a new subscription service giving a detailed, inside track on the news agenda for the coming 6 weeks. Suitable for church leaders, campaign groups, local government and anyone working in or with the media, it is already taken by the Times newspaper, Reuters and the BBC.  Find out more here
Media and web debate
Ekklesia in the news this week  
 
Ekklesia co-director Jonathan Bartley will appear on BBC1's Sunday morning television programme 'The Big Questions' at 10am on 11 October 2009. The topics include, in the aftermath of the party political conference season in Britain, the meaning and future of Christian Socialism. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007zpll
 
Meanwhile, Simon Barrow is due to present on the new media environment and alternative news sources at the major 'Religion in the News' conference at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor, 11-13 October. Other speakers include Lord Harries of Pentregarth, leading religion correspondents, and people involved in media issues from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and other faith and non-faith backgrounds.
See: http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/10364
 
Meanwhile, PR Week a UK magazine aimed at public relations specialists, highlighted Ekklesia's coverage of the recent Christian Aid 'virtual blockade' of parliament as part of its climate change protest - pointing out both the importance f the event, and the fact that its was "largely ignored by the mainstream media. 

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Event: How does the Gospel question our policies? 
 
As part of Sarum College's theological studies public lecture series, Simon Barrow will address a critical question for churches and policy makers alike. In the Christendom era, churches have sought to resolve the obvious tension between political practice in a violent, corruptible world and the core Gospel message of peaceable and compassionate persuasion by developing a variety of 'interim ethics'. In this lecture a radically different vision is offered, based on the vocation of the church to witness to a different set of loyalties, practices and aspirations to those that constitute 'the powers that be'.
 
The lecture will take place on Saturday 14 November at 4 pm followed by a 5pm break and a 5.30pm debate. More information and booking here: http://www.sarum.ac.uk/313.htm
Thinking in Action
Making the 'disappeared' visible 
 
A considerable amount of research has been done by human rights organisations into the plight of 'disappeared' persons in the Philippines and elsewhere. But in order to effect change, this information has to be translated into practical pressure. As part of a European tour to highlight these issues, Dr Edita Burgos, a lay Carmelite nun whose own son is still missing after his abduction, is visiting Britain next week at the invitation of the Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines, Amnesty International UK and the trade union UNISON.
 
More information here: http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/10361   
Reading Allowed
Defenseless Christianity: Anabaptism for a Nonviolent Church by Gerald J Mast and J Denny Weaver   
 
Entering a field of ongoing controversy, this book dares to offer a new model or vision - defenseless Christianity - for understanding the witness and presence of the church in the world today.
 
Anabaptism today should be seen as a non-violent movement with a world-reconciling theology. In answer to recent challenges, the authors contend that Anabaptism as it developed and survived is properly understood as a non-violent movement. Since a prime characteristic of Anabaptism is the call to shape Christian practices within the story and life of Jesus Christ, the authors describe the movement in a broad way, whether or not readers belong to one of the historic peace churches. They argue that the defenseless Christianity of historic Anabaptism has much to offer current debates about religion and society as well as challenges facing the churches in a troubled world.
 
ISBN: 9781931038638 (Cascadia, 2009), 136pp, �12.25
 
For more information and to purchase this book through Ekklesia, click here
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