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Scrap Trident

Trident is the UK's nuclear weapons system. Currently we have 200 warheads - each of which has eight times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It cost £12 and a half BILLION to procure and costs about a billion a year to maintain. The government is currently considering whether to replace Trident and it looks set to decide to do so - at a cost of possibly as much as £25 billion.

Much to the frustration of my beloved Dad (hi Dad!), I believe in unilateral nuclear disarmament. This is for two simple reasons, given here in extremely brief form.

1. The use of nuclear weapons is intrinsically evil. Using a nuclear weapon would be wrong, because it could never be used in a way which was both proportional to the desired ends and discriminating in its consequences. The use of nuclear weapons tends not towards the legitimate ends of conventional warfare (the conquest of the enemy in the name of justice) but towards the enemy's sheer destruction. The end does not justify the means.
2. Deterrance is a myth. Many grant that using nukes would be wrong, but argue that they are necessary as a deterrent against other nations a) attacking us and b) developing their own nukes. Whether this argument is pragmatically true (i.e. whether it really deters other countries) is hotly debated. But even if correct factually, it is incorrect morally. In order to be a genuine deterrent, one must ultimately be genuinely prepared to use the weapon - which would clearly fall afoul of objection #1. If one will not use the weapon, then there is no deterrent.

I am not a pacifist. I believe that sometimes it is right for a government to go to war in order to secure justice. There is a case for maintaining reasonable conventional military capability (although even then there is a case to be made that standing armies make war more likely). But nuclear weaponry is not that.

The best exposition I have come across of this moral conundrum and the myth of deterrence can be found in Yes Prime Minister, series One episode One! (Summary here.) It shows hilariously how you could never possibly use Trident - in which case, its use as a deterrent is totally non-existent.

Sir Humphrey: "With Trident we could obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe."
Jim Hacker: "I don't want to obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe."
Sir Humphrey: "It's a deterrent."
Jim Hacker: "It's a bluff. I probably wouldn't use it."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes, but they don't know that you probably wouldn't."
Jim Hacker: "They probably do."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes, they probably know that you probably wouldn't. But they can't certainly know."
Jim Hacker: "They probably certainly know that I probably wouldn't."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes, but even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that, although you probably wouldn't, there is no probability that you certainly would."

If you probably certainly agree and would like to take action or you would like to find out more, please do take a look here (CND site). There is also a great deal of useful information and discussion here (PDF download).

Against indifference

Around Wycliffe when we are discussing various issues such as abortion, the morning-after pill, divorce, IVF and so on, I have heard people say a number of things along the following lines:

It's not up to clergy to tell people what to do in their private lives. We can pray for them and offer them emotional support, even provide them with information, but may not tell them what to do.

These issues are not black and white. They are very complicated and we should therefore be wary of giving black and white answers to people who are in a very vulnerable position.

We do not live in an ideal world. In a fallen world, we must often choose between the lesser of two evils.

I am always a little suspicious of these kinds of expressions because I think that the church should be a little bit more than the local branch of Samaritans - much as I esteem the Samaritans.

We might divide the comments I hear into two main categories: comments about the role of the clergy, and comments about the complexity of the cases.

First let's think about the role of the clergy. At Wycliffe we debate all kinds of extraordinarily complex things. Last week we had a lecture covering some very obscure linguistic and epistemological philosophy in an attempt to discover how to read a book which we had all managed to read already. The lecture came to no clear conclusions and we left with no new practical insights as to how precisely we should read the Bible any differently to the way we were already reading it. We might read all kinds of books about the metaphysics of Trinitarian perichoresis and their implications for the Oxford one-way system. We consider the historicity of the book of Genesis based on the number of humps the camels had in those days and we ponder the mysteries of Octo-Isaiah and how amazing it is that so many people called Isaiah were all able to get together and write one book. We engage in theological reflection about the movie Shrek and we are discuss whether we are hoovering up Jesus when we use a vacuum cleaner after communion. In other words we think about a lot of very complicated things which are extremely unimportant. It seems that it is perfectly ok to expend an enormous amount of energy discussing things which in the long run don't matter a tiny bit but when we get too close to the bone and talk about real-life stuff, we must suddenly back off for fear of telling people what to do with their 'private' lives.

Actually this notion of a private life which is somehow cut off from Christianity is a rather odd one when you think about it. If I understand Jesus correctly, the whole of life matters to God and not just the religious bits. There is no private sphere of life where God takes a back seat and lets you do what you want.

The role of the minister is to proclaim the good news of this very same Jesus Christ: God is interested in your life. And this good news will have certain things to say about 'private' morality. It might tell you not to get remarried. It might tell you that having children is not a right and that certain ways of 'producing' children go outside the way that God has given. It might tell men and women that if you chose to have sex, you also chose to have a baby. And as clergy it will sometimes - perhaps often - be our role to explain this to people. Certainly this does not mean forcing our opinions on people. We have no coercive power to enforce the demands of the gospel. Ours is the authority of the Word, not the Sword. But the authority of the Word might mean reminding them of the costly sacrifice demanded by the gospel. No-one ever said that laying down your entire life in order to follow Jesus would be simple or easy. It means you can't always have what you want.

The second difficulty I mentioned is the complexity of the situations faced. This worries me even more because I detect behind it a pietist refusal to engage in the hard work of actually thinking about stuff. It throws up its hands in horror at how complicated real life is and therefore backs away from the concrete and the real. This is about as obscurantist as young-earth creationism.

I referred above to the extremely complex but essentially unimportant things with which it is socially acceptable to occupy our time at theological college. The complexity of the subject matter does not stop us from reaching certain conclusions about it. I wonder if it might be good to study equally complex but actually important things and coming to conclusions about them too.

However, the idea that they are "very important" is itself up for grabs. I wonder if I detect behind some of these comments the idea that, somehow, it doesn't really matter. In which case, they are actually trying to smuggle in a conclusion about the subject matter without actually engaging in a proper discussion of it.

Take the example of IVF. If a certain view about the status of the embryo is correct, then IVF is quite literally a life and death matter. Innocent human lives will be destroyed in the process of conventional IVF treatment. So to say at the outset that the matter is too complex is not good enough. It suggests either that one must have already reached a conclusion (namely that embryos are not alive and therefore it doesn't matter if they are destroyed) or that one is too unspeakably lazy to bother thinking about whether innocent human life is being destroyed or not.

It is true that sometimes matters will be too complicated to decide. But the only way one can say with integrity that the matter is too complicated is by thinking about it first, rather than deciding it is too complicated in advance and short-circuiting the discussion.

So maybe when we are talking about ethics, it's ok, in the words of Mrs Merton, to "have a heated debate."

Stay up to date with the Beefing

Thank you Michael for putting me onto this.

Primates Subgroup does have teeth

Amidst the hullabaloo about the supposed inadequacy of the subgroup report on the US Episcopal Church (TEC)'s response to the Windsor Report, it should be noted that the report has got far sharper teeth than many have assumed. In fact, in its discussion of blessings for same sex partnerships it takes very real cognisance of the failure of TEC to respond in this area at least and to the very real possibility of intransigent bishops not being a full part of the Anglican Communion:

It is therefore not at all clear whether, in fact, the Episcopal Church is living with the recommendations of the Windsor Report on this matter. ... We do not see how bishops who continue to act in a way which diverges from the common life of the Communion can be fully incorporated into its ongoing life.  This is therefore a question which needs to be addressed urgently by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.

Further, the discussion of the "expression of regret" is hardly a ringing endorsement of TEC:

The group was unsure how these words should be understood.  On the one hand, there does not seem to be any admission of the fact that the action of consenting to the particular election at the centre of this dispute was in itself blameworthy. ... The Group feels that the reality of the change of direction that some see in the resolutions of the General Convention can only be tested however by the way in which the Episcopal Church lives out these resolutions.

In other words, "Don't try and pull a fast one: we are watching you."

Is the report adequate, fully accurate and encouraging? Overall - NO. But neither is it as unilateral as many comments have suggested.

Film and ethics nerdiness

Because of my double nerdiness of ethics and my enjoyment of movies I really liked this site.

There is a more professional and less fun-looking one here.

More Wimber

Posting the previous relating to John Wimber reminded me of my favourite Wimber story:

Shortly after John Wimber became a Christian, he became a voracious Bible reader. The Scriptures excited him. Finally, after weeks of reading about life-transforming miracles in the Bible and attending boring church services, John asked one of the lay leaders, "When do we get to do the stuff?"

"What stuff?" asked the leader.

"You know, the stuff here in the Bible," said John. "You know, like the stuff Jesus did—raising people from the dead, healing the blind and the paralyzed. You know, that stuff."

"Well, we don’t do that anymore," the man said.

"You don’t?"

"No."

"Well what do you do?" asked John.

"What we did this morning."

In frustration, John responded: "For that I gave up drugs?"

(From here.)

Reach out!

Custard asks:

I get the laying hands on people when praying for them. But what's with the vague stretching out of hands towards them? Are you expecting to be able to throw lightning bolts, as with the Emperor in Star Wars? Or is it a telekinesis thing? Or a telepneumatological thing? In which case why does it need the hand?

I am happy to provide the answer! It is actually rather funny.

Hand-extension, believe it or not, developed in the charismatic movement quite randomly (or, through the mysterious workings of God the Holy Spirit if you prefer). John Wimber recounts with some amusement the following in his autobiography. The original Vineyard church used to meet in a school hall in California. They would pray for the sick every Sunday at the end of their services, with the laying on of hands. And it was HOT. The person being prayed for would often become uncomfortable if several people laid their hands on them because it would make them feel hotter. So the practice gradually developed that people would stretch out their hands towards the person being prayed for, with perhaps just one person laying their hands on them. Then what happened was, John Wimber started travelling the world training other churches to pray for the sick, and taking teams with him from the Vineyard. They carried on praying for people in the way they were accustomed - that is, stretching out their hands towards them. In the event of someone falling over it also avoided the charge of them being pushed! And the people being trained, quite naturally, simply copied what they saw the Californians doing!!

Having explained that, it is worth pointing out that extending hands is nevertheless a perfectly useful thing to do in prayer since it helps one focus one's mind and heart in a particular way. One might say it is irrational if by irrational one means that it accomplishes nothing in the purely material realm i.e. it doesn't help one's prayers reach the intended recipient (!) any more than putting one's hands in the air in worship gets one nearer to God (although hand-raising is of course explicitly commanded in Scripture!). But it's not irrational in the sense that there is nothing irrational about one's posture assisting one's mind/heart/spirit/soul/insert appropriate anthropological component here. One might as well say that kneeling to pray was irrational. It's true but not informative. Yes it is a symbol - but symbols are important and helpful.

By contrast, the Bible is shockingly clear that the laying on of hands is not a symbol. It does not merely symbolise the impartation of the Holy Spirit - it actually confers the Spirit! (2 Timothy 1:6 and Acts 8:18). Scripture often challenges our ideas of what is rational and sensible!