Theological ethics – Page 3 – All Things Considered

16 Oct

Freedom is dangerous, so let’s ban it

As a non-smoker who can’t stand the stink of cigarettes, I yet think the proposal to ban smoking in our parks is ridiculous. Just about the only place people are now permitted to smoke is within the confines of their own homes – which causes infinitely more pollution than lighting up on Hampstead Heath where a small amount of smoke won’t hurt anyone in all that fresh air. But it’s worse than ridiculous: it’s a shocking deprivation of individual freedom. Of course, individual liberty does not mean freedom to do just anything. For example, you shouldn’t be allowed to set off fireworks in the cinema or play guitars in church, but there must be a good dollop of live and let live.

The wholesale banning of stuff and actions is sinister and reflects a creeping totalitarianism. For the fact is that we are governed – policed is a better word for it – by a metro-political, politically-correct elite who are so self-righteously up themselves that their first response to anything they don’t approve of is to slap a prohibition order on it. This elite is noticeably selective in the stuff it seeks to disallow.A man may forsake the natural use of a woman and marry another bloke. A man may change his sex – so long as he remembers to refer to what God has made him by the absurd PC word “gender,” as if we were all proper (or improper) nouns. Radio and TV stations galore can fill the air waves with the pollution of mindless pop music. You can shop on the Sabbath 24/7. But if you take your child out of the lousy state school system for a couple of weeks – perhaps to show her the ruins of Carthage – you will be fined. And so on.

We have forgotten what traditional social ethics is all about. It always used to be based on the idea of the dignity of the individual and his right to do as he likes within reason. And the working out of social morality involves the discussion about what constitutes rational behaviour. Moreover, we should be permitted to do things that are bad for us – such as watching Strictly Come Dancing and Downton Abbey, reading Hilary Mantel, listening to the music of Philip Glass*** and even attending to party political broadcasts; and things that are dangerous – such as rock-climbing, driving our cars along country roads at night and voting for Ed Miliband.

The basis of social morality should not be what is approved by a politically-correct commissariat, directed by clones of Harriet Harman, Polly Toynbee, Diane Abbott, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Dame Jenni Murray but by the rational operation of free choice.

Instead, our society is a sort of totalitarianism-lite. And unfortunately totalitarianism-lite all too easily turns into totalitarianism-heavy.

PS *** Knock knock – who’s there? – Philip Glass- Knock knock – who’s there? – Philip Glass – Knock knock – who’s there? – Philip Glass- Knock knock – who’s there? – Philip Glass….

09 Oct

Without whom NOTHING is strong

People look around at the political scene – the state we’re in – and ask what can be done.

There is an order of things: politics – what Sisson called “a decent set of political liberties” – depends on good law but also on institutions which are themselves allowed to flourish freely. And there must be some ethical code which is the basis of the res publica. This in turn depends on a sound theological understanding of the origin and source of all goodness. And that source is God.

People imagine that we can give up on God but all the benign infrastructure which derives ultimately from God will stay in place. It won’t – as we are seeing for ourselves. Eliot put it well in 1934:

“…such modest attainments as you can boast in the way of polite society will hardly survive the faith to which they owe their significance”

In short, Judeo-Christianity is not an optional add on but the origin and also the engine of our civilization. Ethics and politics have to be derived from dogma. And dogma has to be held in faith. As Collingwood put it, we require fundamentally “absolute presuppositions.” These absolute presuppositions are the doctrines of the Creed

Well, we have given up on the Creed and turned to strange gods.

The most shocking aspect of our defection is the church’s Laodicean temperament wherein “…the best lack all conviction etc” In such a condition it is obvious that “The centre cannot hold.”

A wonderful example of the wrongheadedness which prevails was given to us by Rowan Williams in his final address before he retired: “The church has a lot of catching up to do with secular mores.” Wrong from the start. What he ought to have said is, “Be ye not conformed to this world.”

So what to do? I can only quote Eliot again, from The Waste Land. “What shall we do tonight? What shall we ever do?”

Prophesy against the forces of chaos and the dark, outside and within. This means criticism, which, as we know, is the word for judgement. Criticism of the sort practised by such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, John Baptist AND Coleridge, Eliot and Collingwood. And this criticism – which itself must be derived from our theological understanding – must not amount to mere sniping, as it were sporadically. Our prophesying and our criticism must be a constant struggle to maintain a proper judgement and to express this judgement in English: the language that is at one with our soil

And say our prayers and receive the Sacrament. As Sisson said, “Without the Sacraments, there would be nothing.”

06 Oct

A tricky one for Welby

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, (aka Willie Wonga of the Payday Loans Factory) has cancelled or postponed the 2018 Lambeth Conference. This is no small beer. It’s as if the prime minister should cancel budget day.

First held in 1867 at Lambeth Palace, the Conferences have gathered the bishops of the Anglican Communion every ten years to discuss the common issues facing the whole church. The conferences were postponed only twice. The 1918 gathering was postponed until 1920 owing to the First World War, and that of 1940 was postponed until 1948 because of WW II.

News of the cancellation was made public by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA, the terrifically radical, talkative and bossy feminist, the Most Rev. Katharine Schori. She informed a meeting of the House of Bishops gathered in Taipei, Taiwan, that she had been told by Archbishop Welby that Lambeth 2018 had been cancelled.

According to a report of the exchange printed by the Episcopal News Service, the Presiding Bishop said Archbishop Welby “…had been very clear that he is not going to call a Lambeth until he is reasonably certain that the vast majority of bishops would attend. It needs to be preceded by a primates meeting at which a vast majority of primates are present.”

She further stated that “as he continues his visits around the communion to those primates it’s unlikely that he will call such a meeting at all until at least a year from now or probably 18 months from now. Therefore I think we are looking at 2019, more likely 2020, before a Lambeth Conference.”

The decision to postpone Lambeth because of internal dissention is unprecedented. Highly controversial doctrinal issues – about the nature of Holy Orders and the authority of Scripture – have been a prominent part of earlier agendas.

So why cancel this time? It’s sex again – specifically the long argument about homosexuality. in 1998 the Conference restated the church’s formal view that homosexual activity is immoral and this occasioned the largest boycott in the conference’s history. At the centre of the debacle was the then Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to invite the American, Canadian and Central American bishops who consecrated the Bishop of New Hampshire, the openly “Gay” Gene Robinson to Lambeth. This was the reason given by 214 traditionalist bishops for absenting themselves from the Conference of 2008.

It’s understandable that Welby wants to avoid a repetition of such an embarrassing shambles. But it goes further than that. What if this time the traditionalist bishops decide to turn up and tell the Arch of Cant and the rest of the “liberal” episcopal elite who run the church that they are being unfaithful to biblical teaching on sexual morality? It is well known that since 2008 pressure from this radical elite in favour of the acceptance of homosexual behaviour as normal has intensified. In his last sermon before he retired, the former Archbishop Rowan Williams declared, “The church has a lot of catching up to do with secular mores.”

To which the traditionalists – that is the Christians who uphold the teaching of the Bible and the church universal over 2000 years – would reply, “Whatever happened to the New Testament’s commandment ‘Be ye not conformed to this world’?”

Since the formation of the great missionary societies in the 18th and 19th centuries, the usual way of things has been that European Christians would go out into Africa, Asia, South America and the whole world and make of all men Christ’s disciples. But now the disciples are promising to return and chastise the faithless heirs and successors of those who first preached to their ancestors.

And the faithless heirs and successors don’t like it one bit.

04 Oct

Feeding the 5000 in Dumbo-speak

And the BOSS was, like, “Like, where shall we buy bread to feed this lot then?” And Phil was like, “There’s a guy here with five chocolate croissants and two sludge trays of sushi, but that’s norra lorra nosh, like.”

“So like the BOSS was like, ‘Get them to park their arses. know what I mean?’”

Now there was a lot of grass out there – and some of the guys were smoking it. And the BOSS sort of like passed round the choccie croissants and the disgusting sushi. Honest, he did. So everybody was so like ‘Yuk!’ and they weren’t having any, know what I mean?

So the BOSS said like we should think about the environment and not, like, leave all that yukky stuff lying around, right? And Andy was like, ‘Take a butchers at these twelve supermarket trolleys and, like fill ‘em up with the yuk.’

And we were all like ‘‘OMG!’’

07 Sep

Just war Justin?

On an aeroplane returning from Korea, the Pope was asked if he thought it right for the western allies to bomb Islamic State in Iraq. “Yes,” he said. The Archbishop of Canterbury was today asked the same question by Edward Stourton on The Sunday Programme. He answered in the usual Lambeth style: tread water and waffle. To begin with, he declared that the situation is very complex…”…military issues…socio-political issues..” and so on. Then he said something truly odd: “We don’t want to empty the Middle East of Christians.” You don’t have to, Justin. Islamic State are doing this already. Stourton pressed him but he still wouldn’t give a straight answer and excused himself with the cop out, “I’m not qualified…”

No, and you’re not qualified in economics either Archbishop – but that doesn’t stop you spouting endless advice to the government, to the nasty bankers, to the loan sharks. Not qualified? Funny things qualifications. Now I’ve never heard the Archbishop say anything substantial about theology. Is this because he lacks qualifications there too?

28 Jun

Talk and double-talk

The Church of England has this week published a discussion paper to be used as part of its fresh “conversations on sexuality.” I am left wondering what more there is to be discussed. Also this week, the Roman Catholic Church has expressed its disquiet about the fact that so many of its adherents dislike the church’s traditional teaching on sexuality.

So what’s new? Sinners don’t like to be reminded of the fact that they are sinners. I will rephrase that: we sinners don’t like to be reminded of the fact that we are sinners.

What the bishops and the enlightened synodical bureaucrats are trying to do of course is, if you will pardon the expression, to find some wriggle-room: to discover a form of words which will say that the unanimous scriptural and traditional teaching of the church over 2000 years is really no longer appropriate for emancipated modern types, persuaded as they are of the higher authority of “diversity.” And naturally, it’s the economy, stupid! The secularised, atheistic church throughout Europe, Catholic and Protestant, can’t afford to alienate all those thrusting, prosperous permissive types and the well-off homosexual metro-political fashionistas.

There is no such form of words which amounts to anything other than a repudiation of the teaching of Christ. The teaching of Christ is definite and compassionate. It sets out the rules and then extends the most profound forgiveness to those who break the rules – as we all do. It proclaims, Go And Sin No More. What it does not do is to say that sin is not sin. But this is the foul, duplicitous, mealy-mouthed, bureaucratic fudge that the church is looking for. under the euphemism of “conversations.” Let me provide the ultimate conversation stopper:

“Matrimony was ordained as a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication, that those who have not the gift of continency might marry and so keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s Body.”

24 Jun

Do the arithmetic, Your Grace

1 + 1 = 2; 2 + 1 = 3; 2 + 2 = 4…….

The Archbishop of York is outraged by the fact that there are so many of what he describes as “working poor.” He is talking about low pay. He says men should not live by the minimum wage alone but should instead receive 20% more than that basic stipend in the form of “a living wage.”

“Should” is an interesting word, necessarily implying a moral judgement. But morality, if it is to mean anything, must be located in the world of facts and practical results. Moreover, every “should” also implies a responsibi9ity: who should? In this case the responsibility is clearly with the employers, those who pay the wages. I am sure the employers are grateful for the gift of the Archbishop’s superior moral insights and to be elevated, if only temporarily, on to his higher ethical plane. But let us come down to earth just for a moment and consider likely consequences. These are far removed from what obtains on the Church of England’s socialist fantasy island.

The employer needs to balance his books and to make a profit in order to sustain his business. Thus he calculates costs – including the amount he can reckon economically to pay in wages. If, in accordance with Dr Sentamu’s blue sky utopianism and infinite kindness, he is suddenly required to pay 20% over the odds, then (I suggest) in the real world one of two sets of consequences will follow: either he will employ fewer workers or his business will become unprofitable owing to the additional costs and it will fail. Then all will be out of work

Does the Archbishop intend either of these outcomes? Is it not better that more are employed even on low wages than that some are sacked to increase the wages of some others? Is it not preferable, on the whole, that companies stay in business?

But I am talking about the real world and not the C. of E’s. economic neverland

23 Jun

Prophets & Visionaries, a new book by Peter Mullen

Prophets & Visionaries: Writers of Judgement by Peter Mullen (Published by RoperPenberthy £9.99)

Prophets & Visionaries consists of eight extended critical essays on eight acknowledged thinkers and masters of English prose: Samuel Johnson; S.T Coleridge; John Henry Newman; G.K. Chesterton; T.E. Hulme; T.S. Eliot; R.G. Collingwood and C.H. Sisson. (2014 is the centenary of Sisson’s birth). Each chapter is an introduction and commentary on its subject’s contribution to English literature, philosophy and theology. But these essays are not merely historical studies detailing things which belong in the past. Rather they bring out the extraordinary relevance of these great writers to contemporary life, thought and politics.

“This is a book written by one who has so mastered the material that he can go to the heart of the matter. In truth, learning worn lightly” – Rev’d Dr Aidan Nichols OP

“In his own perceptive and inimitable way, Peter Mullen has produced a compendium of British thinkers of the first rank. All of these, in one way or another, have upheld the vital importance of the Judaeo-Christian tradition for all that is true and good about these islands and the people who live in them. The distortions of the tradition, over the course of history, and its more recent abandonment, should not blind us to its reality as the ground and informing principle of the State, Law, values and virtues in this nation. Its reaffirmation is undoubtedly needed for the moral and spiritual renewal which is so necessary if we are to resist the dangers with which we are beset” – The Rt Rev’d Dr Michael Nazir-Ali

“The kind of modernity here scrutinised through the eyes of some of its most mordant and insightful critics, from Coleridge to Sisson, claims to be self-consciously reflective, creative and boundary-breaking, whereas it is in practice a new Establishment peddling its own taken for granted assumptions by rote and setting limits on the things one is allowed to think and say. The word for this is hegemony and Peter Mullen’s lively and engaging study, by judicious selection and wide-ranging quotation, provides a thematic index or aide-memoire on how to puncture its pretensions” – Professor Rev’d David Martin

Rev’d Dr Peter Mullen in a Church of England priest with experience in town, country, schools and university, most recently as Rector of St Michael’s Cornhill in the City of London. He is Chaplain to several City livery companies. The author of more than forty books, including poems, novels and short stories as well as theology, philosophy and music criticism, Peter Mullen is available for interviews and may be contacted through his publisher or directly at: 3 Naomi Close Eastbourne BN20 7UU

Phone: 01323-655832 peter77mullen@gmail.com

22 Jun

Allah, the poor moderate Muslim house-slaves

What an affecting scene! The British Muslim woman on TV weeping over her psychopathic son who has gone to Iraq to kill reasonable people. She begged this “highly intelligent” son of hers who had aspirations, we hear, to be our first Muslim prime minister to come back to Britain. As for his becoming the first Muslim prime minister – well he could easily be an improvement on Cameron. But frankly. mother-under-the Halloween-costume, we don’t want your beloved son to come back and kill English children. We Christians – in the interests of interfaith dialogue – would much rather he stayed out there in Iraq and slaughtered as many other of his co-religionists as possible.

Is there any difference in meaning between the normal (I should say abnormal) word “Islamic” and the BBC hybrid term “Islamist” ? I mean, and I am only a philosopher, are there any Islamists who are not Islamic?

The civilised world is facing the biggest threat to its survival since the dark ages when this ministration of death conquering by the sword swept across Europe. This barbarism was put down then by Christian knights, by Charles Martel, by the papal states, by the heroes of Lepanto and Malta. This diseased affliction was three centuries ago at the gates of Vienna. It is inside these gates now, with the welcome of the EU nomenklatura and the bien pensant, wishful thinkers who are the real enemies of our civilisation. As T.E. Hulme said, “A civilisation is not defeated until it has taken into itself the beliefs of it enemies.”

Well said, Tom

We are all going to die from pre-emptive self-abasement and political correctness. Why are we so unconfident in our civilisation? Such moral and physical cowards?

Fire needs to be fought with fire. We are fighting fire by appeasement, that is by pouring oil on the flames

04 Jun

Four legs good, two legs bad

In a wonderful act of selective self-censorship, the Church of England has banned the clergy from joining the British National Party and the National Front on the grounds that these parties are guilty of “the sin of racism.”

They really mean it!

Racism is one of the modern seven deadly sins along with sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, elitism, social-exclusion, global-warming denial and belonging to the Nasty Party. It’s reassuring to know that the bishops will not unfrock me if I join the Communist party, despite that party’s historic contributions to general impoverishment and genocides. Indeed, some Anglican clergymen of very high rank have been members of the Communist Party.

There was Hewlett Johnson (1874-1966) who was elevated to become Dean of Canterbury. He ought to have been shot as a traitor for his continued support for the USSR even after the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact had allied Russia with the Germans with whom we were at war. The Soviets regarded him as principal among the “useful idiots” along with G.B. Shaw, H.G. Wells and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. They awarded him the oxymoronically-named International Stalin Peace Prize in 1951.

It occurs to me that there are more pertinent allegiances which ought to earn the penalty of unfrocking: not believing the fundamental doctrines of the Church, for instance. Though I guess the bishops conjectured that this would reduce the number of the clergy by quite a lot – not excluding some of the present episcopate.

This latest act of ecclesiastical puerility and political-correctness only serves to make the Church look ridiculous and to show it up once again in its true colours. Actually, the Church of England has only one colour these days: red.

All Things Considered

Rev Dr Peter Mullen

Category Archives: Theological ethics