Jude Smith

*Now with daft autocorrects fixed* There is a lot of stuff around about militant secularism just now. The banning of prayers in Bideford, the threat to chaplaincy in prison, there are plenty of other examples where faith is seen to be being pushed from the public sphere. We are told that this is a threat to people of faith. We are told that it is an affront to believers. That is sort of true, but for those of us who profess to follow Christ in Christian faith and practice, persecution is to be expected. Moreover, persecution seems to be a spawning ground for Christian faith. In places of persecution the church has thrived. So- I'm not sure I agree with David Lammy, Baroness Warsi and others who say the threat is to people of faith per se. But militant secularism is a threat to the glorious undecided. By the glorious undecided I mean the folks who don't belong to a faith community but do pray. The people who shop on a Sunday but would like a Christian minister to conduct

.. why so many of us (by us I mean well meaning Christian church going people) seem to want to do whatever we can to protect anyone before they are born (or even potentially viable).. But once you are born you are on your own. If you are poor we will blame your parents and let you wallow in poverty. These stats are from the Church Urban Fund. "There is also an apparent lack of awareness of poverty among the laity; only 37% of regular churchgoers think there is ‘quite a lot’ of child poverty in Britain, compared with 78% of clergy. This is in stark contrast to the latest UK poverty figures, which show that up to four million children – or nearly one in three – are living in poverty... "Possibly more surprising is the finding that churchgoers’ attitudes to poverty are little different to those of non-churchgoers. Churchgoers are no more aware of poverty and no more likely to attribute it to social injustice than non-churchgoers. In another question, only 36% of regular church

Tall Skinny Kiwi posted about his take on Dorothy Day and what she would have brought to the blogosphere: His run down.. Purposes in writing [and blogging] from Dorothy Day: 1. to make known the experiences of the inarticulate 2. to spotlight the cracks in the social system 3. to disclose human suffering so that action might be taken to prevent and alleviate it 4. to discuss and clarify ideas about how to improve the social order 5. to argue on behalf of the ideas of anarchism, voluntary poverty, and pacifism in contrast to prevailing social and cultural preferences for institutionalized expressions of power, materialism and militarism. Dorothy Day is a bit of a role model for me: so I will take this on board and write in this manner.. I won't be short of material as I blog in a recession only parallel to the 1930's. Will get down to some proper writing soon: but for now I need to go clear some snow.

Morning all, Sir Fred Goodwin has been stripped of his knighthood. I know that we are still in panto season but this might really take the biscuit. Who cares if he has lost his knighthood.. its like when the villain gives up a bean/ lamp/ other pant prop, only to then turn aside to the audience and snicker as they reveal the real treasure. The sop of taking his away knighthood doesn't actually touch the problem. It does highlight how the celebrity obsessed previous government gave away honours like sweets. It does highlight how that same celebrity obsessed government allowed the arrogant capitalism of the day to have a place in the centre of life, building out economy on a very narrow base. It does highlight how the current government is less obsessed with celebrity and wealth (largely because they have it) and so will degrade and victimise individuals in order to score political points. This is a bad bunch of stuff. If we were really serious about dealing with the excesses tha