What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Why government assassinations are wrong

    Earlier this week we had the revelation that British military forces had targeted two citizens of this country in Syria and killed them using a remotely controlled drone.

    I’m aware of some concerns being expressed by the usual suspects – ie lefty guardian-reading knit your own sandals people who can be relied upon to object to such action. However, I’m also aware that such such action is also wildly popular in the country. Indeed, there are reports that the action is backed 2 to 1 by the general public.

    At that point, the Prime Minister might feel that he can sit back and relax, job well done. He has removed a perceived threat cleanly and without any great risk to British military personnel and he is backed by the British people. In any case, the opposition in parliament is in disarray – Labour electing a new leader, the Liberal Democrats annihilated by their inability to be seen as liberals and the SNP famous more for playing musical chairs in parliament than anything of any substance.

    However, it seems to me that whilst the views of the moderate UK majority are interesting they are certainly not the only views that need to be thought about. I’m not particularly thinking of those whose knees jerk like mine to oppose the military action either.

    I’m more concerned with those who are our opponents.

    I don’t believe that we can necessarily defeat religiously motivated terrorism by military might. I think we have to defeat it with ideas too. And by persuading people, constantly persuading people that the rule of law, expressed in a democracy is a better thing to live under than any other system of government. If we dare to think that the rule of law can become legitimately blurred on the edges of our jurisdiction (not sending people across the Syrian border but sending a drone is as blurred as it could get) then we start to find our own legitimacy more easily questioned by those who are opposed to our freedoms.

    To put it bluntly, I think we are better than this. Or at least I did. I think we need to be a society which does not allow its government to assassinate its citizens without a fair trial. Yes, I know there is “intelligence” and I also know that intelligence can be wrong. Remember Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone?

    If we become a society in which such behaviour is normal, how are we going to win any argument with those who currently live amongst us who have some sympathy for the ISIS cause, who are tempted to throw in their lot against the freedoms that the west possesses? If, in their minds, Britain can cross borders with weapons and wipe someone out arbitrarily, why shouldn’t they?

    Why shouldn’t they? That’s a real question that not nearly enough people have been asking this week.

    The actions of the Prime Minister in ordering this action brutalise our world and will make our opponents better able to recruit people who believe soft UK targets to be legitimate.

    To whom shall we be compared? Shall we be like them or are we better than that? Is it true that Putin’s Russia, sent out state assassins to kill Alexander Litvinenko on the streets of London? If it is, are we any better by targeting Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin in Syria.

    I believed we were better than this. I still think that should be our aspiration.

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72 responses to “Baptism and the Churches”

  1. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Thanks Kelvin and all for the interesting discussion. As a member of the Episcopal Church in the US, I only ever used the Baptismal Covenant in an argument against the necessity of the proposed Anglican Covenant. For me, the Baptismal Covenant is an assent to the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, so I saw absolutely no need of another covenant. In fact, I don’t see the Baptismal Covenant as something different from the New Covenant.

    With respect to whether Baptism or the Eucharist is a/the sacrament of initiation, wouldn’t the answer be both? In the early church, the person was baptized and received the Eucharist during the same service.

    Also, I wonder if people from other Anglican churches are aware of the great diversity of views held by Episcopalians in the US. That all the orders of ministry should be open to all the baptized seems to me simply a matter of the justice and equality that all Christians should strive for as members of the Body of Christ.

    Reply
  2. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Sorry, I’m posting on Erika’s computer, but the comment above is by me, June Butler (aka Grandmère Mimi).

    Reply
  3. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    It’s so refreshing to read a discussion where everyone’s listening and learning through that dialectical process. Here’s my tuppennyworth: the disparaging mention of magic by churchpeople always makes my hackles go up – mostly as our Christian legacy of persecution of wise healers as witches is still largely unacknowledged and certainly unatoned – but also because the RC in me hears this as a facile Protestant jibe against metaphysics (if you want my views on that buzzword look here: http://robertpirsig.org/Alchemy.htm ) and though Vat 2 officially u-turned on slavery (yay! who says the RC church can’t change, eventually) it didn’t move away from an essentially sacramental view of Christian ministry.
    I feel that underlying this discussion may be a difference in sacramental theology. I hold the traditional view that through the creation, the incarnation and ongoing sanctification, the Spirit of God is at work metaphysically in the world and that means neither solely spiritually nor physically but betwixt and between. The RC church is just as guilty of virulent hatred of non-clerical women healers as others but the convivial nature of the relationship which sometimes occurs between Roman Catholic and ‘curandero’ (wise traditional healer) in Latin America is for me an affirmation of the ecological connections inherent in both cosmologies – though often forgotten in the RC church it must be said.
    The part of the SEC liturgy I find most alienating is ‘Lord unite us in this sign’. This speaks to me of cognition not communion. In these words I feel the lack of belief in a metaphysical reality. I feel that this discussion may have brought up a similar divide in concept about baptism: is it or is it not efficacious?

    Reply

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