Tea Flasks and Fascists

My beloved city of York recently made a name for itself as the place that offered the Fascists tea and biscuits in the face of a proposed protest at a local mosque. It was a brilliant afternoon, but looking around at all the media coverage, one senses that the story has been warped to back intolerance to alternative tactics in tackling fascism on our streets and in our communities.

Eric Pickles and Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law

You’re hopefully aware by now that the government is slashing back the money provided to local councils to cover council tax benefit., The Tories are returning to the familiar ground of forcing everyone to pay regardless of ability as a way to drive up the fear of poverty. But for councils, this could be a massive problem: if everyone must pay something, what happens when many genuinely can’t?

Sermon: Jesus in the Temple

After a few requests, the sermon I preached at St Lawrence’s two morning services on Sunday is now here for you to enjoy. Its about 50% longer than a regular blog post, but I don’t really want to start hacking great pieces out of it. Also, sorry for the second paragraph joke. I realise putting that on the web, where it can be read by people who aren’t actually in Yorkshire may cause issues.  It was a joke. Enjoy!

Parenthood in a time of scarcity

Being in my mid-twenties, its unsurprising that some of my peers are having kids. But quite a large number aren’t, and a sizeable chunk of my female friends are very fervently “not having kids”. Its a huge change in one’s life, and so perhaps its not surprising how quickly it becomes a divisive issue.

A Housing Culture Crisis?

Today’s revelations about the state of Britain’s housing make for grim reading, but tucked away behind a lot of the reporting is a fundamentally flawed attitude towards housing ownership as one of life’s ultimate aims. It may not be a stretch of the imagination to name it as a contributing factor to our current crisis.

Big Society: a strategy of distraction?

I’ve been doing plenty of thinking about the Big Society idea lately, and how it uses language of mutual aid to both excuse cuts but also to redirect people’s volunteering efforts. There is plenty being written about the former, but lets think for a minute about the latter.

Class and the Cross

I wrote a post about a more radical perspective on the Good Friday narrative 3 years ago. Today, I want to ask the questions “why did the crowd call for Jesus execution” and “what relevance has this for today”. Perhaps the simplified version from Sunday School is missing some key details for understanding the crowd, its fears and its motivations in the scene where Jesus is condemned to die. It is one that should make many Christians feel uncomfortable whilst being familiar ground for many Activists in the UK.

Stopping the Cuts: Communities, the next frontier?

Right, so we’ve been to London, tried out a few different methods of streets protests, and experienced some fairly linear growth over the last few months. Its truly amazing to see the numbers of people showing up to stuff, but this presents problems on the inclusion front and also on the self-perception front. We’re a big, powerful movement, right?

Big Society: planning your own opposition?

Much is being made of the current crises amongst proponents of the Big Society. The truth that big societies need big pots of cash and/or big government assistance is becoming clear for all to see. But did Cameron’s Big Idea represent more than just a phoney piece of PR to calm the fears of those on the sharp end?

Jesus Baptism: a radical reflection

In the Church we have just looked at Jesus baptism. The story is quite simple, occupying only a handful of verses in each of the gospels where it occurs. It isn’t as world-changing as the birth, death or resurrection stories, and to many it seems quite natural; Jesus undergoes a ritual with which we are very familiar in British society. But it strikes me that something quite radical is going on – something that speaks of a new approach to changing the world.