What is in Kelvin's Head?

The #syriavote is not so simple really

03/12/2015

Like many people in the UK, I spent much of yesterday dipping into what was happening in parliament as a long debate took place as to whether this country should engage in military action against ISIL in Syria.

I once had aspirations to be an MP and that always makes me wonder which division lobby I would have walked into when these moments of national drama take place.

In this instance I am almost sure that I would have walked into the nay lobby – I’d have voted against extending military action in Syria.

However, I don’t find this a simple question. It is far more complex than my twitter feed seems to be suggesting. And this morning I’m not rushing to add #notinmyname hashtags to everything. This is a case where I can see merit on both side of the question and I find that my gut reaction which is to be against military action is more pragmatic than ideological.

I happen not to be a pacifist. I am not a pacifist because I think that sometimes there are evils that may need to be defeated by force. The obvious and classic example is that I think that the allied forces were right to be deployed to defeat Nazism. It was an ideology that threatened all of Europe with its evil. Some things are worth fighting against.

It is my suspicion that ISIL is something worth fighting against that would have made me pause before casting a vote had I been in parliament last night. I find myself having sympathy with Hilary Benn who identified the threat from ISIL as being the fascism of the day. So many of the same themes emerge – death to the Jews, death to the gays, murderous sectarianism and a direct opposition to democracy. The fact that it now uses terrorism on Western streets and wickedly distorts Islam for its own ends shouldn’t blind us to the fact that we’ve seen fascism before and have believed it should be fought.

And that’s why I can see that there’s a case for action.

My problem is largely because I can’t see the action being particularly likely to succeed which is one of the conditions of using force in just war theory.

I can’t really see that there’s a plan for post conflict rebuilding of Syria yet. I can’t really see how another two bombers will make that much difference – the Americans have been bombing ISIL targets for months and don’t seem to me to have solved the problem. It is inevitable that civilians will die in this action. It is difficult to believe that the action will meet the test of proportionality. I also don’t really believe that you can bomb ideas out of existence.

And so I find myself believing action to be wrong for pragmatic reasons whilst believing that ISIL should be confronted for ideological reasons. And that would have given me a terrible dilemma has I been in parliament.

Two things emerged yesterday which I found contemptible. Firstly the Prime Minister’s assertion that those who were against action were terrorist sympathisers. It was beneath the dignity of his office to make such a claim and he should have apologised. Secondly, those who are trying to co-opt this question for the sake of Scottish Nationalism. It should be beneath our dignity as the people of Scotland to co-opt this terrible decision for our local politics. Whether one likes it or not, Scotland chose to remain part of the UK and the UK parliament has made a decision. Being democrats means that sometimes we have to respect the democratic decisions that are made that we don’t like. That’s what being a democrat actually is. That means those who don’t like the result of the Scottish Referendum need to accept that the people of Scotland made an informed choice. It is our parliament that made the decision last night – a decision I happen to find it difficult to support. It is a parliament that the people of Scotland chose to remain a part of. Using ISIL to make cheap nationalist points in this country appals me. If we don’t accept democratic decision making (the referendum, the workings of parliament in which we are all represented etc) then we begin to lose the moral right to stand against the forces which rage against democracy wherever we encounter them.

We encounter them in ISIL. The question at hand is how to oppose them.

Last night I think that I would have voted against the government and against the use of force in Syria. However I would have done so with a heavy heart. It is just possible that after listening to the debates I might have voted with the government and for the use of force against the evils of ISIL. I would have done so with an even heavier heart though I would have done so hoping that if my own land was being conquered by fascists, then other countries would intervene.

That’s why this issue is more complex than my twitter feed seems to find it.

7 responses to “Whither the Kirk?”

Pausing Place

25/08/2010

I missed last night’s programme, but I thought your comments were interesting.

In a sense, perhaps it’s unsurprising if the SEC is inwardly more positive about itself than the CofS. My take is that in the recent past, at least, the SEC started from a lower common denominator, not being the “local” church in the same way as the Kirk, and so it doesn’t have to contend with others saying of it “look how the mighty have fallen” in quite the same way.

As to the health of the Kirk (and the SEC for that matter), I think we need to reflect on our self-perception and to consider carefully the points and places in which a dying church (congregation or denomination) should be allowed to die gracefully, and the ways in which we might see new life emerge from the rubble.

As a young(ish!), relatively new Christian I have seen examples of (both urban and rural) SEC and Kirk congregations where there are few signs of new growth, little to draw in younger (under 50 year olds, to pick a random-ish number) new folk, and much to sustain negative preconceptions of church as boring, irrelevant and so forth.

We as a faith community need to get much better at stepping up to the mark in our creativity and engagement with our society. The sad truth is that most young adults do not know and have not heard about Jesus Christ, and unless we engage with them in ways culturally relevant to them, and which do not presuppose previous knowledge (too often taken for granted) they never will.

It troubles me, but I do think it’s true to say that in the SEC and in the Kirk we have a church sustained by the traditions and cultural reference points taught to a previous generation. Culture has shifted radically, with the result that the same will not be able to be said in 20 years time.

Our challenge is clear. Whether the Kirk and the SEC can step up to the mark to address what it means to live out the Great Commission in the 21st century is less so.

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Cal

25/08/2010

I didn’t really understand who this programme was aimed at, or even what its aim was.

Yes, numbers have fallen, but perhaps the small number of people who remain are there because they actually want to be, not because it’s the done thing on a Sunday morning.

And personally, I rather like the idea of a church “sustained by traditions”. Clearly the church has to be relevant to modern society, but in abandoning the traditions of worship then you lose the centre of why the church exists in the first place.

There was something very Presbyterian about the programme with its “we’re doomed” mentality. I find the SEC generally more positive in outlook.

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John

25/08/2010

The only book the presenter seemed to have used in his research was ‘The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000’ By Callum G Brown – indeed Callum Brown was one of the speakers. The thesis of this well argued sociological study is that “quite suddenly in 1963 something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significanceâ€. That something he identifies as new media, new gender roles and a moral revolution which has dramatically ended peopleâ€™s conception that they lived Christian lives.â€ It could be said to have happened as â€œsex beganâ€ between the end of the Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP as the poet Philip Larkin so famously put it.”
To balance this statistical decline the programme flagged up some of the “church without walls ” iniatives in a lame sort of way. All in all a most unsatisfactory programme that only told half the story.

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Kenny

25/08/2010

Good crit Kelvin. My reflection at the end of the programme was, “Lord, we visited this stuff over 30 years ago, and have come out of it stronger and better Church in the SEC.” Hopefully, we stopped longing for ‘the good old days’ a long time ago!

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MartinRitchie

26/08/2010

I thinking “Pausing Place” makes a good point about needing to creatively engage with society. From my own experience of working with a CofS congregation, this creative engagement is a weak spot for many.

As a counterpoint to the programme, interesting to note in the latest “Life and Work” a very positive article about a growing CofS congregation in Stornoway – and I mean really growing! So not all doom and gloom, and I’m sure there are many more examples of bright spots, just as there are in the SEC!

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Graham Vahey

28/08/2010

If the C of S disappeared completely we would be at a loss. During the dark and bleak years of Thatcher’s reign she refused to visit Scotland for 5 years. When she did she expressed shock that we had Royal Regalia and ordered it to be removed immediately for safe-keeping to England. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ is now historical for its condescension to the Scots. She was none too pleased to be handed two reports on poverty in Scotland by the powerful Church and Nation Committee. Indeed, it was to this Committee that the population turned to for a moral lead during Thatcherism. When James VI (‘Jamie the Saxt’) became James I in England, the population turned to senior Scottish earls for a moral lead. Unfortunately, the Piskie Church does not give a moral lead in Scotland, apart from the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the recent past. The RC Church does pronounce on moral issues. Could it not be conceivable that all the major Churches could unite in a Committee to pronounce for Scotland on moral issues as the Church & Nation Committee once did?

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Aldous N. Gaiters

01/09/2010

Speaking as a Nonjuror myself I am sure the SEC has a right to a moral voice in Scotland. Taking the US daughter church of the SEC as a model you could see where the fissures would appear. There is room for a modern liberal Christian voice, but even I an old Liberal myself, would have to fear that such a voice might appeal to only a select few.

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