Category Archives: new writer

Berlin, God, new writer, prison, society

Freedom from Faith

Leave a comment

As the exceptionally prolonged warmth continues to enshroud Berlin, I recently got to thinking again about freedom and faith. My new apartment is just one minute’s walk to the east of where the wall used to stand, so it’s hard not to keep thinking about the lack of freedom experienced here less than 30 years ago. And about those even today whose freedom is severely restricted. Including those caught up in Christianity.

A convicted criminal once told me that freedom is not about limitless options and unrestricted choice but about consciously making a choice to think or to act in a certain way. Hence it is possible to experience greater personal freedom in prison than living as a wealthy person in open society. I can relate to that, in particular when it comes to making a conscious choice to be free from the absurd incarceration of religious faith.

Here are some of the things I used to believe and even had to believe since, without faith, it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)

That all Muslims go to hell since Islam is of the devil even though Muslims and Christians are undeniably descended from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

When you believe this lie, you no longer see the human being in the foreground, but you see first the religion. A reason for going to hell. Polarisation and  separation are immediate. You feel superior and any compassion is trumped by the need to see the demonised Muslim saved into the kingdom of the one true God.

Freed from this lie, you can see straight away the fellow human being in the foreground.  There is commonality and compassion. You see beauty in ashes and value the enrichment of multi-cultural diversity.

That a man is the head of a woman, just as Christ is head of the church.

When you believe this lie (if you are a woman), you have to accept an inferior position in a relationship with a man and you are prevented from taking the ultimate responsibility for your decisions. You are not free; you are bound by the chains of crass sexual discrimination and demeaning chauvinism.

When you believe this lie (as a man), your sense of superior authority gives birth to a condescending attitude towards women and obscures the benefits of female wisdom. You are likewise not free: you are robbed of the riches of genuine debate between the sexes, the need for fearless compromise and the power of  joint decisions.

Freed from this lie, you can appreciate and honour the multi-faceted differences of the opposite sex. Equality is no longer just a word. It is experienced and lived out in real life.

That you need to give very generously to God and His church.

If you believe this lie, you give away well over 10% of your net income each month and you give even more when the prophecies (men claiming to speak the words of God) start to flow about revival (millions of people becoming Christians), the need for larger buildings and multiple services. All of which turn out to be lies for which no subsequent apology is made.

Freed from this lie, you can make informed choices about how to spend your income, investing it in what really matters, especially helping others. Judas Iscariot, the poor soul predestined by a loving heavenly Father to betray Christ and go to hell, was largely right when he pointed out that money given to the church would be better spent on helping the poor.

That you cannot live out your sexuality if you are gay.

If you believe this lie, you are condemned to a life in which you either a) pretend to be straight, marry and live a fake life, b) cultivate hypocrisy by endlessly trying to hide your addiction to masturbation and pornography with a cloak of purity and self-sacrifice, or c) live a fruitless life of celibacy, denying the very essence of who you are. Whether you are gay due to nature or nurture, your sexual orientation not only defines you, it is you. Repressing yourself is the ultimate form of human incarceration.

Freed from this lie, you can accept yourself, and even rejoice in who you are. You can love and be loved. You no longer have to be fake. If you are true to yourself, you cannot then be false to anyone else. And that is the ultimate experience of freedom.

“Walls that run through cities start by running through human hearts, built by religion and maintained by misguided faith.”

 

Berlin, God, new writer, society, vision, war

Faith and Doubt

Leave a comment

Faith, according to the Bible, is a synonym for certainty:

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

So, when Christians say that they believe in one creator God, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, heaven and hell, the exclusivity of the Christian faith, and so on, they experience a real certainty about what they believe.

On the one hand, this is admirable and surely it is better to base the decisions you make in life on strong convictions than on some kind of half-baked, half-hearted notions. Even if, in reality, convictions do not determine our actions but describe them.

On the other hand, it is this certainty that creates deep division between the faithful and the heathen,  ultimately leading to domination, oppression and even war.

It is interesting that doubt, however, has never caused any division, wars, oppression, repression of artistic creativity and scientific research. On the contrary. And the contrast is very stark.

It seems to be that both on the micro level (individuals giving one another the benefit of the doubt) and on the macro level (entire cultures trying to comprehend one another and collaborate for the greater good) that doubt is a much more sound basis for our lives than certainty, which leads to bigotry.

Religion divides through its binding people into clans and cliques and providing them with a so-called divinely inspired narrative justification for their superiority.  We will never be able to get rid of it but we should at least see it for what it is and strive to limit the damage it causes.

So, in this context, a better definition of faith would be “the refusal to believe what is true” and a better definition of doubt would be “the basic requirement for the recognition and promotion of human dignity.”

“Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.” Voltaire.

 

 

Berlin, God, new writer, society, vision

Faith and Madness

Leave a comment

 

Last Tuesday I was cycling past a church building with my youngest son and was both taken aback and provoked when he asked me why the cross, fixed to the outside of the building, was the symbol of Christianity. Taken aback because I had brought him up as a Christian (taken him to church every week and read him Bible stories at bedtime, etc.) until the age of six when I lost my faith.  And I was provoked by the content of the ensuing conversation, which I will attempt to summarise rather than write a transcript.

I explained to him that Christians believe that God created the world, including human beings. I explained in a child-appropriate way (he is now nine years old) that the first human beings, although God loves them very much, did naughty things and disobeyed God and how this is called „sin“ and how every human being since then has inherited sin and that’s we all do bad things. God – who is also Jesus – still loves us very much, however, and he came to earth and died on a cross to forgive us and to take away our sins. Three days later Jesus rose again from the dead and some time later he ascended into heaven in bodily form and there he will be for all time and we will go to heaven to be with him forever if we choose to believe in him.

My son asked me to repeat the details again as he couldn’t grasp it all, and when I had finished repeating it, he said that all that was impossible and that it sounded just like a fairy story and added that you would have to be mad to believe that.

His comments provoked me to question what is actually the difference between religious faith and madness.  Then I realised that the answer is simple. If just a few people believe a strange story that sounds either impossible or mad, then we conclude that these people are probably deranged and require psychiatric help. However, if a sufficient number of people believes the story, then it becomes both acceptable and can even become a religion.

Conclusion: the only difference between insanity and Christianity is a number. That is to say, Christianity’s existence as a religion is  contingent solely upon the number of deranged people who believe this divisive and pernicious myth. Were there just a few people who believed it, it would be classified as madness.

Berlin, God, new writer, society, vision

Fundamentalist inconsistencies

Leave a comment

As I walk around my beautiful city, I often observe women wearing headscarves. I assume that the vast majority are of Turkish origin.

This got me thinking about Christian women and why so many of them do not wear headscarves, in particular during church meetings.

In the Bible it says in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5: “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved.”

I used to belong to a church where the members believe absolutely that the Bible is the word of God (often termed as fundamentalism) and that all its teachings should be respected and put into practice by believers.

I find it fascinating that our leaders taught us that the above quotation from the Bible is, however, a culturally determined aside that is no longer applicable to the church today. Women covering their heads amounted to so-called legalism from which the church should be set free. Hence, some young men prophesied wearing base-ball caps and women prophesied without wearing a head covering.

The same unusually liberal interpretation applied to this interesting quotation from 1 Corinthians 14:34: “Women  should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.”

Women were actually encouraged to speak up during our church meetings, since this verse too was passed off as a culturally determined relic. Women were not allowed, however, to preach or to lead churches.

I could provide many similar examples, but two suffice to get to my inevitable question: if the above two verses of the Bible are historical relics that are no longer applicable today, even for fundamentalists, how many other quotations fall into the same category? And how are we to distinguish the one category from the other?

All of which goes to prove, no matter how inerrant the Bible might be, the multi-faceted and completely differing ways of interpreting the same text render it errant in terms of its application to daily life. Ultimately, Christians, like every other socially determined group of human beings, do what they want to do and then find a narrative that can be used to justify their actions.

 

Berlin, European Union, God, new writer, politics, refugees, society, vision

Ban the burka?

Leave a comment

Recently I listened to a speech given by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the new German President, in which he spoke with such passion, factual accuracy and clarity about the importance of the European Union. It was an outstanding speech, almost on a level with Obama’s rhetorical skills, in which he pointed out, amongst many other things, the long-lasting peace, the abolition of dictatorship in certain key nations and the social advantages of being together as a union of nations. The financial advantages were barely mentioned. All of which goes to show how little the current UK government understands about the raison d’être of the EU, a fact that does not bode well for the current Brexit negotiations.

All the more surprising, therefore, is the recent EU decision to ban the wearing of the burka within its member nations. As I know from many of my friends here in Berlin, the majority of women wear headscarves and burkas for cultural, not religious reasons, and I am disappointed that the EU has not displayed its usual cultural tolerance in this issue. I do not think we should go down the line of “When in Rome, you absolutely have to do what the Romans do”, rather as Europeans have to do when they visit Muslim nations. Such a tit-for-tat attitude does nothing towards furthering cultural understanding and international co-operation.

I must admit, however, that the burka crosses a, let’s say “common sense” line, since it enables people to hide their identity when they are, for example, opening a bank account, registering with a local authority or crossing an international border. Yet this common sense issue surely has nothing to do with nationality, culture or religion. There are obvious, practical solutions to this issue if mutual human respect is to take precedence over cultural prejudice and racism.

To conclude, it occurred to me recently that the biggest problem with regards to the burka is that the wrong people are wearing it! How many beautiful women are daily hidden from our sight, when, actually, we would all benefit so much more, if only it were worn by people like Theresa May, Marine Le Pen and, for that matter, Donald Trump.

Berlin, Children, Education, God, new writer, society

Home alone

Leave a comment

In a strange turn of events, my daughter has gone on a spontaneous, three-week trip to Cambodia (as you do!) and my oldest son has finally gone to New York for a couple of weeks, leaving me home alone.

I am so rarely on my own that this is a really strange experience. Yet it has given me time to think. On the one hand, it is right that parents let go of their children as they mature, but on the other hand you miss them and want to be there for them.

Parenthood is such a privilege and a challenge. No matter what we parents get wrong (which is usually an enormous amount!), the bond is still so strong. Even as I am writing, I am have just observed a blackbird on my window sill collecting as many dead twigs in its beak as it can in order to build a nest for its next generation of chicks. Outside I can hear the male birds singing their hearts out in order to attract a mate. This reproductive and parental instinct lies so very deep in us.

Today I feel like celebrating my four children. They are all so different, yet the same somehow. Replete with great strengths and weaknesses. A curious combination of both mum and dad, genetics and society, joy and pain, free will and predestination. They have been through a lot, some of which I have shared in this blog before.

A few years ago, we went through an enormous family crisis, and most unfortunately, we were involved in a Christian sect. This sect tried to split our family up. They set everything up to take my wife and children away from me, even paying for the flight tickets from Germany to the UK. Tragically, my wife and two youngest children went along with this evil charade. At first. I was even instructed by the leaders of the sect not to go to the airport to say good-bye to them, can you believe it?

I will never forget that day, 1st October 2013, when I nonetheless secretly went to the airport to watch them board the orange and white Easyjet plane, flanked by two members of the sect. As the tears flooded down my face, I said good-bye to them in my heart, never knowing whether I would ever see them again. A few days later, a leader from the sect met with me and had the audacity to reprimand me for being so rebellious, sinful and stupid as to go to the airport in the first place.

The consequences of the sect’s interference have been very long-lasting. My youngest son did not see his father for one fifth of his life. The emotional scars are plain in him for all to see. My middle son had, amongst other things, his entire education messed up. My poor wife, who eventually realized  that she had been manipulated by the sect into abandoning her two oldest children, decided rightly to return to Berlin and was consequently ostracized not only by the sect in the UK but also the sect in Berlin who all had to do what the sect in the UK told them to do. Just like in “Enemy of the State”, existences were deleted from the web, Facebook sites were abandoned – the whole sect shut down and shut out. So-called Christians in Berlin for whom my wife had sacrificed her life and family. So-called Christian friends, together on a mission for Jesus, for whom she had given up countless hours of her life, caring for them and offering such generous hospitality in our family home. Every single one abandoned her and to this day has no contact with her.

Our two oldest children, who were street-wise enough to see through what the sect was doing, refused to return to the UK and remained with me in Berlin, even though they were told that police would forcibly take them to the airport. They hid and slept on the streets for a few days instead. They too have been unbelievably damaged by the reprehensible actions of this sect. And I am still trying to work it through with them four years on.

Thankfully, this courageous family bond and instinct  cannot be broken by a sick sect. Okay, we are still picking up the pieces, but each challenging day feels like a victory for love, grace and truth.

Am I angry and bitter? Not at all. have I forgiven these people? Definitely.

So what’s my point? First, on this beautiful spring day in Berlin I wanted to write a eulogy to my wife and children. I love them very much and I am very proud of them. Secondly, I would want anyone who reads this to be preserved from having anything to to with the pernicious lies of religion. I can promise you, especially if you are going through a hard time, you will receive so much more insight, truth and grace from the world than you ever will from any church.

Erm, I think I spoke too soon about being home alone. My middle son has just popped by and is hungry. Why do I have this feeling that I am about to kiss good-bye to that tasty piece of filet steak on the second shelf of the fridge?

Seconds later: “Dad, could you cook me that filet steak, you know, medium rare with that herb and mustard topping that you did last time? That was the best steak I ever tasted. Oh, yes, and with some homemade chips (aka fries) too?”

Yes, that bond and instinct runs so deep. The closest thing to altruism I know. It’s time, once again, like the blackbird, to gather the dead twigs and build my family …

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

Philip Larkin

Berlin, European Union, management, new writer, politics, society, vision

What? The UK, democratic?

Leave a comment

Thank you so much for your ongoing feedback. I read and replied to most of your e-mails personally and in this blog entry I’d like to respond to the issue in your e-mails that provoked me the most.

Several of you made the point that, if a political party lays out its plans for the country’s education system in its manifesto and then this party is elected by a majority of the population, then that party has every right to make any changes to the education system that were outlined in its manifesto. The fact that I personally don’t like those changes does not mean that the party is playing ping-pong with the schooling of the nation’s children and I simply need to accept the results of the democratic process.

At this juncture I feel compelled to point out that  the UK government does not really consist of a genuine democracy, but rather a hostile, point-scoring oscillation between just two parties, set in stone by the construction of the debating chamber with its two opposing benches. Compare this with the circular construction of the German Reichstag or the European parliament!

Secondly, the UK  is not a genuine democracy because it has a large group of completely unelected representatives, known as the House of Lords, consisting of church bishops and peers who were simply born into their privileged position and not elected. If anyone thinks that this unelected body has no power, just look at the way that it has twice defeated the government in the last two weeks on the issue of implementing a referendum that was voted for by a majority of UK voters. Democracy? Get real.

Thirdly, there is the issue of proportional representation. We have read in the news this week how the complete absence of any degree of proportional representation leaves vast swathes of the voting public feeling disenfranchised and alienated. The result of this could well entail the dissolution of the United Kingdom as Scotland pulls away from the UK and strengthens its links with Europe. Of course I realise that no system of democracy can fulfil every requirement, but this is no excuse for not having the kind of hybrid model that many other countries have around the world. Neither is the age-old, British argument that any kind of proportional representation would lead to a coalition and therefore a weak government. An argument that is even used to justify moving the electoral boundaries shortly before an election in order to ensure a majority in key constituencies for the party that is in power.

True democracy, irrespective of the precise details of its format, is very costly. It requires lengthy dialogue, exhaustive dialectic, a humble willingness to compromise, cultural understanding, a sensitivity to linguistic subtleties, and much more besides. And there are no shortcuts. Democracy has sadly become a value that we increasingly have to fight for against a backdrop of racism, isolationism and terrorism. The Dutch, today, can be very proud of themselves.

So, write that book, post that blog, take to the streets, however you want to do it, but let’s agree to fight together to keep true democracy alive. And let’s also never forget, there can be no democracy without the freedom of speech.

“A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize.”  Winston Churchill.

 

Berlin, Children, Cooking, new writer

Lentil burgers

Leave a comment

Time to a break from the heavier contributions and to provide another of my self-made recipes. This is something that I invented for my vegetarian son whose flight to New York for tomorrow has just been cancelled. Darn it! I’ve just made some of these for him to cheer him up.

Method and ingredients

Soak the red and yellow lentils (chana dal) for a few hours and boil them briefly but leaving them a bit firm and certainly not soggy. The burgers will have more of a “meaty” effect/texture of you leave at least the chana dal a bit firm!

Meanwhile fry up the following mix:

  • Onions
  • Garlic (optional and not too much)
  • Peppers (red and green)
  • Mushrooms (lots of)
  • Kidney beans (mashed up)
  • A tomato if you have one to hand
 Season generously with:
  • Vegeta
  • Pepper
  • Salt
  • Sugar
  • Paprika
  • Thyme
  • Mixed herbs
  • Fresh basil
  • Fresh chives
  • Fresh parsley
  • Fresh coriander (small amount if available)
  • Sambal oelek
  • Curry powder (small amount optional)
  • Lemon juice (small amount optional)
 Then mix the two mixtures together (cooked lentils and fried vegetables) with 2 whisked eggs and a cup of plain flour and a sprinkling of breadcrumbs.
Finally, shape them into burger shapes, coat them lightly in breadcrumbs and gently shallow fry until golden brown on both sides.
If desired, add some goat’s cheese to the mix for extra flavour and texture.
If you are not a strict vegetarian, these burgers also taste great sandwiched in a bun with a couple of strips of fried bacon and some ketchup and/or chili sauce.
Enjoy!
Berlin, Education, European Union, new writer, politics, society, vision

Bad grammar

Leave a comment

So, the latest UK budget includes £320 million to fund the return of the good, old-fashioned grammar school. Personally – and speaking as a teacher – I am in favour of a selective secondary education system – provided that it has some safety mechanisms built in so that, for example, late developers can switch schools if they need to.

There are, however, two issues that I find ridiculous about these latest proposals to mess around yet again with the British education system.  First, there is still no hint of any politician with a passionate, innovative, forward-looking vision for schooling that better prepares young people for the unstoppable advances of technology and globalization. A vision that might include, for example, deconstructing the obsolete modernist division of the school timetable into discrete subjects taught in narrow blocks of time. Secondly, I am disappointed by the appalling way that the education system has for the whole of my lifetime been used as political football, demoralising educationists and screwing up the destiny of millions of children.

Hence, as usual, the conservative party blames the labour party for blocking the re-introduction of grammar schools and selective education, as if to forget that it was the conservative party that abolished grammar schools and brought in non-selective, comprehensive education in the first place!

Yet the politicisation of education in the UK is only the tip of the iceberg. The real issue – which seems to receive almost no attention – is that nearly all the children of politicians attend private schools, known actually as “public” schools. (See Footnote 1).

Even to this day, the majority of Oxbridge students  still come from the private schools and go on to be senior politicians (e.g. David Cameron, Theresa May, Tony Blair), civil servants, journalists, diplomats, doctors, lawyers and businesswomen and men. For as long as this is the case in the UK, why should any politician be seriously concerned about the state education system? More than anywhere else in Europe, the UK education system is no more than a socially constructed set of keys that unlock the door of future financial security. It has very little to do with either academic or applied knowledge, applicable skills or life-enriching culture.

A very brief comparison with other European countries, where politicians’ children predominantly attend state schools, serves to confirm this opinion as fact.

Marx was right when he observed that capitalism can only thrive when there exists within its ranks an alienated underclass. Surely Theresa May must know deep-down that her pontificating about meritocracy and access for all is no more than empty, political posturing? Or maybe she doesn’t? After all she went to an independent Roman Catholic school and then on to St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

I rest my case. For today. Have a nice weekend.

Footnote 1: I hate to sound cynical, but maybe the reason this issue receives little attention has something to do with a) that fact that these private schools are called public schools as if to disguise their identity and to imply that they are accessible to all children and b) because many of the most successful journalists also attended public schools and are either blind to the issue or are happy not to disturb a stable, self-perpetuating status quo.

Berlin, God, new writer, refugees, society, war

What is truth?

Leave a comment

Okay, so my blog entry from last week about God’s and many christians’ attitude to the persecution and murder of children in Syrian prisons caused a bit of an angry reaction in some readers. Sorry about that. It was not really my intention.

So here is my reply, in particular to the preacher who took objection to my “ridiculously naive, unacademic and fundamentalist” interpretation of Romans 9:8 or Galatians 4:23 and John 14.6.

I admit to feeling humbled and challenged by what she and others wrote. Including those who wrote that I am bitter and sour and just want to get my own back on the church for what happened.

I’d like to deal with the second point first because it is more straight forward. I am not bitter and sour, largely because I have been attending an amazingly high quality therapy for the last three years that has helped me to come to terms with all that has happened. Through this therapeutic process, I have learnt both not to bear any grudges and to accept the full responsibility for what happened. I have absolutely no one to blame except myself.

If I were to have an agenda, it would be simply to provoke others to question seriously whether or not they are trapped in a sect, as I was, or whether  they are living  their lives in a liberated, responsible and meaningful way.

Now to the second question. We are often taught that the truth is an absolute, otherwise it cannot be truth. That is, however, a singularly western non-sequitur. And the objections of Frau Dr. D. that my suggested interpretation of certain Bible texts was arrogantly naive provides significant evidence for this.

I honestly believe that this woman is a very sincere, studious, devout Christian who truly believes in Jesus and in the text of the Bible. Her underlying conviction is that my suggested interpretation of is based on a specific culturally-determined interpretation of the texts that is out of kilter with reality, history and the most respected methods of textual interpretation. She argues, and this cannot be denied, that, according to the Bible, Jews, Christians and Muslims all have the same roots in the one and the same God.

Ultimately, what this has shown me is that, even if I were to accept that the Bible alone is the infallible word of God, the breadth of completely differing interpretations by sincere believers ultimately transforms infallibility into subjectivity.

Believers who want to argue differently set themselves up as arrogant know-alls with a superior level of revelation and the obvious result is division, persecution and conflict. Which is in itself an abomination in the eyes of a loving God. It also means that God’s word cannot ultimately be regarded as infallible since subjective interpretation takes precedence over his ability to communicate infallibly with his creatures. And how absurd is that?

So, back to the bizarre syllogism that the truth is an absolute, otherwise it cannot be truth. Ultimately, both Dr D. can be right in her interpretation and so can the fundamentalists.

Therefore, paradoxically, there is a reality even higher than the truth itself, and it is this: that the truth is always subjective. I rest my case.

‘Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.’  Mahatma Gandhi