Current Affairs

On Sunday, I used an illustration from Harry Potter in a sermon. Nobody challenged me over it afterwards. But they could have done because HP arouses strong feelings in some Christians.

The frequently asked question is: How bad is Harry Potter for us?

So thank God that he understands and controls the movement of every molecule of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour.

I love the humility from Darren Bett when he says

I'm sure everyone reading this would want to wish the cast of the Monty Python spin-off musical, Spamalot, all the very best in their world record attempt in Trafalgar Square on Monday. They aim to beat the world record for the largest ever coconut orchestra, by getting the public involved in playing "Always look on the bright side of life". In case you were wondering - the current record is held by them too.

Yes, they have officially registered their attempt with Guinness World Records. Those wanting to know what to expect can find photos of the previous world record, which was established on Broadway last year.

Those who were on Lymington holidays with me in the late 1990s will immediately know which member of the Oak Hill teaching staff really ought to be going along to take part. His part in the "Old Hag" sketch was always done with finesse. (No, I'm not talking about Mike - although I suspect he would rather enjoy being at the world record attempt, if he had the time).

So: All the best to them!

I’ve just read (in the transcript online – I’d got home long before this point) Andrew Brown’s conclusion to the programme:

But what can we change? What should our arrangements be? We can’t disentangle the problems of children from those of adults. The government, too, sends families mixed messages. They are to be, in Gordon Brown’s great phrase, “hard working families”. But do the hardest-working families have the happiest children? The evidence suggests that they don’t and that it’s the family which plays together that stays together. In fact it’s hard to resist a rather heretical conclusion. Most of what we have seen as the peculiar horrors of modern childhood seem to arise from a lack of authority: they can, in shorthand, be blamed on the Sixties. But that was a complicated decade, with good as well as bad; and one of the distinctive attitudes of the Sixties was a distrust of money, and a belief that material success should not be the measure of everything. We’re never going to get away from a society that cares about status. But one in which status is measured only by material success makes us, and our children, needlessly miserable.

I had to laugh out loud in the car on the way home from standing committee last night. I often have Radio 4 on in the car, engine starts up for a ten minute journey, and I catch some snippet of something.

Last night, the programme was Analysis, looking at the UNICEF report that said Britain’s children are amongst the unhappiest in a developed nation. No, the laugh-out-loud (shortened to LOL, by the way) moment wasn’t the continuity reader accidentally calling us an undeveloped nation, although that was funny.

Exodus 23:1-3: You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

I don’t know whether this week’s Church Times’ reporting of the Exeter CU (sic) debate is accurate or not. But:

The ECU had hoped to have a ruling overturned that had forced it to add the word ‘Evangelical’ to its title. Instead, it had its Student Union bank account frozen, and was banned from free use of Student Guild premises, or advertising events within the Guild.

The new equal-opportunities policy was introduced this term by the Students’ Guild. The Guild told the ECU that it failed to meet the criteria because of a doctrinal statement that all speakers and committee members have to sign.

The Guild asked that other people who did not abide by the statement should be on the ECU committee.

All the usual questions come into our heads - are they real Christians etc?

But, notwithstanding those questions, we often complain that the media reports the persecution of every religious group except followers of Christ. How refreshing to read this article in the Guardian.

Refreshing to see this kind of story getting coverage;

disappointing to discover there is a political slant to the reporting;

but overwhelmingly sad to read of the plight of fellow believers.a href=

The BBC reports the row caused by an e-mail sent by Councillor David Clutterbuck.

A Conservative councillor who sparked a row when he joked that Noah would have to let gay animals on board if he built his ark today has refused to apologise.

This is like something from Monty Python and the Holy Grail