The blog of Richard Hall, a Methodist Minister in Wales.

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The Guardian

Suggestions that global warming has stalled are a “diversionary tactic” from “deniers” who want the public to be confused over climate change, according to the world’s best-known climate scientist. Prof James Hansen, who first alerted the world to climate change in 1988, said on Friday: “It is not true that the temperature has not changed in the two decades.”

Since 1998, when the Niño climate phenomenon caused global temperatures to soar, the rate of increase in warming has slowed, causing some sceptics to suggest climate change has stopped or that the effect of rising carbon dioxide levels on climate is not as great as previously thought.

Prof Hansen, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, rejected both arguments. “In the last decade it has warmed only a tenth of a degree compared to two-tenths of a degree in the preceeding decade, but that’s just natural variability. There is no reason to be surprised by that at all,” he said. “If you look over a 30-40 year period the expected warming is two-tenths of a degree per decade, but that doesn’t mean each decade is going to warm two-tenths of a degree: there is too much natural variability.”

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It’s been a long story, but all’s well that ends well. On Wednesday the Supreme Court delivered it’s judgement that Methodist ministers are not not employees and do not have recourse to employment tribunals. Inevitably, the judgement is not light bedtime reading, but I was impressed by the obvious care that the judges had taken to understand the workings of Methodism and to judge the case on the basis of our church’s culture and practice. Here’s a flavour:

Standing order 700(1) provides that “[m]inisters are ordained to a life-long presbyteral ministry of word, sacrament and pastoral responsibility in the Church of God which they fulfil in various capacities and to a varying extent throughout their lives.” It is clear that the life-long character of the ministry is more than just an aspiration. A minister can cease to be in full connexion only in limited circumstances, none of which is wholly dependent on his or her wishes. Under standing order 760, he or she may send a notice of resignation to the President of the Conference, but it is up to the President, advised by a special committee, to decide whether to accept it. Otherwise, a minister may cease to be in full connexion if a disciplinary charge is brought and a Disciplinary Committee exercises its power under standing order 1134 to decide that he or she shall “cease to be a minister… in full connexion.” It should be noted that the disciplinary scheme is the same for ministers and lay members, so far as the distinction is
meaningful in a church in which the ministry is not a distinct order or class. Standing order 1100(3)(ii) provides that “there should be no difference in principle between ordained and lay people in the way in which complaints against them are dealt with.”

For as long as a minister remains in full connexion he or she must be stationed, save in two cases. The first is that one of the exceptions in standing order 774 applies, i.e. the minister receives a discretionary exemption from the
Ministerial Session of the Conference, or is required to be without appointment by the Stationing Committee on the ground that no appointment can be found. The second is that they are permitted by the Ministerial Session of the Conference to become “supernumeraries” (i.e. retire) under standing order 790 on account of their age, length of service or ill-health or on compassionate grounds. Retirement is, however, a relative term. Even supernumerary ministers are required under standing order 792 to continue to exercise their ministry “as he or she is able”. All
ministers in full connexion who are not permitted to be without appointment under one of these provisions, are defined by section 1 of the Deed of Union as being “in the active work.”

19. Section 80 of the standing orders provides for the “support and maintenance” of ministers. Under standing order 801, all ministers in active work and all stationed probationers are entitled to a stipend throughout their ministry,
including periods of unlimited duration when they may be unable to perform their duties on account of illness or injury. In addition, they are entitled under standing order 803 to a manse to serve as a home and as a base for their ministry. Neither the stipend nor the manse are regarded by the Methodist Church as the consideration for the services of its ministers. They regard them as a method of providing the material support to the minister without which he or she could not serve God. In the Church’s view, the sale of a minister’s services in a labour market would be objectionable, as being incompatible with the spiritual character of their ministry.

hollowayrev hosts a very helpful analysis of the decision by David Wood and I commend it to you if you want to understand the implications of the verdict.

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Jesus! the name high over all,
in hell, or earth, or sky!
Angels and men before it fall,
and devils fear and fly.

Jesus! the name to sinners dear,
the name to sinners given!
It scatters all their guilty fear,
it turns their hell to heaven.

Jesus! the prisoner’s fetters breaks,
and bruises Satan’s head;
Power into strengthless souls it speaks,
and life into the dead.

O that the world might taste and see
the riches of his grace!
The arms of love that compass me
would all mankind embrace.

His only righteousness I show,
his saving grace proclaim;
‘Tis all my business here below
to cry: ‘Behold the Lamb!’

Happy if with my latest breath
I might but gasp his name;
preach him to all, and cry in death:
‘Behold, behold the Lamb!’

Charles Wesley

Two weeks without posting? Time I got my mojo back.

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O thou who camest from above,
The pure celestial fire to impart,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart.

There let it for thy glory burn
With inextinguishable blaze,
And trembling to its source return,
In humble prayer and fervent praise.

Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire
To work and speak and think for thee;
Still let me guard the holy fire,
And still stir up thy gift in me.

Ready for all thy perfect will,
My acts of faith and love repeat,
Till death thy endless mercies seal,
And make the sacrifice complete

Charles Wesley

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It’s St George’s Day. This video seemed appropriate.

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O Love divine, what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th’immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Is crucified for me and you,
To bring us rebels back to God.
Believe, believe the record true,
Ye all are bought with Jesus’ blood.
Pardon for all flows from His side:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Behold him, all ye that pass by,
The bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, sinners, see your Saviour die,
And say, “Was ever grief like His?”
Come, feel with me His blood applied:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Then let us sit beneath His cross,
And gladly catch the healing stream:
All things for Him account but loss,
And give up all our hearts to Him:
Of nothing think or speak beside,
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Charles Wesley

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2 clips from Brassed Off seem appropriate today. No further commentary necessary.

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A new cartoon by the always-splendid Dave Walker

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From LiveScience

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Dave Faulkner points to 5 signs of a dying church and asks “What does a dying church look like?”

This is a really simple question, assuming that we’re talking about the church as you can see it in our towns and villages. (The Church Triumphant is, of course, a different matter) It isn’t a matter of leadership, growth (or lack of it), worship style, vision, staff, or anything else of that nature. The truth is, gentle reader, that it doesn’t matter what your church looks like. Your church is dying. Whether it is a country chapel that has a regular congregation of three old ladies and a cat, or a city mega-church of ten thousand: your church is dying. Liberal or conservative, calvinist or arminian, deeply traditional or ultra-hip: it’s all irrelevant. Your church is dying. And it’s OK.

Death is part of life. Every church is dying. Every church must die. That’s the way of things.

The really important question, for a church as for an individual, is — knowing that we’re dying — how then will we live?

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…governments keep their climate promise

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Matt Collins — a self-confessed ‘Methodist geek’ –is called to be a bureaucrat

I am not a great ideas man, but I am happy to support those who are, to put frameworks in place, work on policy and procedure to facilitate great projects. As well as a meetings man, I am a bit of a techy. Tech support is so often a thankless job. The band stand up the front a get the thanks after the service, while us techies are ripping up gaffer tape, coiling wires and packing away the speakers. And doing the business side can be the same. Very few people stop to thank the person who did the risk assessment, the budget, the form filling. And again, I don’t to sound like I’m hard done by. I don’t do what I do for praise and glory, I do it because it needs to be done, and it is where I can serve the church.

I just ask that people think more widely about callings people can have. Being a Techie can be a calling; being a bureaucrat is a calling; doing the flowers is a calling. And all callings are as important as each other.

He’s right, of course. The church hasn’t always been great at recognising vocations that don’t involve a pulpit or communion rail. ‘EDEV’ was supposed to address this — and I’m sure it could have if we had managed a greater degree of coordination and cooperation across the Connexion. Now the Methodist Church is undergoing a fresh approach to training perhaps this will change. The Conference Agenda 2013 says that

There are a range of lay and ordained ministries, offices and responsibilities which enflesh our discipleship of Christ and make up our church communities – “ministries which enable God-centred worship and prayer; ministries which help people to grow and learn as Christians; ministries which engage with the everyday acts of love, kindness and service of the people of God in the world; ministries which encourage patterns of witness and evangelism” – ministries which depend on one another and which are nurtured by one another to create loving, participative, rooted, pioneering and contextual church communities.

We have asserted that a healthy Connexion is properly a community
of learning where every disciple is learning about their faith and telling
the story of their faith, where every minister is both an educator and a
reflective learner, and where every Circuit is a learning Circuit. We are
reminded of our calling as disciples to be open to learning from a variety of sources, opportunities and disciplines within and beyond the life of the Church.

It remains to be seen if this will mean that Matt and others like him will have their vocations celebrated and nurtured.

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My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I do not know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please You
does in fact please You.
And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
You will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for You are ever with me,
and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Co., 1958).

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I can’t bring myself to join in the hagiography of Margaret Thatcher, who died earlier today, but as a scientist she grasped the threat of climate change pretty early. I’d be glad if a few of those who adore her began to take her understanding of this a bit more seriously.

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Kim’s been doodling again, though at least one paragraph is more a howl of angry despair:

In 2004, the Philosophy Department at Swansea University, once world renown as a Centre of Wittgenstein studies, was terminated (Wittgenstein’s “full stop” with a vengeance). Last summer, the front of the main administrative building, Fulton House, was renovated (it now looks like a mini mall, with the Chaplaincy Centre cunningly reshituated between the men’s and women’s toilets). Last September, the University launched its £200 million second campus expansion plan (called the “Humanities and Other Useless Knowledge Campus” – just kidding: the “Science and Innovation Campus” – what else?). And now, at the end of April, the University Bookshop will sell its last tome and textbook (a university without a bookstore, for Chrissake!). Instead of publishing an Annual Report this year, the University Council should write a suicide note.

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Following the death by suicide of Rick Warren’s son, Adrian Warnock asks Can a Christian get depressed?

Given that Adrian is a practising psychiatrist, his answer is an unsurprising “Yes, of course.” However, the fact that the question can even be raised is profoundly disturbing. Apart from the extremes of the ‘name it and claim it’ crowd, there can be few Christians who would think of asking ‘Can a Christian break her arm?’ or ‘Can a Christian catch pneumonia?’ Almost all would recogonise that physical illness and injury are not indicators of faith or lack of it. The same is unfortunately not true of mental illness: too often the mentally ill are regarded as somehow culpable for their debility. If only they would ‘trust in the Lord’ or (even worse) ‘pull themselves together’, everything would be OK.

The real issue is that in the Church we still allow the lie to propagate that being a follower of Jesus will make everything All Right. But it doesn’t matter how loudly or enthusiastically you say or sing it. A lie is still a lie.

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O for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his grace!

My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honours of Thy name.

Jesus! The name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
‘Tis music in the sinner’s ears,
‘Tis life, and health, and peace.

He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.

He speaks, and, listening to his voice,
New life the dead receive,
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice,
The humble poor believe.

Hear Him, ye deaf, His praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Saviour come,
And leap, ye lame, for joy.

Look unto Him, ye nations, own
Your God, ye fallen race;
Look, and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace.

See all your sins on Jesus laid:
The Lamb of God was slain,
His soul was once an offering made
For every soul of man.

In Christ your Head, ye then shall know,
Shall feel your sins forgiven;
Anticipate your heaven below,
And own that love is heaven.

Charles Wesley

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