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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
A dose of religious reality on climate change by Mark Beach
Peace, war, Nobel prizes and justice by Gene Stoltzfus
Still a chance for voting reform from Brown? by Simon Barrow
Quota: Eugenia Price and Zulfikar Ghose
Research Focus: UK research on religious decline
Media and web debate
Event: Evicting the bishops?
Thinking in Action: Ecumenical Accompaniers on the West Bank and the Church investing in climate change
Reading allowed: Church After Christendom
 
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Issue: # 63 18 December 2009

Ekklesia is not just about ideas, news briefings and reports, even more it is about people and participation. So as the year draws to an end, if your haven't already done so we warmly invite you to join others from around the world and become an Ekklesia partner. Ekklesia partners are people who share the vision and values of Ekklesia, and who want to play a part in, and help sustain, its ongoing work and development as a hands-on think-tank.

 

This involves a financial element that we will not be coy about. Unlike most think-tanks, Ekklesia receives no corporate funding and subsists on a shoestring. Our staff - who work on very low remunerations already - will be taking less in the New Year to help keep the work going, because our income from fairtrade goods, the money we raise for the developing world and book sales is significantly down. The recession is hitting everybody. Your contribution makes a huge difference, therefore.

 

But becoming a regular Ekklesia partner is not primarily about funding, it is about working together. Find out more here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/about/join

 

Meanwhile, in this edition of the weekly bulletin - which will be the last of 2009 - we focus on five issues: climate change (of course), the future of Christianity in Britain as new research indicates a continued trend of institutional religious decline, peace and war in the light of President Obama's Nobel speech, practical accompaniment in Israel-Palestine, and political change around parliament - and the issues this raises for faith in the public sphere.

 

Finally, we wish you and those you love a peaceful, fruitful and, well, sweet (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10879) Christmas.



Ekklesia works on a not-for-profit basis, and deliberately maintains its independence from large institutions and their funding.  If you value this bulletin please consider making a donation to keep it going and support Ekklesia's work. You can do it through PayPal here
A dose of religious reality on climate change
By Mark Beach
 
Why should people of faith be involved in the climate change debate? The issue was tackled head-on at a side-meeting in Copenhagen, coinciding with the vital international talks on action to combat global warming. The director of communications at the World Council of Churches gives an overview of the arguments and the event. Contributors included Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. 
 
Read the full article here 
Peace, war, Nobel prizes and justice
By Gene Stoltzfus

In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, President Obama deftly distanced himself and his office from pacifist traditions as a President with responsibilities consistent with empire must do, says the founder of Christian Peacemaker Teams. But the challenge of peacemaking goes deeper than political machinations and 'just war' is not enough.
 
Read the full article here
 
 
Also very worth reading is the response to Obama by Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University, USA: http://hopeofalltheworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-do-you-know-war-is-war.html
 
(The Ekklesia Project in the USA is not linked to us, but we do share a range of values with them.)

Still a chance for voting reform from Brown?
By Simon Barrow
 
Will the government introduce a piece of legislation within the life of this parliament that requires a public referendum on the introduction of an Alternative Vote electoral system for Westminster after the next election? Ekklesia's co-director explores the current political terrain.
 
Read the full article here 
Quota
Sayings from the week and wisdom from the tradition
  
"God does not wait for us to become perfect and in possession of only high, pure thoughts and unmixed motives before [moving] through us. God waits only for the sign of faith."
- Eugenia Price, American novelist and community activist (1916-1996)
 
"When the jet rose six miles high, it was clear that the earth was round and that it had more sea than land. But it was difficult to understand that the [people] on the earth found causes to hate each other, to build walls across cities and to kill. From that height, it was not clear why."
- Zulfikar Ghose, from his poem 'Geography Lesson'. Thanks to Sojourners (www.sojo.net) 
Research Focus
UK research on religious decline
 
Just over half the population of Britain now consider themselves Christian after a "sharp decline" in religious belief over the past quarter of a century, concludes a new academic study from the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).
 
The full results will be made available in January 2010, but preliminary analysis of the data has been made available by Professor David Voas. It illustrates what Ekklesia has been saying for some time - namely that the old Christendom order is on the way out. But the 'mixed belief' society we have become does not mean the end of Christianity, but an opportunity to re-engage it in a fresh way.
 
Read a summary of the findings and comment on them here
Media and web debate
Ekklesia in the news this week  
 
Ekklesia associate director Symon Hill was on BBC television's 'Politics Show' on Sunday, discussing the issue of Mayor Boris Johnson's official visit to a church which tries to 'exorcise' gay people with Conservative MP Brian Coleman. Columnist Dave Hill covered the event in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog/2009/dec/13/boris-johnson-politics-show-jesus-church-homophobia
 
Jonathan Bartley was on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show discussing the ethics of climate change finance. http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10863 

Meanwhile, we have had a run of breaking stories on the Ekklesia web site in the last couple of weeks. But it's the story, not the scoop, that counts.  (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10869).
 
All of these are directly Christmas related. There's the Christmas card from the UK Border Agency (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10808) which has become a bit of a Twitterverse phenomenon (from friends working with migrants and asylum seekers), together with a creative response (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10868).
 
Then there was story of a detention centre refusing Christmas gifts from St Nicholas for imprisoned children (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10752), which the Observer did a splash on a week later ((http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/1082) and which became a YouTube hit.
 
Last but not least, there was the Christmas billboard (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10835) featuring Mary and Joseph from our friend Glynn Cardy in New Zealand which we ran on Tuesday, and has since gone global in no uncertain terms. Everyone from ABC in Australia to the Telegraph here has featured it, and the sad denouement (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10873). 


Keep up-to-date with Ekklesia's Comments on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/ekklesiaComment

 
Ekklesia works on a not-for-profit basis. Please support Ekklesia's work with the press and other media by donating through PayPal here
Event: Evicting the bishops?
 
Britain is the only recognised democracy in the world which has unelected male clerics from one religious denomination in part of its legislature. How should faith be present and 'represented' in the public square? 
 
Ekklesia's co-director Jonathan Bartley takes part in a parliamentary debate on the issue of bishops in the House of Lords at 7:30pm on Wednesday 27 January 2010. Other speakers will be Polly Toynbee (Guardian columnist, president of the British Humanist Association), the Rt Revd Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester and Convenor of the Lords Spiritual and Rt Hon Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. In the chair will be journalist and commentator David Aaronovitch. Organised by Republic. Further details here: http://evict-the-bishops.eventbrite.com
Thinking in Action
Ecumenical Accompaniers on the West Bank  
 
The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) is supported by the Christian churches globally, and by churches in Britain through a programme administered by the Quakers. Here Patrick Franks and Miranda Rosoux describe the traumas of those living in the village of Umm Al Kher, and how the long term future of Bedouin communities hangs in the balance.  EAPPI workers go to try to make a positive difference to those on the receiving end of violence and injustice.
 
See: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10793 and
 
http://www.quaker.org.uk/eappi
 
 
Church Investments and Climate Change

In this article, Jonathan Bartley argues that the churches need to need to end their dualism over mission and recognise that where their treasure is, there their hearts will be also. Speaking out for action on global warming is fine. But what about church investments in oil, mining and other companies that are driving climate change through their corporate activities?
 
Reading Allowed
Church After Christendom by Stuart Murray 
 
How will the western church negotiate the demise of Christendom? Can it rediscover its primary calling, recover its authentic ethos and regain its nerve?
 
If churches are to thrive - or even survive - disturbing questions need to be confronted and answered. In conversation with Christians who have left the church and with those who are experimenting with fresh expressions of doing church, Stuart Murray explores both the emerging and inherited church scenes and makes proposals for the development of an ecclesiology suitable for a post-denominational, post-commitment and post-Christendom era. With chapters on mission, community and worship, this comprehensive and accessible book offers a vision of a way of being church that is healthy, sustainable, liberating, peaceful and missional.
 
(ISBN 9781842272923, 248 pages, Paternoster Press 2005).  �8.98 - reduced from �9.99.
 
For more details and to buy through Ekklesia, click here: http://shop.ekklesia.co.uk/christian-bookshop/church_after_christendom_96604.html
 
 
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