Tag: lament

Not equal yet

I realise there are an awful lot of structural problems in the world right now. Horrendous diplomatic failures with the USA currently, climate crisis and all ensuing symptoms, ongoing terror in the West Bank and the devastation of Gaza, to name just a few. Perhaps in the light of all of those things, I find myself deeply disturbed by the removal of end-to-end encryption for UK users of many Apple products. I am only just beginning to grasp the potential far reaching consequences of that sort of thing, looking at the political world stage as outlined above. I will no doubt explore this more in a future post, but for now here’s an article outlining the current situation for the UK: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/apple-pulls-data-protection-tool-instead-of-caving-to-uk-demand-for-a-backdoor/

In the meantime, back on planet Church of England, rather than managing to galvanise ourselves to address any of the world challenges above effectively, we remain stymied by systemic injustice among ourselves. Why we think that this is in any way a fitting offering to a world in turmoil from a Church that prays to God who we say we believe is a) deeply compassionate and b) always engaged with reality, I do not know.

One of the massive glaring structural injustices in the Church of England continues to be the inequality between men and women. I can’t communicate the situation any more effectively than Liz Shercliff has in her blog post below, which will take anyone all of 2 minutes to read. So here it is, with a key quote at the top of it for anyone not wanting to follow the link:

“…The Church is not committed to mutual flourishing, other than as a way of silencing women by throwing us a few scraps and expecting us to be grateful. If women in places of governance dare to ask for actual equality, they are dismissed.”

https://www.womenandthechurch.org/blog/c0p9nbaqh8hvfnjvfngz1umf3vypvb

Black Lives Matter

Abbeyfield Park, Sheffield

We physically distanced ourselves, we wore masks, we knelt in silence, fists of resistance raised. The air hummed with our anger, our sorrow and our determination to bring about change. One moment, feeling a bit foolish, kneeling there, the next looking again at the young black woman at the front, fist never lowering even for a moment. She knows what it is to be black. She knows this isn’t just another issue; this is life or death. Then our anger mixed with humiliation for generation upon generation of our collective failure to act or to speak up. Or to even see the people around us as they really are, and listen to them talk, at length, about their lived experience, their pain; their reality.

My friend wrote a chant in response to this which serves as a song of lament and also a way of reminding ourselves repeatedly to wake up and pay attention, to prevent us falling back into our well worn grooves of inaction, silence or complicity:

“The beginning of evil is heedlessness; Lord have mercy”

Abba Poeman
Lucy Bolster, Play in Chants

Another friend blogged a response to do with the controversial dismantling of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol. What he writes is astonishing and in my view should be read by anyone in the UK currently or who has an interest in what is happening here.

“…it was only in 2015 that we [UK Government] finally finished paying the debt borrowed by the UK state to pay off the slave owners after the abolition of slavery act in 1833. It was the biggest payment in our history, more than the bankers bailout in 2008. It was 40% of our entire GDP. Not a penny went to slaves who still had to work as interns for free for a further 5 years.”

Find Chris Howson’s full blog post here: http://ajustchurch.blogspot.com/2020/06/statues-and-slavery.html?m=1