Confessing Evangelical

John H April 15th, 2009

Peter Ould linked Giles Fraser’s Easter piece for the Guardian, “A merciful crucifixion”, in which Revd Fraser argues “how important it is for Christians to insist upon a non-sacrificial reading of the death of Christ”.

Fraser describes sacrificial understandings of the death of Christ – and the understanding of the Eucharist as a sacrificial meal – as “a disgusting idea, and morally degenerate”. He argues that Jesus rejected the whole concept of sacrifice (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”), and continues:

The Gospel is clear. I am with the hunchback. I am with the one cast out. He became one with the rejected and the cast out. And thus he suffered the same fate. This is not to endorse sacrificial theology but to condemn it.

As Peter points out, Fraser’s take on the crucifixion is hard to reconcile with Isaiah 53, and indeed much else (including Jesus’ own words). In addition, I would say that what Fraser is espousing is a theology about the cross, not a theology of the cross, to use the distinction described in a post at the excellent Mockingbird blog.

As the writer of the post, Jacob Smith, puts it, a theology about the cross quickly becomes “sentimental and therapeutic as opposed to healing and salvific”:

This is because a theology about the cross sees us in this cruel world as chiefly victims; and hence because misery loves company we are called to gaze upon Jesus as the ultimate victim, one with whom sufferers can identify. Therefore, since we are victims, what we need is affirmation and support.

We can see this in Fraser’s article, where what is in view is Jesus’ sharing our victimhood on the cross (“I am with the hunchback. I am with the one cast out”). However, as Revd Smith points out, Jesus himself rejects the idea that he goes to the cross as a passive victim: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18)

The cross is not about how Jesus shares the fate of “us poor misunderstood victims”. Rather:

[A] theology of the cross points out that Jesus suffered and died alone because all of us poor misunderstood victims, are actually at odds with God and were in the crowd shouting �crucify him.� [...] It sees all of us not as victims who are just misunderstood, but as the victimizers who have killed Jesus.

It is precisely because we are the victimizers, not the victims, in the story of the cross, that a theology of the cross “sees us as sinners for whom Jesus became sin and died in order to forgive (2 Corinthians 5:21)”. For Fraser, by contrast, the victimizers of Jesus are those other people, over there: the state functionaries and religious leaders whom he feels able to look down on (perhaps muttering, as he does so, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets”).

As Revd Smith concludes:

Therefore, a theology of the cross, as opposed to simply inoculating our conscience to sin and our own culpability in it, finds us guilty of the sin that we have committed, and states that we should be justly condemned for it, while at the same time stating our penalty has been paid for and we are 100% forgiven. A theology of the cross keeps us in our proper place, as helpless sinners, and keeps Christ in His proper place, as our Lord and Savior.

Update: Peter Ould blogs on Fraser’s article, looking in more detail at the original biblical texts.

• Theologians of the Cross , Theology
• Comments(5)

John H March 2nd, 2009

The Theos think tank has published a report, entitled Faith and Darwin (PDF), on British attitudes towards evolution and Christianity. The report is based on a survey of 2,060 adults across the country, and the Guardian has an interactive map of the results.

The survey was based on 25 questions, of which I’ve selected the ten most interesting below. I’d be interested to know what people’s answers are to these questions – my own answers will be in the first comment to this post. I’ve omitted the question asking about people’s religious beliefs, so please state that as well if you think it will help illuminate your answers.

1. Which of these four statements about the origin of human life do you think is most likely to be true:

1. Humans evolved by a process of evolution which removes any need for God
2. Humans evolved by a process of evolution which can be seen as part of God�s plan
3. Humans evolved by a process of evolution which required the special intervention of God or a higher power at key stages
4. Humans were created by God some time within the last 10,000 years

2. Darwinian evolution is the idea that life today, including human life, developed over millions of years from earlier species, by a process of natural selection. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion of Darwinian evolution?

1. It is a theory so well established that it�s beyond reasonable doubt
2. It is a theory that is still waiting to be proved or disproved
3. It is a theory with very little evidence to support it
4. It is a theory which has been disproved by the evidence

3. Different people have different opinions on the relationship between evolution and Christianity. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion (irrespective of whether or not you are a Christian)?

1. Evolution and Christianity are totally incompatible: you can�t believe in both
2. Evolution presents some challenges to Christianity but it is possible to believe in both
3. Evolution and Christianity are wholly compatible and there is no tension at all between the two
4. Evolution and Christianity are totally disconnected subjects and have nothing to do with one another

4. Some people think there is a purpose behind evolution whereas others do not. Which one of the following statements best describes your opinion (irrespective of whether or not you believe in evolution)?

1. Evolution is a chance process with no ultimate direction or purpose
2. Evolution involves chance but this is doesn�t disprove an ultimate direction or purpose
3. Evolution does not involve chance as it is a process directed by God or some other force.

5. Some people believe that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside evolution in schools, whereas others disagree. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion?

1. Intelligent Design should be taught alongside evolution in science lessons
2. Intelligent Design should be discussed in other lessons, such as Religious Education
3. Intelligent Design should not be taught or discussed in schools at all

6. Which one of the following statements best describes your opinion of the relationship between human beings and other living things?

1. Human beings are just another species of animal and have no unique value or significance
2. Human beings are like other animals but are particularly complex and this complexity gives humans value and significance
3. Human beings are uniquely different from other living things and so have a unique value and significance

7. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion regarding what evolution tells us about the purpose of life?

1. Evolution tells us that there is no ultimate purpose to life.
2. Evolution fits well with the idea that there is an ultimate purpose to life
3. Evolution tells us nothing about whether there is an ultimate purpose to life or not

8. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion about science?

1. Science can explain everything
2. Science can�t explain everything yet but it will do one day
3. Science explains many things but there are some things it will never be able to explain

9. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion about the relationship between science and religious belief?

1. Science totally undermines religious belief
2. Science challenges religious beliefs but they can co-exist
3. Science positively supports religious belief
4. Science neither supports nor undermines religious belief

10. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your view of the creation account at the start of the Bible?

1. It is a literal and accurate account of the origins of everything
2. It is an ancient attempt at a scientific explanation which has now been disproved
3. It is an ancient myth of real historical interest but with no scientific basis today
4. It is a theological account which explains the meaning and purpose of the universe, not intended as science

• Evolution , In the News , Science
• Comments(16)

John H January 20th, 2009

Trying to get this post out while George Bush is still president – half an hour or so to go, I think.

The Guardian had a special pull-out section on “The Bush Years” at the weekend. You can probably guess most of the contents without bothering to read it, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to highlight two of the positive points made about Bush and his time in office.

First, Colonel Tim Collins profiles General David Petraeus. He praises the “Petraeus approach” to dealing with the early 21st century’s “struggle of law over chaos and the fight for justice”:

["War on terror"] is a term he rejects. His approach is to eschew any trapping of legitimacy for the killers and the thugs. His approach is to deal with them for what they are: criminals with no authority, no mandate nor any right to do what they do.

But for every effort in knocking down equal effort is expended in setting up: institutions, ministries, police units, indigenous military forces. It is what sets his approach apart. It’s the long war. It is putting the onus on the host nation to succeed.

“His finest hour is yet at hand”, concludes Col. Collins.

Second, one really solid triumph of the Bush presidency: combating Aids in Africa:

Over the past five years, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) has saved close to two million lives by providing antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive Africans. It has helped ensure 240,000 babies are born without the virus by giving their mothers drugs to prevent them passing it on at birth.

The Bush administration has committed vast sums to this programme: it received $15bn for the first five years, and was renewed in July with a budget of $48bn.

The article quotes Dr Francois Venter, head of the HIV Clinicians Society in South Africa, whom it describes as being “almost disbelieving in his praise of Bush”:

“I look at all the blood this man has on his hands in Iraq and I can’t quite believe myself but I would say it’s a bold experiment from the last people in the world I would expect to do it, and it is saving a lot of lives. You give these tablets to people and they resurrect themselves. To intervene on such a scale and make such a difference is huge.”

The article observes that there was an element of enlightened self-interest about the programme, with Colin Powell and the CIA persuading Bush that Aids was a national security issue for the US.

It further notes the role of “Christian evangelicals” and “conservative Republican senators” – not groups which normally get a good press in the Guardian! – in lobbying Bush to adopt the plan, and rebuts liberal criticisms over the inclusion of abstention as part of the overall strategy alongside monogamy and condom use.

Well worth reading the whole article. As an article in Slate observes, fighting Aids in Africa is not only an inherently noble cause, but probably the most effective way in which Bush could transform the poor reputation with which he leaves office.

• Politics
• Comments(6)

John H December 20th, 2008

What prompted my earlier post on the theology of the cross and the theology of glory was reading this article by Laura Barton, one of a flood of articles over the past few days on Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah” (a song which may achieve the unique distinction this week of being at both #1 and #2 in the UK singles chart, thanks to the head-to-head between X Factor winner Alexandra Burke and the late Jeff Buckley).

In her article, Barton contrasts Cohen’s original, 1984 version of Hallelujah with the “somewhat bleaker” later version as sung by Jeff Buckley and others. The final verse of the 1984 version reads as follows:

I did my best, it wasn’t much,
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch,
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya.
And even though it all went wrong,
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

The later version ends with the following instead:

Maybe there’s a God above,
But all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya.
It’s not a cry that you hear at night,
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light,
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.

I’ve described Cohen as a theologian of the cross before, and the question I’d like to ask about these versions of Hallelujah is this: in which of these does Cohen sing as a theologian of the cross, and in which does he sing as a theologian of glory?

Laura Barton describes the original as providing “a kind of defiance over a defeat”, but she argues that “it is the brokenness of the later version of Hallelujah that has always seemed to me the song’s most essential quality”. We might therefore conclude that it is the latter which represents the theology of the cross, seeing truth in a “cold and broken” hallelujah, in contrast to the vision of future glory in the 1984 version.

However, this is to misunderstand the theology of the cross, to mistake it for the nihilism that sees ultimate reality as consisting of nothing but suffering and meaninglessness. The theology of the cross can often be mistaken for nihilism and pessimism, a wet-blanket theology getting in the way of the victorious Christian life, but (as Forde points out) “it is not possible to have a theology of the cross without resurrection”:

Without the resurrection theologians cannot speak the truth about the human condition, and without hearing and confessing such truth we have no hope, no resurrection.

The theologian of glory is (as Forde puts it) always trying to “see through what is made and what happens so as to peer into the ‘invisible things of God.’” In that sense, nihilism, cynicism and pessimism are all manifestations of the theology of glory, because they claim to have “seen through” the apparent reasons for hope and happiness in the world so as to peer into ultimate reality: “what life is really like”.

By contrast, the theologian of the cross, knowing that suffering and death are both real and precursors to resurrection, is able to “speak the truth about the human condition”; as Luther puts it, to “call the thing what it is” (as Luther puts it). To exercise “sober judgment”, in St Paul’s words.

Hence it is in the 1984 version of Hallelujah that Cohen speaks most as a theologian of the cross. In the later version, he has (so he thinks) seen through both love and faith, being left only with a “cold and broken” hallelujah (which is no hallelujah at all). This sounds “cross-shaped”, but the lack of resurrection reveals it to be the theology of glory, disguised as nihilism.

In 1984, by contrast, Cohen speaks as a true cross-theologian, calling the thing what it is: “I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya”. He may experience suffering and the cross (“even though it all went wrong”), but a resurrection hope remains:

I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

• Music , Theologians of the Cross
• Comments(6)

John H December 13th, 2008

Polly Toynbee devotes her latest column to the issue of “assisted suicide”. She is strongly in favour of this, with the fervour of one who has (it should be noted) watched her mother die an excruciating death, and who clearly believes that assisted suicide would have been a better and kinder option. Even though I disagree strongly with her arguments, I have to acknowledge I have not yet been through anything like that kind of experience.

For Toynbee, the battle lines are clearly drawn. On the one side, there are “the religious”, bullying society into forcing people to die “excruciating physical and mental torture on people who want to die”. On the other, there are those campaigning for “civilised laws” in which the terminally ill are able “to ask their doctor for a kindly fatal injection”.

And as she says at the start of the article, victory for her side of the argument seems inevitable:

This battle will be won, make no mistake. It will be won before my generation, the baby boomers, go to our graves, just as we made sure no one could discriminate against us in middle age.

With the moment of victory at hand, the gloves can finally come off. No longer will palliative care be paid more than lip-service as an alternative to the “kindly fatal injection”. To be sure, Toynbee does indeed pay it the appropriate lip-service:

Palliative care is a wonderful thing, easing many people’s last months with the skill of this relatively new specialism.

However, her true attitude is revealed in the following sentences:

But it is a profession dominated by the religious, with a Mother Teresa attitude towards life: only God ordains birth and death. It has led to a conspiracy of silence about the many miserable deaths they cannot help enough; they mislead people into imagining that morphine, well administered, can keep everyone calm in a cloud of peace.

In other words, palliative care is a religious enterprise aimed at forcing people to stay alive, and misleading the public as to the nature and outcome of their work. Hard to see how the hospice movement can continue to grow if that sort of attitude towards its work becomes more widely accepted; if it is seen as a religiously-motivated conspiracy to cruelly withhold the “kindly fatal injection” from those approaching death or facing a life of incapacity.

This is an issue where I feel overwhelmed by powerlessness and despair whenever I contemplate it, because I have no doubt that Toynbee is right: that her generation, having redefined (to its own short-term advantage) every other stage of life, will succeed in redefining the boundary between life and death in the same way; and leave the rest of us to deal with the consequences later.

Part of the problem is the lack of traction for “non-religious” arguments against assisted suicide. The knock-down argument for the pro-euthanasia lobby is, “No-one’s forcing you to kill yourself in those circumstances; this is about individual freedom of choice. If your religious views compel you to live through agony, fine – but don’t force other people to do that when they don’t share your beliefs.”

But the fact is that we are moving inexorably towards a situation in which society’s attitudes towards life and death are going to be irreversibly altered. In which it is taken for granted that you live for so long as you have a certain basic level of health and capacity, and once you lose these you turn to the doctor and her/his “kindly fatal injection”. Any other option will come to be seen as quixotic, even selfish – just as the “kindly” option of aborting disabled children results in those who choose not to do so being condemned in some quarters for their selfishness.

That always has to be the basis of a “secular” argument against euthanasia: that, in the end, “choice” for the few will become compulsion for the many. But that is a relatively complex argument, and one that can be wafted away with a few mumbled words about maintaining “all the necessary safeguards”; while a combination of “freedom of choice” and sympathetic media portrayal of terminally-ill “right to die” campaigners sweeps all before it.

However, in the end I find it difficult to argue on this issue (not least because of my lack of direct experience as noted above). There’s not much I can do other than cry “Lord, have mercy!”

So, another appeal for assistance: what do people see as the best arguments against euthanasia, in particular arguments that are likely to be persuasive for those who have a largely secular worldview?

• Politics
• Comments(13)

John H November 4th, 2008

The Guardian has a good review by Jonathan Sumption of the Royal Academy’s Byzantium exhibition (see previous post).

Sumption begins by describing the way in which the negative attitude of “Enlightenment” figures such as Gibbon and Voltaire towards Byzantium finds echoes in the “instinctive suspicion” which modern generations feel towards the Byzantine world:

It may be true, as Cyril Mango observes in his introduction to the catalogue of the Royal Academy’s new exhibition, Byzantium 330-1453, that “what used to be called superstition is now called spirituality”.

But we are still wary of theocratic states, enclosed value systems and patterns of daily life controlled by intense and manipulative religious emotion. So the study of Byzantium remains an arcane pleasure reserved for archaeologists, aesthetes and enthusiasts.

As Sumption continues, “this is a pity”, given the “incomparable contribution to European civilisation” made by medieval Byzantium:

For centuries it defended Europe against successive waves of Asiatic invaders. For more than a millennium, it was the sole political embodiment of Hellenic culture. Its scholars, compilers and scribes were responsible for preserving much of the literary and scientific legacy of ancient Greece. Without them, we would know almost nothing of Plato, Euclid, Sophocles or Thucydides, apart from isolated fragments written on papyrus.

Nor was Byzantium just a deep-freeze preserving the best of the ancient world:

It was a cosmopolitan society, standing at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa. At the height of its prosperity, Constantinople was the richest and most populous city of the medieval world. Its aristocracy and civil service laid out their riches in books, ivories, jewellery and metalwork. The Greek church, with its dramatic liturgy, its rich symbolism and its powerful mystical tradition inspired buildings, paintings and sculpture of great beauty and originality.

Byzantium created a unique fusion of classical, Christian and Asiatic traditions, which deserves more than the sneers of the age of Enlightenment.

That said, even an exhibition as magnificent as that currently on display at the Royal Academy cannot hide the fact that the “mentality” of Byzantium is “hard for the secular west to recapture”. The artefacts in this exhibition “require a more sustained effort of historical imagination” than viewing a Titian or Rembrandt:

At the time of their creation, they were part of a total aesthetic experience. We have to place ourselves in a world that loved drama and splendour, and regarded neither as gaudy or superficial; a world that looked up to the stiff orientalising court of a half-divine emperor, with its elaborate ceremonial and its finely graded hierarchies of officials and servants; a world of constant processions of dignitaries wearing gorgeous robes, jewellery and gaudy cosmetics, each according to his status; of churches dimmed by incense pouring from metal braziers; of imperial chapels populated by crowds of officials, priests, eunuchs and soldiers, the air filled with hymns and chants…

As a consequence, Sumption observes, the objects at the RA “look slightly incongruous in their glass cases”:

The icons and liturgical objects were made to be carried, to be touched and kissed. The rich materials of which they were made were intended to be stroked. The subtle patterns in the fabrics could be seen only when they moved. Mosaics were designed for the dim glow of lamps and candles, not the harsh direct light favoured by modern museum practice.

So an exhibition like this can only be a faint image of the world from which these objects are taken. But that’s not going to stop me counting the days until mid-January, when I’m due to visit the exhibition.

• Art
• Comments(4)

John H October 31st, 2008

Martin Rowson nails it with today’s Guardian cartoon (language warning).

If you don’t know what this is about – lucky you! – then click here for some background.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s found himself reaching this week for Lord Macaulay’s line about how there is “no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality”.�On the other hand, what Rowson’s cartoon perhaps misses is the likelihood that the ludicrous over-reaction to the Ross/Brand situation is the result of people looking for something to take their minds off the financial and economic problems of recent months.

• In the News
• Comments(3)

John H October 12th, 2008

The Revd Dr Ian Paisley made the following contribution to Tuesday’s debate in the Commons on the government’s rescue plan:

“I know there are many beliefs in this house and my belief in God is well known. But I trust that our whole nation will turn in repentance and cry to God for an intervention so that the calamity will not come on our children and the babes in the cots.”

Now, I’m no fan of Ian Paisley, but what I found interesting was the response that his statement attracted from secular commentators. Not that they took it seriously – heavens, no! – but nor could they quite manage to laugh it off entirely. The BBC and the Guardian’s sketchwriters both resorted to nervous chuckles along the lines of “Well, it might just work”.

Which brings us to an alarming post by Charles Arthur about the next shock that will be hitting the mortgage market in 2010. You really need to read that post, and I’m not going to attempt to summarise Arthur’s argument here. What I found eye-opening was the reference to “negative amortization mortgages”, a concept of which I had not previously been aware. Arthur quotes this Credit Suisse report which describes these mortgages as follows:

The �big brother� of interest-only mortgages is the negative amortization mortgage, which in recent years has gained popularity. The neg-am mortgage, which is often used synonymously with �option ARM�, provides homebuyers with an extra payment option each month. In addition to paying the fully amortized payment or just interest costs, an option ARM actually allows borrowers to make a �minimum� payment that is less than interest costs.

In other words, unlike a repayment mortgage (where you pay all the interest and some of the capital each month) or an interest-only mortgage (where you pay all the interest but none of the capital each month), a neg-am mortgage involves paying only some of the interest, with the rest being added to the principal. So you owe more at the end of the month than you did at the beginning. (Can you say “death spiral”? Knew you could.)

The problem with negative amortization mortgages is that “while the subprime bomb has exploded, the option-ARM still hasn’t”. By 2010, these mortgages will be coming up for rate resets, and borrowers will face monthly increases of up to 40%. And as we now know, if one person can’t pay their mortgage, that’s a problem for that person – but if 10 million people can’t pay their mortgage, that’s a problem for all of us.

Which is where Ian Paisley comes in. What Dr Paisley did was to raise the discomfiting thought that the “calamity” we now face may be God’s judgment upon our society; that the proper response to the credit crunch may not be recapitalisation but repentance.

So, is the credit crunch a manifestation of the wrath of God? I’m inclined to say no. Rather, it was the previous behaviour of the financial system – the untrammelled covetousness and greed – that was itself a manifestation of God’s wrath on our society.

This can be seen from Romans 1:18-32, in which the dynamic described by Paul is one in which people, in turning away from God, “became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened”. God’s response to this is then summed up in the solemn words at the beginning of verse 24: “Therefore God gave them up…”. Rather than restraining their behaviour, he gave people up to the worse excesses of their own desires.

Paul’s focus in Romans 1 is on sexual sins, but the same principles apply to sins of greed and covetousness. What better example could there be of the madness that has taken hold of us in the past few years than mortgages in which the monthly payments don’t even cover the interest; in which spiralling debts and negative equity are not a sad consequence of the loan going wrong, but are an integral feature of the loan itself? It’s hard to think of a better example of “futile thinking” and “senseless minds”.

The wrath of God is often misunderstood as God “zapping” a few people for their bad behaviour (like the Gary Larson cartoon which depicts God pressing the “SMITE” button on his computer as he watches some hapless person walk underneath a suspended grand piano). Romans 1, however, shows us that the bad behaviour of some is a manifestation of God’s wrath upon all.

In other words, negative amortization mortgages are not something that attract God’s wrath: they are God’s wrath. And as Ann Pettifor argued in yesterday’s Guardian, they (and the other manifestations of financial insanity that are now dragging us down) are the culmination in a centuries’-long process, one tolerated and even encouraged by the church, of transforming usury from a sin into the foundation of our entire economic system.

• Economics , Theology
• Comments(3)

John H September 6th, 2008

Latest news from the madhouse: the AQA examination board has removed from the GCSE curriculum a poem by Carol Ann Duffy, “Education for Leisure”, which was claimed to “glorify” knife crime (the poem’s protagonist says “Today I am going to kill something, / Anything. / I have had enough of being ignored and today / I am going to play God.”).

Duffy’s eloquent response to this has been to write a poem highlighting a certain other English poet – one even more admired and respected than herself – whose work should, on the same basis, be axed from the AQA’s curriculum:

Mrs Schofield’s GCSE

You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
said Portia to Antonio in which
of Shakespeare’s Comedies? Who killed his wife,
insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt’s death?
To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark – do you
know what this means? Explain how poetry
pursues the human like the smitten moon
above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:
speak again. Said by which King? You may begin.

“Mrs Schofield” is the AQA examiner who first objected to “Education for Leisure”, describing it as “absolutely horrendous”. What I find absolutely horrendous is the thought that children’s educational accomplishments are being measured and assessed by someone whose appreciation for poetry and literature is illustrated by her reaction to having a poem written about her by Duffy:

She described the poem as “a bit weird. But having read her other poems I found they were all a little bit weird. But that’s me”.

Edit: I’m told that Mrs Schofield is in fact only an invigilator, not an examiner. This means she isn’t actually involved in marking or setting papers. That removes my concerns about her attitude towards poetry, and reinforces that the villain of the piece is the AQA exam board (plus a rent-a-quote Tory MP who “doesn’t believe in censorship, but…”). Speaking of which, do join D.S. Ketelby’s Facebook group, Memo to AQA Exam Board: Try Growing A Spine.

• Poetry
• Comments(4)

John H August 15th, 2008

Steve Bell probably had the best take I’ve seen on the Russia/Georgia conflict, in his cartoon earlier this week:

I’ve no sympathy for Russia, either. This is just a horrible mess with no clear “goodies” or “baddies”.

Steve Bell also hit it out of the park yesterday, with a wonderful cartoon – one of his best – in response to a pro-Conservative think-tank report which argued that northerners should be encouraged to move to the south-east, rather than any further attempts being made to regenerate northern cities.

• Politics
• Comments(6)