The end of a tyrant

It's been an interesting year. A tyrant ruler, who originally came to power because he was a soldier, holds on to power for an entire generation, dies in misery and degradation. He leaves a legacy of state-of-the-art glistening buildings, places of worship, military installations, megastructures to boost trade, opulent palaces for his own personal use complete with underground bunkers. He also leaves a legacy of hatred among his subjects. In his final days he uses foreign mercenary soldiers, to carry out massacres of innocent people, in a vain attempt to cling to power. I could be talking about Colonel Gaddafi, but equally I could be talking about Herod the Great, the ruler of Palestine when Jesus was born.

The stories of Jesus' birth are full of characters, Mary and Joseph, innkeepers, shepherds, wise men, King Herod, a donkey, camels, assorted farm animals, and a supporting cast of angels, soldiers, villagers, and those, like Mary's cousin Elizabeth, who were simply and quietly waiting for God to act. But the colourfulness and drama of the stories should not distract or cushion us from the real events they tell us about.

'Long time ago in Bethlehem' is in some ways a very misleading lyric. Cavemen were a long time ago; dinosaurs were a long time ago; the beginning of planet earth was a long time ago. But Jesus' birth was, as it were, yesterday, in comparison with those events. And the very similar stories of Herod and of Gaddafi are a reminder that human nature does not change in a few hundred years. These events didn't happen that long ago at all.

Nor was it a long way away. Even in Roman times goods could pass through Palestine, to Britain in the West and China in the East, and today we have constant reminders we are all part of one world. Nor was the place of Jesus' birth a quiet backwater where nothing happened. For a start it was right in the middle of the trade routes I've just mentioned. It was also a place of political ferment and revolution. The year of Jesus' birth was probably the one when Roman security forces, fed up with constant Jewish rebellions, swept down from Syria, brutally suppressing rebellion - and emphasising their point by crucifying 2000 of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

A generation after Jesus' death the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John recorded the most important life in History, and set about trying to explain it. Only two of them describe Jesus' actual birth. Matthew writes about Jesus' Jewish heritage, about King Herod but mainly about the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as telling us about the visit of the Wise Men. Luke begins his account by introducing us to the Jewish people like Zechariah who were faithful to God's promises and were waiting patiently and expectantly to see what God would do; and then he begins his account of Jesus' birth by referring to the Roman Emperor Augustus, who was was himself being hailed, or hailing himself, as the Saviour of the world. Mark, perhaps because he's well aware people know the nativity story already, doesn't write about Jesus' birth at all, but goes straight into what Jesus did as a man – healing people, teaching, performing miracles - and dying on the cross. And John, writing years later, begins his gospel by making absolutely clear that the man Jesus who came into the world was also the son of God who made the universe, died for the world, rose from the dead, and even now rules over us, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Let's enjoy the story of Christmas, and move on from the magic of the story to what it means; and always remember it's part of a much bigger story. 

Daily Telegraph article about 'Exam Board Cheating'

For some reason my comment to the Daily Telegraph article and Leader didn't 'take'.  So I wrote a comment in 'The Guardian' instead:
The issue here is the fairness. Pupils shouldn't be given an unfair advantage. In the bad old days this was ensured by Exam boards not giving any detailed information about what their questions would be about and the way they needed to be answered. Examination syllabuses fitted on one page of A4. The 'best' teachers, from the point of view of getting pupils through exams, were the ones who could predict what questions would come up. It was unfair on thousands of pupils, and wasteful in terms of not producing educated young people.
'Specifications', as they are now called, are A4 booklets of a hundred pages or so. They are very complicated, and, to make matters worse, change far too often, i.e. when the government gets a new idea into its head. However, at least the details are now transparent, as a result of which you don't have to have special, privileged, knowledge of the Examination system in order to prepare your pupils for the examination.
Seminars are therefore a vital means, though not the only one, whereby teachers can get a more accurate view of what the examinations will be like. They used to be arranged by local authorities, and the commercialisation of schools and the examination system is largely to blame for the present system's examples of unfairness. However, moral outrage at 'The Daily Telegraph's' 'shock revelations' doesn't really help.

Human Rights in Africa

Nigeria has just passed legislation making homosexual marriage illegal.  However, Nigerians are aware this doesn't go down well in the West.  Hence this article by Willie-Nwobu in 'Leadership', a magazine published in Abuja, attacking David Cameron's threat to cut aid to countries which do not respect human rights: 

http://allafrica.com/stories/201112010518.html 

This was my reply to the article:

I understand your outrage at the British Prime Minister's insensitive attitude at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Britons often display a patronising attitude towards Africa, which will probably continue until Africa attains greater political and economic strength. However, this in turn depends upon African nations developing a more science-based society. This also applies to attitudes regarding sexuality, where prejudice unfortunately carries more weight than what your own scientists and medical researchers have to say on the subject: to the best of my knowledge none of them are telling you that on the basis of their research homosexuality is evil. Nor do ours - rather what they tell us is that human sexuality, like intelligence and many other human phenomena such as how we perform in examinations, can be seen as a bell curve. This means that while most people might agree with what you are saying, from their own experience, a minority will not. This is where human rights come in, and the ability of a society to tolerate minority views. You don't have to agree with homosexuality: but it is highly important in modern society to allow rights to those with whom you disagree. There is a good deal of evidence that social and economic progress go hand-in-hand with how tolerant a society is: with most European countries this is axiomatic, and this may explain David Cameron's apparent insensitivity (and, perhaps ironically, a lack of tolerance to a widely held African belief.)

Referring to the Bible to underpin anti-homosexuality legislation is highly questionable. Taking the Bible as a whole as our authority it now seems that our ideas about slavery and about the status of women were wrong in the light of freedom in Christ. Many bible experts are telling us that we may be wrong in judging homosexuality as evil.