The first report I heard was that Bozza, Mayor of London, wanted to close Heathrow. Hurray! What an intelligent policy! Close that dreadful planning error and sell off the land to fund a high-speed rail link straight to Brussels and through to Frankfurt, I thought. Then we wouldn't need it anyway.
Then I read the truth. Firstly, he only wants to prevent its further growth. Secondly, his scheme is to build an island in the middle of the Thames as an alternative!
Okay, Bozza, you've started off alright. Close Heathrow. Then sell that extremely lucrative real estate. Oh, it belongs to BAA? Sod them - after all, they're a nasty polluting monopoly.
Use the money for the above mentioned highspeed link. There are daily armies of flights between London and Frankfurt. None are necessary - make the train preferable.
Thirdly, if we must have an airport, simply put a station on the high speed link at Kent International (the old RAF Manston).
Problem solved.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Late Capitalism and Late Democracy
What shall we make of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers and the impending doom of AIG? If AIG is not supported by the US Government, despite its greater importance to the wider US economy, particularly the housing market so famously propped up by the nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then why?
Alisdair Darling of course let the cat out of the bag: we're in the worst place we've been since the end of WWII. Bear Stearns was saved; Lehmann Brothers wasn't. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were saved; AIG won't be. The pattern is clear: an initial intervention is attempted, and then the Government realises that further such interventions are then hoped for and expected. That simply cannot be afforded. Lehmann Brothers had to die: it was sacrificed for the sake of the wider economy, to say that the Government couldn't be relied on to save everything.
Behind this lies a bigger issue. Put simply, capitalism and democracy are less compatible than thought. In a democratic society, particularly what we may soon call late democracy (as per Marx's late capitalism), the population expects the government to act to save the day. So banks do too. They trade irresponsibly to gain the maximum upside during a boom, and expect the government to save them when they go bust, because they expect the government to bail out the depositers, who are also voters.
It's time to decide: who will pay the price? The banks, whose bosses ought to be sued by the governments and not propped up, or Joe Ordinary, who then effectively finances corporate bonuses through the tax system.
But another thought springs to mind. Didn't Joseph Schumpeter, in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy", argue that late capitalism tends to oligopoly, which lends itself to oligarchy? Look at Russia.
Never has it been clearer that Fukayama was wrong: history is not over. Money is in the hands of anti-democratic powers possessing raw material wealth. After Chelsea and Manchester City, so perhaps more serious institutions. Russia increasingly exercises geopolitical power through the gas pipeline; OPEC has spoken of trying to reestablish the $100 barrel; sovereign wealth funds are increasingly the only remaining wealthy people.
In late democracy, the tensions between oligopolistic late capitalism and populist late democracy grow. The question is, which will go.
Alisdair Darling of course let the cat out of the bag: we're in the worst place we've been since the end of WWII. Bear Stearns was saved; Lehmann Brothers wasn't. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were saved; AIG won't be. The pattern is clear: an initial intervention is attempted, and then the Government realises that further such interventions are then hoped for and expected. That simply cannot be afforded. Lehmann Brothers had to die: it was sacrificed for the sake of the wider economy, to say that the Government couldn't be relied on to save everything.
Behind this lies a bigger issue. Put simply, capitalism and democracy are less compatible than thought. In a democratic society, particularly what we may soon call late democracy (as per Marx's late capitalism), the population expects the government to act to save the day. So banks do too. They trade irresponsibly to gain the maximum upside during a boom, and expect the government to save them when they go bust, because they expect the government to bail out the depositers, who are also voters.
It's time to decide: who will pay the price? The banks, whose bosses ought to be sued by the governments and not propped up, or Joe Ordinary, who then effectively finances corporate bonuses through the tax system.
But another thought springs to mind. Didn't Joseph Schumpeter, in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy", argue that late capitalism tends to oligopoly, which lends itself to oligarchy? Look at Russia.
Never has it been clearer that Fukayama was wrong: history is not over. Money is in the hands of anti-democratic powers possessing raw material wealth. After Chelsea and Manchester City, so perhaps more serious institutions. Russia increasingly exercises geopolitical power through the gas pipeline; OPEC has spoken of trying to reestablish the $100 barrel; sovereign wealth funds are increasingly the only remaining wealthy people.
In late democracy, the tensions between oligopolistic late capitalism and populist late democracy grow. The question is, which will go.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Learning style and conservative Evangelicalism
As a teacher, I have to be aware that different pupils have different learning styles: they might learn by listening, by seeing or by doing.
The British conservative evangelical emphasis on preaching is wonderful for auditory learners, who tend to be those for whom university was more accessible, and for whom in the past the whole education system was accessible.
What about the visual learners and the kinaesthetic learners?
We need to recover the sacraments, I say.
The British conservative evangelical emphasis on preaching is wonderful for auditory learners, who tend to be those for whom university was more accessible, and for whom in the past the whole education system was accessible.
What about the visual learners and the kinaesthetic learners?
We need to recover the sacraments, I say.
Friday, 29 August 2008
Why Pietism offers little hope
I have been told by friends in Germany that the best, most biblical denomination is the Bund Freier Evangelische Gemeinden (FeG). If my experience on holiday in Kassel is any measure, then God help Germany!
The sermon was on John 10:27-30. The initial introduction set the text in its immediate context: what Jesus was claiming in claiming to be the Good Shepherd and God's equal was clear enough to His then listeners. So they picked up stones to stone Him.
Then we were taken through the text step by step:
"My sheep"
We were informed how valuable the sheep were to a shepherd, and how much he would do for them if he was both shepherd and owner, since they were his precious property. So we too are precious in the eyes of Jesus, because we are His sheep.
True, in fact, Jesus makes the point Himself really well in verses 11 to 15 of the same chapter (always take your Bible to church - you can preach to yourself the bits the minister leaves out!), by talking about the Cross. "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." Jesus even makes the point the preacher made about hired hands and shepherds! So why didn't the preacher make Jesus' point Jesus' way?
"My sheep listen to My voice"
Listening to Jesus' voice is not a matter of technique, we were informed. It's not about sitting quietly and calming oneself. Absolutely correct - we must knock this New Age or Eastern or Gnostic mysticism on the head when it gets into the church. But having started so well, the preacher lost it.
Firstly, he fully legitimated this Gnostic approach to listening to Jesus as one alternative. Then he said that this verse was a promise that all Jesus' sheep would hear His voice. But it's not a promise - it's a statement of a fact that comes as a sharp rebuke to the Jewish scribes questioning Him, as the context in verses 22 to 26 make clear. Thirdly, he suggested that there were other ways of hearing Jesus' voice, such as reading a good book or "wenn man etwas aus der Bibel ableitet". God's voice is not Scripture, according to this man, but whatever I take away from it. Good! Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens et al. has taken away the last four words of Psalm 14 verse 1a! Fourthly, he said we need to listen; he contrasted that to the German student tradition of Bibelarbeit - literally, "Bible work", working away at the text to understand it.
Now he's fully moved to the mystic position, which says that God works exclusively through non-natural means. I consider myself Reformed in my theology, and the Reformed position is that man is essentially good, but by consequence of the Fall totally depraved. Having made humans, God looks on the world and says it is "very good". We are essentially, that is, according to what is essential to what we are, good. That is how we are made. But that is shot through with fallenness, such that all of what was created good is corrupted by sin.
One consequence is that God pours out His Holy Spirit, who was there in Creation (Genesis 1:2), to make us what we are by creation. The natural means God has created are not inferior, but "very good". Now God has given us His word in a book. So we are to read it as a book. The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us better readers and believing and obeying readers, that is, to help us understand the book and respond appropriately, as we naturally would do if it were not for sin.
Having been denied hearing the Gospel of Christ crucified and having heard such dangerous mystic-leaning ideas on Scripture, I half switched off. He was orthodox on verse 28, but uninterestingly so. But I was not surprised at his comment on verse 29 "Wir sollen das nicht theologisieren" - we should theologise this. Just hear the confidence you can have in Jesus, that He won't lose you. But what does that mean, that He won't lose me? Help me understand that, speak to me a word about God, a logos about the theos, a theology!
Perhaps it was the emnity to theology that led to the earlier mistakes too.
If that's the best Germany has to offer, then Lord Jesus Christ, please raise up harvest workers, preachers who love Your word and proudly preach Your Cross, that Your people might not starve, but be led onto good pasture (John 10:9) across that nation.
The sermon was on John 10:27-30. The initial introduction set the text in its immediate context: what Jesus was claiming in claiming to be the Good Shepherd and God's equal was clear enough to His then listeners. So they picked up stones to stone Him.
Then we were taken through the text step by step:
"My sheep"
We were informed how valuable the sheep were to a shepherd, and how much he would do for them if he was both shepherd and owner, since they were his precious property. So we too are precious in the eyes of Jesus, because we are His sheep.
True, in fact, Jesus makes the point Himself really well in verses 11 to 15 of the same chapter (always take your Bible to church - you can preach to yourself the bits the minister leaves out!), by talking about the Cross. "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." Jesus even makes the point the preacher made about hired hands and shepherds! So why didn't the preacher make Jesus' point Jesus' way?
"My sheep listen to My voice"
Listening to Jesus' voice is not a matter of technique, we were informed. It's not about sitting quietly and calming oneself. Absolutely correct - we must knock this New Age or Eastern or Gnostic mysticism on the head when it gets into the church. But having started so well, the preacher lost it.
Firstly, he fully legitimated this Gnostic approach to listening to Jesus as one alternative. Then he said that this verse was a promise that all Jesus' sheep would hear His voice. But it's not a promise - it's a statement of a fact that comes as a sharp rebuke to the Jewish scribes questioning Him, as the context in verses 22 to 26 make clear. Thirdly, he suggested that there were other ways of hearing Jesus' voice, such as reading a good book or "wenn man etwas aus der Bibel ableitet". God's voice is not Scripture, according to this man, but whatever I take away from it. Good! Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens et al. has taken away the last four words of Psalm 14 verse 1a! Fourthly, he said we need to listen; he contrasted that to the German student tradition of Bibelarbeit - literally, "Bible work", working away at the text to understand it.
Now he's fully moved to the mystic position, which says that God works exclusively through non-natural means. I consider myself Reformed in my theology, and the Reformed position is that man is essentially good, but by consequence of the Fall totally depraved. Having made humans, God looks on the world and says it is "very good". We are essentially, that is, according to what is essential to what we are, good. That is how we are made. But that is shot through with fallenness, such that all of what was created good is corrupted by sin.
One consequence is that God pours out His Holy Spirit, who was there in Creation (Genesis 1:2), to make us what we are by creation. The natural means God has created are not inferior, but "very good". Now God has given us His word in a book. So we are to read it as a book. The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us better readers and believing and obeying readers, that is, to help us understand the book and respond appropriately, as we naturally would do if it were not for sin.
Having been denied hearing the Gospel of Christ crucified and having heard such dangerous mystic-leaning ideas on Scripture, I half switched off. He was orthodox on verse 28, but uninterestingly so. But I was not surprised at his comment on verse 29 "Wir sollen das nicht theologisieren" - we should theologise this. Just hear the confidence you can have in Jesus, that He won't lose you. But what does that mean, that He won't lose me? Help me understand that, speak to me a word about God, a logos about the theos, a theology!
Perhaps it was the emnity to theology that led to the earlier mistakes too.
If that's the best Germany has to offer, then Lord Jesus Christ, please raise up harvest workers, preachers who love Your word and proudly preach Your Cross, that Your people might not starve, but be led onto good pasture (John 10:9) across that nation.
On Russian Imperialism
I returned from holiday in Germany armed with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit and the Independent courtesy of Lufthansa, and with a copy of Spiegel. There was plenty to read, and plenty to be concerned about.
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Rights and Responsibilities
Ben Bradshaw thought he had David Davis on the ropes on Any Questions. Davis went onto the attack on Labour's record on liberties and Bradshaw fired back on Davis' record on homosexuals' rights. Davis had voted against homosexuals in the military, against the right of homosexuals to adopt, and against civil partnerships. Davis corrected him on the last point, pointing out that he was absent from the chamber on the last issue, leaving the Tory lead on the issue to be taken by Alan Duncan.
Has Bradshaw exposed Davis the Liberty Man?
Let's start with the easy one. Should homosexual men be allowed in the military? Essentially the case against was what they might get up to. But then again, ask the family of the Danish woman raped and murdered in Cyprus what heterosexual British squaddies get up to. The sad fact is that sex does lead to ill-discipline in the military - regardless of sexuality. But again, regardless of sexuality, it shouldn't.
Bradshaw 1-0 Davis
Adoption. The very association of the word "rights" with adoption is a complete failure on Bradshaw's part. No one has the right to adopt. The very concept ought to fill any decent person with horror. If there is a right to adopt, then anyone could seek to exercise that right through the courts. Adoption is a privilege to be granted with care, a responsibility to be exercised only by the most able. The question is not "do homosexuals have a right to adopt?" It is "what forms of relationship are an appropriate matrix for the development of a child?" On religious, scientific or sociological grounds, Parliament needs to provide proper statutory guidance on that question. So the debate cannot be about Parliament granting people an inherent right (rights normally inhering to people by virtue of some metaphysical consideration, such as human dignity or divine image bearing), it's about the appropriateness of relationship matrices. Bradshaw could claim Davis suffered from prejudices on this issue, but it's not a rights issue; others might point out the desperate need for more adoptive parents, but that's not about rights either. Own goal.
Bradshaw 1-1 Davis
Civil partnerships is far more complex, because the key issue is the relationship between such a partnership and marriage. The media, both for and against civil partnerships, have characterised it as "marriage"; the Government sought not to until a recent case in which spinster sisters living together sought to protect themselves from the inheritance tax due should one of them die. They wanted a civil partnership, which would recognise the contribution each made to the welfare of the other, the love that was there, and the difficulties the death of one would pose for the other. Then Harriet Harman came out to the effect that civil partnerships were to afford a legal framework equivalent to marriage for homosexual couples. So the media were right.
So the question comes down to what you think marriage is. It is a question of rights depending on how you define marriage and its spiritual, sociological and relational function.
You score the game.
Then factor in the rest of the Labour record: at least before Labour campaigners could turn up in Parliament Square without registering, at least 1 million innocent people weren't on a DNA register, at least before Labour there was not a threat of identity cards, at least thought was not policed, as it now is on a variety of questions of religion and sexuality ...
Good try, Mr Bradshaw: I hadn't thought of that one, and you were right to raise it. But I don't think it's enough, even if you win this set (which to my mind you don't, because I take a Bible-rooted view of marriage), to win the match.
Two footnotes.
Firstly, I've used "homosexual" not "gay". I understand "homosexual" as the opposite of "heterosexual", describing a sexual orientation. I understand "gay" as an identity-political label, associated with a political and lifestyle choice to emphasise sexual orientation as a marker of identity beyond any other. So gay belongs in the same category as feminist, Muslim, Christian, Marxist or any other identity label that claims overriding precedence in a person's make-up.
Secondly, I know Ben Bradshaw is homosexual. So? The issue is about rights here.
Has Bradshaw exposed Davis the Liberty Man?
Let's start with the easy one. Should homosexual men be allowed in the military? Essentially the case against was what they might get up to. But then again, ask the family of the Danish woman raped and murdered in Cyprus what heterosexual British squaddies get up to. The sad fact is that sex does lead to ill-discipline in the military - regardless of sexuality. But again, regardless of sexuality, it shouldn't.
Bradshaw 1-0 Davis
Adoption. The very association of the word "rights" with adoption is a complete failure on Bradshaw's part. No one has the right to adopt. The very concept ought to fill any decent person with horror. If there is a right to adopt, then anyone could seek to exercise that right through the courts. Adoption is a privilege to be granted with care, a responsibility to be exercised only by the most able. The question is not "do homosexuals have a right to adopt?" It is "what forms of relationship are an appropriate matrix for the development of a child?" On religious, scientific or sociological grounds, Parliament needs to provide proper statutory guidance on that question. So the debate cannot be about Parliament granting people an inherent right (rights normally inhering to people by virtue of some metaphysical consideration, such as human dignity or divine image bearing), it's about the appropriateness of relationship matrices. Bradshaw could claim Davis suffered from prejudices on this issue, but it's not a rights issue; others might point out the desperate need for more adoptive parents, but that's not about rights either. Own goal.
Bradshaw 1-1 Davis
Civil partnerships is far more complex, because the key issue is the relationship between such a partnership and marriage. The media, both for and against civil partnerships, have characterised it as "marriage"; the Government sought not to until a recent case in which spinster sisters living together sought to protect themselves from the inheritance tax due should one of them die. They wanted a civil partnership, which would recognise the contribution each made to the welfare of the other, the love that was there, and the difficulties the death of one would pose for the other. Then Harriet Harman came out to the effect that civil partnerships were to afford a legal framework equivalent to marriage for homosexual couples. So the media were right.
So the question comes down to what you think marriage is. It is a question of rights depending on how you define marriage and its spiritual, sociological and relational function.
You score the game.
Then factor in the rest of the Labour record: at least before Labour campaigners could turn up in Parliament Square without registering, at least 1 million innocent people weren't on a DNA register, at least before Labour there was not a threat of identity cards, at least thought was not policed, as it now is on a variety of questions of religion and sexuality ...
Good try, Mr Bradshaw: I hadn't thought of that one, and you were right to raise it. But I don't think it's enough, even if you win this set (which to my mind you don't, because I take a Bible-rooted view of marriage), to win the match.
Two footnotes.
Firstly, I've used "homosexual" not "gay". I understand "homosexual" as the opposite of "heterosexual", describing a sexual orientation. I understand "gay" as an identity-political label, associated with a political and lifestyle choice to emphasise sexual orientation as a marker of identity beyond any other. So gay belongs in the same category as feminist, Muslim, Christian, Marxist or any other identity label that claims overriding precedence in a person's make-up.
Secondly, I know Ben Bradshaw is homosexual. So? The issue is about rights here.
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
Prince of Egypt
There are few things that bring tears to my eyes like films; on that score, there are few films like Prince of Egypt. I don't even own a copy! I use short extracts for lessons, but I first saw it when unwell a few years ago. Back then I was considering a call to ministry and newly married. The scene in which Moses speaks to Zippora of his calling brought me to tears then. This time it was the scene in which Jocabed puts baby Moses into the Nile. He's sooo the age of my own son! I was almost in tears in front of year 7.
Why do I mention this on what is generally quite a high-minded blog? Because particularly in the songs, but also in the wonderful portrayal of the tenth plague, the filmmakers get the "drama of the doctrine". Okay, you might think Whitney Houston's "There may be miracles when you believe" is a bit short on Reformed Theology - and you'd be right. But in so far as Prince of Egypt is teaching doctrines, they are dramatic and dramatised, even dramaticised.
Yet Christians have been delivered not from earthly slavery into a land, but from darkness into His wonderful light (1st Peter 2:10). That is a far bigger drama! Yet do we see it that way? Rejoice in being swept up into the biggest movement of history, the greatest show in the world? I felt history was being made, like I was "glad to be alive" when the Berlin Wall fell: I rejoiced to be a human being - and I was only 12 and it wasn't happening to me. But here I am, a thinking 30 year old, and I really am part of the greatest story ever told, and that by no virtue of my own but purely by those of Him whose story it is. Wow!
Why do I mention this on what is generally quite a high-minded blog? Because particularly in the songs, but also in the wonderful portrayal of the tenth plague, the filmmakers get the "drama of the doctrine". Okay, you might think Whitney Houston's "There may be miracles when you believe" is a bit short on Reformed Theology - and you'd be right. But in so far as Prince of Egypt is teaching doctrines, they are dramatic and dramatised, even dramaticised.
Yet Christians have been delivered not from earthly slavery into a land, but from darkness into His wonderful light (1st Peter 2:10). That is a far bigger drama! Yet do we see it that way? Rejoice in being swept up into the biggest movement of history, the greatest show in the world? I felt history was being made, like I was "glad to be alive" when the Berlin Wall fell: I rejoiced to be a human being - and I was only 12 and it wasn't happening to me. But here I am, a thinking 30 year old, and I really am part of the greatest story ever told, and that by no virtue of my own but purely by those of Him whose story it is. Wow!
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