It’s been said before that no-one can properly gauge the seriousness of our beliefs until they really count.  Armchair politicians, saloon-bar revolutionaries and water-cooler football managers abound, because it’s easy.  What we say or do doesn’t matter.

Today, fuel tanker drivers go on strike.  We’re told only one in ten petrol stations will be affected, and that there’s no need to panic-buy.  But do any of us really believe that the great British public (including ourselves) will heed that admonition?  I’m probably not alone in anticipating long queues at petrol stations up and down the land, as we rush to ensure that our weekend fuel needs will be met.  Of course we all deplore panic-buying, and want the emergency services and key workers to have access to all the fuel they need…but not at our expense.  Religion, politics, social policy and Scolari’s transfer targets for Chelsea can be grist to the mill of idle chatter, but any threat to our comfortable, car-centred lifestyle gets us moving faster than an Olympic athlete (with our without chemical enhancement).

This raises huge questions about the world we want to live in – the environmental sustainability of modern, western lifestyles.  As we refuse to take notice of this, there are strong elements of 50 million Neros playing away on their violins while the world burns (or, at least, warms up dangerously).  It is fast becoming clear that serious adjustments will be needed to the way we live.  However, the first thing that occurred to me was a question of our priorities.  Seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, said Jesus.  Don’t worry about all these material concerns, but get with God’s agenda, and let him look after the rest (check out Matthew Chapter 6 in the New Testament for the whole story).

As we enter a weekend of fuel anxiety (will anyone cost that for the NHS, I wonder?), wouldn’t it be good to see some panic-righteousness instead of panic-buying – some panic-seeking of the Kingdom of God, rather than our own needs.  How about some panic-giving to disaster relief, some panic-service in our communities and, perhaps most importantly of all, some panic-faith sharing with those around us in family, community and workplace?  Giving our friends and neighbours the gift of hope in the midst of anxiety, the gift of life in the midst of hopelessness, God’s perspective and values.

A lot has been written, analysing his theology in inordinate detail and claiming to find deficiencies in this or that theological pronouncement.  That may be the case, and I doubt that I would see eye-to-eye with him on every issue.  But I finished today glad that he’s my Archbishop.  Perhaps he has learned from the ‘unclarity’ of his remarks about Sharia law, but I found his use of language skillful, not just in his prepared address, but in the questions that he then answered, ranging from youth work to the future of the Anglican Communion.

It would be grossly unfair to try to summarise his contribution, but just one line will suffice for now: the task of theology is making sense of lives that make sense of the world – describing inadequately the wholeness and integration that flow from a relationship with the loving, creator God.

A new report by the Church’s Ministry Division has been leaked, questioning the quality of many serving parish clergy.  Quality and Quantity Issues in Ministry revealed that a third of bishops feel that half of their stipendiary (full-time, paid) priests are not up to the challenges of ministry, usually not displaying sufficient leadership skills in delegation and collaborative leadership.  Is it possible, the report asks, that numbers of stipendiary clergy may be being maintained by lowering, perhaps unconsciously, the quality threshold in selection procedures?  If that is the case (and I do sometimes share just the tiniest glimmer of suspicion that this may sometimes be so), then serious questions need to be asked of the selection process.  However, like many serving clergy I’d want to ask the Bishops in return:

-  Who ordained these apparently sub-standard clergy in the first place?

-  With morale among serving clergy perhaps at an all-time low, is this really the correct way to build morale and working relationships?

- We are the only profession I am aware of with no compulsory programme of professional development beyond the first three years of ministry.  With the nature of ministry changing so fast, just what result do we expect from a pattern of ministry in which a vicar can remain in a parish for years without any further training or development in ministerial skills, or opportunity to nurture that precious and fragile sense of vocation?

There are those who work hard to try to provide these things, but the picture remains patchy.

With uncanny and tragic irony, the report came out at the same time as the inquest verdict on Revd. Clive Dixon, assistant curate of All Saints Church, Stamford, Lincs, who hanged himself because he was worried about the future.  The inquest recorded a verdict that Mr Dixon took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed.  It heard that he had been popular, but lacked confidence and feared that he would not live up to expectations when he took over as parish priest at nearby Harlaxton.  Our sympathy and prayers go to his family in their appalling loss.

Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream has gone back on display in the Munch Museum in Oslo.  One of Norway’s most iconic national treasures, it was stolen in broad daylight from the museum in August 2004.  The painting was recovered two years later, and since then has been undergoing significant restoration – though it still bears the scars of the robbery, having been damaged as it was ripped from its frame.

Would you compare yourself to a stolen artwork like The Scream?  You have been created painstakingly and lovingly by God as an amazing work of art, fearfully and wonderfully knitted together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16).  And not just created by God, but treasured – put in a wonderful place and looked after.  But then came the robbery.  The human race was deceived by the forces of evil, tempted by sin.  As we chose to disobey God and go our own way, so it was as if we were that painting: ripped off the wall, damaged and taken away from the presence of God – with no power to help ourselves.

But then God recovered us, just as The Scream was recovered.  Not by luck, but in God’s case by the greatest rescue plan the world has ever seen.  No ransom was paid to recover The Scream, but God sent his only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be a ransom for us.  Christ paid the greatest price imaginable as he gave up his life for us, dying on the Cross for us, taking the punishment for our sin.  God did that because we are a treasure in his sight – he loves us so much.

And because of Christ, as we trust in him, we can be restored to that place of honour in a relationship with God – adopted into his family and given an inheritance in glory that can never perish, spoil or fade.  The Holy Spirit does a better job of transforming us than any art experts can do to restore a damaged painting.  Interestingly, just as the painting still shows some damage from the robbery, so in this life we continue to carry the effects of human sin and rebellion.  We age and fall ill, and until Christ returns we still carry in our bodies the mortality that sin brought into the world.  Praise God that in heaven with God we will be completely restored.

There’s one final parallel between us and The Scream.  The painting is a modern icon of human anxiety.  It shouts in utter despair from the heart at the meaninglessness of life.  It screams that the human situation is hopeless.  Nothing can be changed.  All we can do is protest and lament.  And without faith, and the hope given us in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is right.  Paul wrote to the Ephesians that before they came to faith they lived in the world without God and without hope.  But in Jesus we have been offered the hope of everlasting life, the hope of glory.  And so the scream of despair painted so memorably by Munch becomes, for Christians, by faith a cry of joy, faith and confidence.  We may go through the valley of the shadow of death.  All of us will know hard times, but the hope God has given us does not disappoint us, for God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us.  (Romans 5:5)

A hugely significant feature of western culture over the past few years has been the rise of the so-called ‘new atheists’.  Through media attention, and through writing headline-grabbing books, people like Christopher Hitchens (‘God is not great’) and Richard Dawkins (‘The God Delusion’) have sought actively to turn people away from religious faith.  Any cursory read on news websites of the comments left on religious or church stories shows the impact that they have had in our culture – many assume that atheism is the only credible intellectual position to adopt, and religious believers are immature and deluded.

Today at Swanwick, our particular group of immature and deluded believers were treated to two presentations from Alister McGrath.  Alister is currently professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, and author of many books, including a response to Richard Dawkins (‘the Dawkins Delusion’).  You can find his website here.

The morning session outlined our current cultural context, and reaffirmed the vital place of Apologetics as part of our mission.  Apologetics has got nothing to do with apologising for anything (except by etymology), but means presenting a reasoned defence of the Christian faith – giving a reason for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15).  This is hugely important, to equip and give confidence to church members, and also to persuade or remind our friends and neighbours of the reasonableness of the Christian faith.  In apologetics, we have a huge advantage – we are not just presenting something that is true, but something that is also real – something that transforms lives and touches the heart.  We don’t argue people into faith, but as we present verbally who Jesus is and what he has done, so we also bear witness to what Jesus Christ has done for us.  We tell our story, and evoke the beauty and the glory of God.

With that confidence, Alister then tackled in more detail the claims advanced by Richard Dawkins in ‘the God Delusion’.  Dawkins advances essentially four arguments:

1. Belief in God is irrational and infantile, like belief in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus, and normal human maturing will mean people ‘grow out’ of faith.  But Alister himself came to faith at 18 years old.  So did I, with a conversion that was based on mature thought as much as the emotions and the heart – and I can never remember believing in Father Christmas!  As a former lawyer, evidence (from reason and testimony, as well as science) is very important to me.  God’s existence can neither be proved or disproved by rational argument, and atheism is just as much a faith position as religious belief.

2. Secondly, Dawkins argues that science shows us that there is no God – religious faith has been disproved.  Has it?  If so, why are so many scientists committed Christians?  Apparently, real scientists don’t believe in God, but frankly that is a patronising assertion, disrespectful of many eminent women and men.  Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God – it is talking about different things.  As a leading American evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould, who died in 2002, said, ‘To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time: science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists.’

All it can do is begin to point one way or the other.  My father came to committed Christian faith late in life, as a scientist and through his science, not despite it.  Simon Conway Morris, Cambridge Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology, famously said, ‘If one compares the sequence of amino acids that go to form the protein haemoglobin, it becomes apparent that humans and chimps are identical and do not differ in a single site…nevertheless, as I never tire of pointing out to my students in Cambridge, chimpanzees do not play the piano, drink dry martinis, or erect temples to glorify the Creator.’

Dawkins’ position is perhaps a final blast from modernism, looking back to early twentieth century Logical Positivism, where every statement had to be tested against the criterion of mathematical or logical verifiability, thus excluding not just religious language but all art, culture and, most tellingly, love.

3. Dawkins has thirdly argued that science explains away the origins of religious belief as a virus of the mind, a 'meme' which transmits a psychological need to believe.  The difficulty he faces here is that there is absolutely no evidence for these, and what he says about the virus of religious belief could equally well be applied to atheism.

4. Finally, and perhaps most dangerously, he claims that faith in God leads to violence.  This view has gained far more credence since 9/11, and any believer must acknowledge that Christian history sadly contains many examples of violence done in the name of our faith.  But to argue that all religious faith inevitably leads to such violence is simply nonsense.  Christian history gives us the Crusades, it is true, but also has brought education, medical care, social reforms, peacemaking and human rights.  Was William Wilberforce violent when campaigning to end slavery, or Mother Teresa violent on the streets of Calcutta as she cared for the homeless and unwanted?  Of course not.  Jesus did no harm, and was subjected to great violence.  Indeed, the greatest violence of our era has been perpetrated by the ungodly fascism of the Nazis (reviving old pagan myths, coupled with Nietzsche's atheist nihilism) and atheist states like the old Soviet Union, both of which actively persecuted the Church.  In our day one need look no further than the brutal atheist dictatorship of North Korea.  Interestingly, of 100 recent studies on the link between religious belief and health, 79 found a positive correlation, and only one suggested a negative correlation.

Alister McGrath – a brilliant mind and a gracious speaker.  Go buy the book – here (Amazon)

So here we all are, gathered at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire for the triennial conference of the Diocese of Hereford.  Has it been worth travelling up through the rain and the spray?  Highlights so far:

-   Catching up with colleagues not seen for too long

-   Discovering that the Centre now has wireless internet access across most of the site (whoopee!)

-   Above all, hearing our Bishop, Anthony Priddis, recommission us for the work of evangelism in our parishes: not being content with the status quo, and staying within our comfort zones and our church buildings, but going out into our communities, actively sharing our faith in new ways, trying new things without worrying about the possibility of failure, and never giving up, for we have a Gospel that is good news for the whole world - a Saviour who died for us that we might be forgiven.  Thank you Bishop.

So, it's the very last day of the American Primary elections.  Montana and South Dakota are the final states to hold their primary elections, and Hillary Clinton has still not conceded to Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination.  Does she still think she can win (the Clintons aren't used to losing elections), or is she positioning herself for 2012 if Obama loses to John McCain in November?  The American political system seems to most of us one of Byzantine complexity, but I still find the race for the White House utterly compelling - not just because the USA is the most powerful country on earth, but also because of the personalities involved.

In the Bible I'm reading the Prophet Jeremiah at the moment, and there are some uncanny links with Hillary Clinton (and that's a phrase I never thought I'd write).  Jeremiah began when he was very young, but prophesied for a period approaching forty years, from the reign of (good) King Josiah, right up until the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC.  He stayed the course until the end, even though for most of his ministry the going was incredibly tough, as his message was one of judgment on a sinful people, with the only ray of hope being for the time of restoration through and beyond judgment.  He had his prophecies cut up and burned, was thrown down a well and generally hated being a prophet.  But he stayed the course, and could do nothing else, as the Word of the Lord was like a fire in his bones.  In the end he was vindicated, painfully, as Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonian forces.

Over the last few weeks, when all have expected Hillary Clinton to give up her fight for the nomination, she has carried on, seemingly beyond the point of any realistic hope.  We can currently only guess her reasons.  Though I'm no particular fan of the Clintons, Hillary clearly seems to believe in what she is campaigning for.  Is her continued fight mulish stubbornness, or laudable perseverance and determination?  Is she deluded, or shrewd and calculating?  Time will tell, this year and beyond.

In the Christian life, we are called to perseverance and faithfulness to the Gospel in the power of the Spirit, whatever the opposition - exactly the qualities Jeremiah showed over his long ministry.  As we do so, we have the assurance and encouragement not just that we are right, but that we are storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven.  Let's just make sure as we do so that we really are staying in the Lord's will, and aren't just holding fast to our own prejudices and preferences that God would far rather we left behind.

The Church Press tells us this week that campaigners formed a human chain around an historic parish church threatened by plans to build an eco-town near Selby.  The protesters linked arms around isolated St Edmund’s at Kellington on Saturday, worried that 15,000 homes at Willow Green would have an impact on the church.

Were their concerns about the workload of the local clergy, or strains on local transport and infrastructure?  No.  The campaigners say the ecotown would ruin views of the church building, which since the 17th century has been lauded for its “splendid isolation”.  (Church of England Newspaper, 30 May 2008)

I didn’t know whether to laugh or weep.  To paraphrase their concern, ‘We don’t want people near our church – that would only spoil the view’. 

For so many today the Church is functionally irrelevant, distant from their everyday lives.  As a result, the Gospel is seen as outdated and unnecessary.  But God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to save us.  I want to be where the people are: among them, sharing the love of the Lord Jesus Christ who died to save us, serving them in the name of Christ and in the power of the Spirit.  There can be no greater privilege.  And the dear folk of Kellington want to keep the people away, lest the views of the building be spoiled.  Lord, have mercy.

Welcome.  You've found your way to the blog of the Team Rector of Ledbury, Paul Dunthorne.  Think of it a bit like an online Vicar's letter in the Church magazine, only a bit more edgy and a whole lot more topical.

I'll be commenting on news items that catch my eye, nationally and around the Ledbury area.  If you'd like to, please add your comments about any of the items I cover.

Thanks for reading.