On My Congregational Travels

This time my congregational travels did not take me far: local Methodists. Despite living in this house for nearly eight years I have not been there once. And as I said afterwards, back in 1980-82 I attended a youth fellowship group and made it into part of my Ph.D research, using the misname Risemere Methodist Church and compared it with an evangelical Anglican church in an estate. (One person who was a leader then is still attending now: he was 28 when I was 21. I'm 58 now. I recognised no one else, which is also a testimony to living an anonymous life even in a suburban village.)

It was perhaps the wrong service to view, because it was a special service for children especially and thus had a swollen congregation. There were forty mixed age adults and fifteen primary school children. I was told after that the congregation normally averages out at thirty. These children have a 'messy church' on a Wednesday, apparently. The fact is that there is this outreach, as there is to scouts and others. I mentioned going to a URC 'Fresh Expressions' service kept going by attendances from within, and because they'd gone home it was cancelled and so I went home never to return. (And it also has outreach into uniformed youth.)

A chap I asked outside tagged on to me for a few food items and drinks afterwards in the church hall, so I spoke to him and another chap in particular. I didn't speak to the minister. I didn't even know she was the minister until she called herself it during the service.

This service was the 'Wastewatchers' service, and the Master of Ceremonies (let's say) said if it was waistwatchers then he would not qualify. For his age he said he was 6 with another 6 after it. Good strong voice and I think it was amplified even at a distance. It seems these children had recently had a pretend wedding. A girl was the bride and a girl the groom, probably because of the fifteen attending Sunday only three were male. Like in a real wedding, they'd made promises, and these were "what Jesus would have wanted" like being kind and being good (etc.). The 66 year old, a rather younger female youth worker, giving her last hurrah before going off to Birmingham, and an in between (age-wise) female gave a sort of theological theme. If I have it right, it was something out of nothing, something special out of something, and then (I think - but I was flagging by now) look after it all (as in wastewatchers, I take it.)

Thus we had the creation, and then (the linkage) that at this wedding (where who got married wasn't mentioned) Jesus mother was approached and Jesus turned water into wine, which was better not worse towards the end, and then presumably living with these. The youth worker took a jug of water and concealing the bottom of the glass as she held it, tipped the water in and some pale blackcurrant colour was evident as the water rose up the glass. And she said that, as well all know, Jesus went on to perform many miracles, and this had been the first.

Thus in one fell swoop the whole point of the miracle stories was lost, and the notion of 'reluctance' to perform miracles in the text was lost. Jesus was God and he was a magician. Now I know the objection here to my objection: it's only for kids. So is Santa Claus. The whole point of the water into wine tale is that it is an allegory of the Kingdom of God. Is it that difficult to express that message somehow, even to youngsters. After all, some of these sermonisings throughout could only be captured by older people than the children present.

Interesting that there was only one prayer in this, with the Lord's Prayer afterwards. The hymns were one "television viewers think is the only hymn we sing," the wearisome All Things Bright and Beautiful, followed by a very secular marriage hymn and then some terrible indigestible Jesus cult hymn (as I see it) by Graham Kendrick. I can't sing such, and didn't, and, as I say, I was flagging by now.

I was interested that, even in a local Methodist church, there were four television screens (too small for the distance of viewing). One was high among the organ pipes, presumably for anyone using the balcony (a "health and safety" issue, said the 66 year old during the service and thus no one was up there), two were one each in front of the aisles, and one faced the preacher off centre. The audio seemed to come from the back. The chap who met me and chatted afterwards was a steward and he operated the computer that put the words on the screen. The wedding hymn had words too small, but the rest were easily seen two lines at a time.

Interestingly, when I told him afterwards over drinks and eats that I used to attend Unitarian services, he never batted an eyelid, but when he said he and a friend attended St. John's Newland to see how they did all their music and the rest I said, "Ugh," as it is a Reform and nasty homophobic part of the Anglican Church. I was talking about once doing the music via prepared CDs and also the magazine. He said how useful I could be at their place. I said of also once doing the website, although another person who'd also left did the website most recently, and did it well. I said of about where I lived, and the connection between my charity landlord and the church, and yes by historical accident there is this funding but also funding for a number of other churches relating to the charity's founder.

As for the past minister there I knew best, I knew more about his movements and his final rather frustrating ministry (too many churches) prior to retirement. However, an interviewed for my Ph.D 'Liberal Methodist' minister was a name my chatting partner seemed to recognise, and I said of his movements and where he has been now for a long time. I also told of a traditionalist Methodist minister, who was a high Methodist like Wesley was before he set out, and thus became a lay Anglican, married to an Anglican vicar in Lincolnshire.

The one person I knew there told me where other leaders back in the earliest 1980s had gone. He was just the same, even down to satisfying his charismatic leanings in other gatherings from time to time. Back in the 1980s he was frustrated by the traditionalism of the worship approach, but presumably it has moved just enough in his direction to keep him. But he was never likely to move elsewhere.

I had a good chat about my academic background (describing the Ph.D, the MA in Theology), what I'd done. He asked me if I'd ever considered being a minister myself. Yes, I spent a year at Unitarian College but, "I was too heretical for the heretics." And this is the point. It wasn't as if I was some local who just turned up, but came with a baggage and a preference that really rules me out of joining in with this theological expression. They may have said, "See you next week," (er, there isn't one 'next week') but I said I'd be out of the Unitarians for about two years and I retain one social link there.

That was the danger, and the resistance from me going there, that I'd be pulled in. I left thinking I may go again but not soon. I'm more likely to resume going the the Quakers, but again from time to time only. Theology matters. If you don't believe it, you cannot express it.

Notes on a Successful Liberal Ministry

I am not involved in congregational religion now. From time to time on Sunday I will do no more than visit some churches and meeting houses in Hull, and get a sense of what is happening.

If I am asked, like on an application form, for my religion, I still put Unitarian: by which I still mean an open, evolving approach to faith, with an institutional identity and potential directions. If I am asked what my beliefs are like, I tend to say at the very liberal end of Christianity within Religious Humanism and something of a Western Buddhist soteriology. History and the limitations of doing history are important. I don't believe in 'cults of individuals' and so I follow no one. I am not a Christian in simple terms.


Nevertheless, I can still reflect upon what makes a successful liberal congregation and ministry.

For a liberal congregation to function well, it needs some characteristics and a ministry that draws the congregation together.

It needs to discuss: where its religion has come from and where it is journeying (directions). The notion of 'spiritual but not religious' gets us nowhere, a blank sheet that invites anything in. Because: the discussion has to be critical, has to discern the evidential and a consistency with the sociology of knowledge from the superstitious and interventionist supernatural. Identity and mission is important: that what happens is worth happening.

Yet such a congregation ought to give space: space for the quiet and for reflection. It's not all about discussion or content in the busy sense.

There should be a positive emphasis on including the other. It is unfortunate that not every congregation will be inclusive. Certain forms of religion attract certain social groups. Nevetheless the ethos should be inclusive socially and culturally: respect and expect respect. It's about breadth of vision and breadth of who is 'in'. Clearly the tribalist, racist, homophobe must be argued against.

From this follows a social vision that leads to practical action in the context of what a congregation can do.

If the church doesn't do reflective worship then it isn't really a church. There are many resources, traditional and liberal, and about identity, that can be used for reflection and contemplation and even generating a stance for action.

Hierarchy isn't always bad, but it ought to be justified by demonstrable spiritual experience, training, and emotional intelligence. Hierarchy is not an alternative to accountability, it should only exist with accountability.

A minister who thinks everything is down to personal leadership is going to come a cropper. Ministry is with the congregation, and a minister assists its ministry - not the other way around. A minister may help co-ordinate, but it is not that congregations are in the passenger seats with a minister doing the driving. A minister learns. Ministers do lose some people, and attract others, but a minister should always seek to keep who formed the place over time as others come in to add to change. Harmony means different notes playing together. A minister who loses people because of obsession with projects, or where others are said to frustrate his or her ministry, will simply cause the congregation to decline and argue, often out of earshot of the minister. Ministers should genuinely bring people on board, and not have a fake kind of 'consultation' whilst forcing schemes and intentions through, attempting to push a congregation one way or another.

Don't end up like this!

Of course there may not be a minister, in which case a congregation needs to develop patterns of leadership and service to try to co-ordinate and bring all on board.

A successful liberal ministry involves participation, gathering from the back to the front, and offering the benefits of training and emotional intelligence. In worship these purposes are nurtured. The congregation is the vehicle that requires careful driving skills, where the energy is drawn from the congregation.

Activating Web Links in a Text (HTML) File

This probably means nothing to most and is clumsy to a very few. But it works. And a more efficient method was sent to me that does not always work...

What follows is relevant to a piece of software called NoteTab Light. I have used it for years. every fortnight I make a webpage that I append to another webpage and upload to my website. It contains links to webpages that are labelled and described. The Pure Text editor will save a pure text document to HTML with paragraph tags and other essential code, within a template the user can make (as I have). But the links are simply as they were. You could copy, paste into the URL browser area and activate them that way. But as we all know, we click on links.

Many a Rich Text Format editor (it allows some formatting like bold and italic, a pure text file does not) will display links as active, but only a very convert to HTML with active links. Copywriter is one, but does not recognise https:// because it is old software. Other big Word Processers (with complex formatting) will not activate links until RETURN is pressed, and then saving to HTML produces ridiculously user-unfriendly complicated and repetitive code.

NoteTab Light has clips to do more with both flat text files and the HTML files (and XML). And I have written one that works and with one press activates all links in a file. And here it is:

^!SetScreenUpdate Off
^!ClearVariables

^!Jump Doc_Start
:Loop1
^!Find "http://" S
^!IfError END1
^!MoveCursor 1
^!Select Url
^!Set %url%=^$GetSelection$
^!InsertHTML ^%url%
^!Goto Loop1
:END1

^!Jump Doc_Start
^!ClearVariables

:Loop2
^!Find "https://" S
^!IfError END2
^!MoveCursor 1
^!Select Url
^!Set %url%=^$GetSelection$
^!InsertHTML ^%url%
^!Goto Loop2
:END2

^!SetScreenUpdate On

It depends on the very useful ^!Select URL, because it grabs the URL - although moving the cursor by 1 just makes sure you are on it rather than to its left. I like to make sure, so I have two loops so to include the https and the http. Each loop means the same instruction happens as the finding goes down the document and the 'error' is when there are no more URLs left to find. I am told I could use a ? for the s or no s in https and thus have one loop but I have not seen this ? in the help file. The screen writing is switched off so it is quicker. S also means a silent Find - no messages. I think screen updating comes on automatically at the end, but I like to be sure.

It's not my skill, such code writing, but I can see enough how others do it to put something together to achieve something else.

They're Already Blaming Each Other

Many are no doubt missing the significance of David Davis's likely briefing against Prime Minister Theresa May via James Chapman, who worked with Davis until recently. He has claimed that the Secretary of State for Leaving the European Union had been "hamstrung" by the prime minister's stance on the European Court of Justice (ECJ), plus a few other matters.

The EU says its citizens in the UK should have access to the ECJ for protection, but May wants no role for any EU body after leaving. The ECJ is the European legal body for deciding disputes.

As well as apparently having a go at Philip Hammond the Chancellor for being inconsistent (as Hammond has a go at Johnson the Foreign Secretary), this briefing is an attempt to say that the negotiations would be going better without Theresa May's interference.

The essential problem is this: if you trade and have agreements, indeed if you have agreements on anything, there have to be bodies to make rulings. The obvious bodies already exist, but to want new bodies is quite an expense to add.

After all, the engagement with Europe will be on the basis of laws from treaties, and the ECJ follows the laws.

She even wants to come out of Euratom, the pan-European atomic energy regulator. This is daft, because Euratom is not part of the EU, but the madness is that the ECJ governs the free movement of Euratom  scientists. This is like dogma gone mad.

But the significance of this is that Theresa May still thinks she is calling the shots, but the cabinet are deciding via the usual methods that she isn't.

The reality is that leaving the EU is so complicated and so likely to end up in a mess that the Prime Minister is being targetted early for the blame. Pin the tail on the donkey.

If withdrawing, it is so much simpler to stay in the European Economic Area for the free market and the Customs Union to keep down the paperwork (and keep Ireland's north and south border invisible). It also helps Gibraltar.

However, do this and the UK whilst formally out is basically a satellite of the European Union. We do as it does, but without any say. We lose sovereignty.

At some point the reality will be come clear: it's between the cliff edge due to confusion or the status quo ante. Perhaps Europe might offer an extension on Article 50 to get a 'Cameron plus' deal whilst staying in.

People need educating on how we contribute to EU decisions and how this makes us part of a wide based institution for our benefit: economic, social, political and idealism too. To be a satellite of the EU is pointless: social and economic benefits, but no hand on the driving wheel, accelerator or brake. Crash out and we have no option but a diminished Gross National Product and decades of trying to get trade deals with countries we don't trade with as much as we do with the EU. There is no option in crashing out, but some Tory fantasists think we can become a cheap labour economy of low taxes and hugely dropped public spending. The latter is no longer an option. If we crash out we end up with hyperinflation and a high rate of unemployment that can no longer be disguised as at present (public spending on schemes, so-called apprenticeships etc.).

Maybe Chuka Umunna's single market amendment that was bound to fail was an early effort of a foundations exploration for a centre party, or some similar realignment. It takes the crumbling Conservative Party on its assertive single market left and the Labour right that cannot fathom Corbyn's Europe policy to a new place, with Liberal Democrats and some others, to argue for economic sanity at the very least.

It is time to call the bluff regarding the 'sacredness' of the EU referendum. It was advisory, an inadequate majority then, and an ill-informed campaign on both sides. People change their minds too. The Houses of Parliament need to educate people why we must stay in, and prepare the ground to do it.

• Crashing out is disastrous.
• The EEA plus Customs Union turns us into a satellite of the EU
• Staying in preserves our shared sovereignty.

The Whiff of More Tory Election Corruption

So we are being told by Channel 4 News tonight that the Conservative Party

allegedly paid for a call centre to canvas people afar and wide with Tory party slogans and naming their candidates by telephone, using people on zero hours contracts from a company that concealed its real name and pretended to do research.

Let's take this a bit further. Imagine you are a jobless person in Neath. You are told by the Job Centre to work for this call centre. No choice. Suppose you are a socialist or liberal or nationalist. You have to go on the phones, call people and recycle Conservative Party election cliches to recipients, many of whom are on the list to avoid nuisance calls - only genuine researchers can telephone such people. This is an abuse of political liberty. And it is alleged that this call centre was spending money for the election, for named candidates, to 'buy votes' and - if so - acting illegally.

Plus the fact that by being undeclared a call centre acting in this way intentionally calling people with and gathering data breaks Data Protection Laws.

The Information Commissioner says if wrongdoing has taken place, action will be taken. Would it not also be a police matter?

This may well find its way into the pot that could stink and add to the shaking that puts Theresa May out of office. After Thanet and all that, we have this prospect of more potential corruption, expenses for candidates undeclared, criminal offence activity. Surely she knew that a call centre was being exceptionally busy on Tory Party worked money. Her phrases were repeated by these telephone calls as soon as they were given. Something has to be done.

Strategy Latest for Staying In the EU

This blog is written from the standpoint of someone who wants to stay in the European Union .

I don't know if David Lammy MP has changed his view; perhaps like Kenneth Clarke MP he expects removal from the EU and so has adjusted to a near EU position. Perhaps he will change his mind: perhaps he's a dreamer and is not the only one. David Lammy enjoys the biggest proportion of an MPs vote: 80% of voters in his constituency voted for him.

However, I'm a stay in the EU without variation, and it is always a question of ongoing strategy.

Whilst I think there is social and safety legislation which calls for the House of Commons and House of Lords to co-operate, leaving the European Union is not one of them. Assuming the majority is for the single market an customs union or as close as can be, there are clearly going to be votes to stop the government doing worse.

My view is this. We should let the government 'own' whatever it is they are doing in Brussels. The government is divided, and David Davis cannot have it all his own way. Also people should leave Theresa May where she is, probably for two years. Both factions of her party box her in.

The expectation is that the government will make a mess of it through its own indecision-making and lack of resources. The clock ticks and the offer from the fed-up 27 is not extended negotiations for Britain's benefit but the EEA or stay in the EU. No one will let the cliff edge happen, and both houses will go ballistic over this.

However, there is a big problem coming along if the Scottish Parliament needs to pass a legislative consent. It may well not on any basis other than full single market and customs union (i.e. EEA) basis as its compromise, given the good majority in Scotland to stay in. Even ther Scottish Tories are 'soft' on leaving the EU.

This could scupper the government, and given its performance regarding the Democratic Unionist Party negotiations, it could leave the government up the creek without a paddle. It could itself short-circuit everyone to a quick General Election.

Let's just look at the DUP situation. It shows how inept this government is regarding negotiation, and indeed the television BBC Newsnight biography on Theresa May on the night before the voting stated that she is not transactional and cannot negotiate.

It is inept because Cameron as Prime Minister (and indeed even Gordon Brown under Labour) spoke to the DUP. Because the DUP warm to the Tories, Cameron never had to make his DUP talking public. He did not because of its effect on the Good Friday Agreement and because they have a different social ethos.

Had Theresa May possessed political skills at a level of her office, she would have known this. Someone advised her, or she thought it necessary, to purchase a House of Commons majority by making a potential deal public. Immediately the warnings about Ireland were mentioned, plus that these people are "dinosaurs" (and, by the way Mr Speaker, dinosaurs did not just last millions of years, but our birds are pretty much evolved dinosaurs...). Now it may be that there is no deal, that it cannot be purchased, and it makes May look even more foolish.

So there is a bit of a dilemma in the strategy for a pro-European. One is not to co-operate with legislation - letting them stew in their own juice and own it - whilst the other is to leave he in power.

But if factions arise and repeal bills (reversing 1972) do not get passed, the government is in a mess. There may well be a fall in the government. It would as likely end in another Tory taking the leadership, say David Davis himself. No one else wants it. No leader wants to prepare for an election that might put them into opposition.

If that happens, see what he says and see them still in the juice. Labour will be as unlikely to manage the House of Commons as any other party, with such low voting numbers and now the DUP definitely against. It would have to fail to get through its radical social and economic programme. It would have to plan to fail and want an election, and only a vote of no confidence would get to an election (because of the Fixed Term Parliament Act - no plans now to repeal it).

Meanwhile Farage will be exercising his efforts through Tory MPs in the hard faction. Their options are now considerably reduced. At the moment they get the same sympathetic rhetoric from government.

Just a note on this as well. I have never believed that Theresa May would go ahead with a 'hard Brexit' and the fact that she 'lost' on this basis is another of her errors. She was a remainer and went 'hard' to get UKIP votes. They have destroyed UKIP, like they almost destroyed the Liberal Democrats in 2015, but the ex-Labour voters who went UKIP returned only two thirds of this UKIP vote to the Tories, and with the rise in the youth vote the Tory 'success' with this strategy failed. The First Past the Post tipping points actually went in Labour's favour.

So she is rubbish on that basis as well. Note that on Day 1 David Davis capitulated to the EU timetable after all the bluster on how the government would negotiate. The outcome, if we leave, is likely to be soft anyway, and Theresa May is as likely to accept that as any other, simply because she believed in staying in.

Her political skills was to believe in staying in, saying nothing, and expect Cameron to be so bruised by the referendum that he soon would fall to a less convinced remainer like her and all continue on. However, she sat back and watched the other leadership candidates knife each other in the front and back and took the reins as handed to her. Then she became as insincere in government leadership by rhetoric.

Anyway, everyone has seen through her but may as well leave her where she is. She won't last more than two years, but it's best if she does. She may not, because the legislation can get snarled up and even stopped. Labour. the SNP and the Liberal Democrats should let the government get into its own stew and let legislation stall. (And surely the Liberal Democrats will not be as stupid to bale the Tories out again?) - I mean it is one thing to be punished by the electorate, another to be destroyed.

The object of the exercise, for the Liberal Democrats and others, is to stay in the European Union. The Article 50 clock is ticking. Let it. The mess the government gets into regarding leaving the EU is entirely of its own making, and must be. The Liberal Democrats especially must now start making the argument for sharing sovereignty and saying that a General Election always trumps a referendum. All the EEA option amounts to is being virtually the same as the EU but without political input to decision making. And this is what we should retain.

On Biblical Emotional Dependency Today

This is a further reflection not so much on Tim Farron as on the faith of the 'committed Christian' and 'biblical Christian' with reference to sexuality.

What is such a faith, such a belief and its response? It is a relationship of dependence. It is to say that there is in one collection of books a revelation of salvation faith, that in our time must be in contrast with a different general reality; thus it is a kind of gnosis - special knowledge.

Much as I might engage presently in some church tourism, and thus participate in some of what Tim Farron experiences, I cannot get away from the fact that the Bible is a human construction in particular places and times.

It is impossible to escape from the work of biblical critics and the limitations of doing history. It is impossible to reject the reality of science. So a number of things follow in relationship with evangelical (and other post-Nicea and post-Chalcedon forms of) Christianity.

This summarises like this, pushing history: that Jesus was an end-time rabbi, not particularly unique in his ethic, and did not preach his own divinity and probably was unsure (changed his mind?) on the matter of messiahship. He could have regarded himself as a conduit with God to bring about another Messiah after Jesus's own understanding of the suffering servant. Of course once he was dead, he either was something large or nothing at all for those energised with belief, as Paul put it in similar fashion.

Even saying this is to say more than history can provide. In pure terms he was a Galilean, who followed the Baptist's eschatology, widened out his appeal somewhat, went to Jerusalem, was arrested and was put to death by crucifixion.

The synoptic gospels are faith documents of early believers in his messiahship, a human man who was appointed by God. Pauline theology is all over these as part-interpretation. Many of Jesus's sayings are put on to him, but some might be his own words. John's Gospel has a resistance and pull regarding Gnosticism, and is a Greek-philosophical Gospel of pre-existence with all sorts of sayings put on to Jesus's lips. The Gospel of Thomas (excluded from the canon but must be included as serious) is a limited form of Gnostic Gospel with sayings and no biographical picture, some of which could be historical and many are not.

Whatever one thinks of the resurrection appearances and empty tomb, if these were in any sense continuations of the perception of Jesus then we will be looking at Nobel prizes for biology, physics and even chemistry. The 'appearances' are statements of theology, liturgy and authority. The tomb says to me why there is no tomb worship, and witnesses to explain the anonymity of burial, if burial it was. Paul is no witness when he makes a bland statement regarding burial. In any case, if Jesus is human (and what else is he?) then dead people do not return to life after actual death. The brain rots very quickly. Who rolled away the stone. If there was a stone, no one needed to do it because the resurrected Jesus went to hell and rose up again. It is picture-book stuff.

Indeed for someone like me, the Rabbi Jesus is an evolved human like anyone else, and nothing special, living in the Bronze Age (as we categorise it), and whose thought forms were within the supernaturalism mistaken age of rabbinical Judaism with a messianic expectation. So were the excited early followers, Jews and more, told that he had returned to the leaders and a symbolic congregation (500 or 120) and gone off again (so these followers would not see him) with a directing Spirit instead and a likely rapid return. He would come again, establish the close Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and would (unlike what the Creed says) give it back to the Father at the very end.

It's not how I think, or anyone else, who thinks of the universe as billions of light years in inner circumference and expanding, and of evolving life (a chaotic method of development by comparative death plus systemic interaction). It gets a bit daft to think of a God being interested in an edge of one galaxy planet to direct history. The thought forms do not meet. They only work if one of them is a mythology, and a mythology as true as doing art and working the imagination. The mythology explains nothing except, perhaps, as an illustration that sometimes we have to give something up in order to move on to something fresh. Dying and rising is a common theme in many a myth, and in nature's renewal.

But the committed Christian, the evangelical believer, seems to live inside that specific thought world with Reformation adjustment. It becomes a kind of fizzy reality. I do worry if a political leader shows that sort of dependency. What is missing that such emotional diversion needs such to block the plughole? Now I am well aware that life is shit, but I am not going to fill that gap with mythology and self-deception.

What then is it to have that imagining for yourself and friends, but then have this "liberal to my fingertips" stance that others should follow their own truths? Now, I know about Radical Orthodoxy, which hates Karl Barth because he accepted the opposite of atheism from being inside the inner circle. For a Radical Orthodox, there is the postmodern bubble, but you live within the bubble and it must be the interpreter of all else. Atheism is no more. One can understand this form of traditionalism, but it is rubbish because any research shows that the 'secular theology' of Sociology produces returns of the real whether you want them or not. Science does other. Life is not a novel to be made up however you want: thus my argument against the extent of non-realism in the Cupitt camp: and Cupitt then says he follows common narratives and not the Radical Orthodox imaginings. Why not? Why not, when all is imagined? Because, in the end, some things are true, however hard truth is to discover, and some are not. It is not just that some things 'work better' and others don't. Yes, great schemes of explanations change, and so can ours of General Relativity and the Quantum, but they will change because of research that supports or undermines the mathematics.

I don't understand Tim Farron. On the other hand, I have met many Christians who seem to have a remarkable ability to use the light switch method for one minute being in the Christian world of explaining and then in the ordinary world of technology and human enquiry, the 'common narratives' recognised by Don Cupitt.

For example, there is a binary aspect to Genesis in reproductive relationships. There is also a binary basis worked out (from many other forms) into the New Testament for marriage - marriage that becomes angelic in the Kingdom of Heaven when it comes. Eh? Divorce is thus not allowed. However, there is also rabbinic experience of foreskin removal that reveals eunuchs and something in between. We now know that intersex comes in many guises, and related and unrelated is the transexual, and desire for coupling (and more) on a same sex basis comes throughout evolved animals (including us) as well as across the sexes. Genesis and being a biblical Christian just won't do as an explanation. The sociology of social stability suggests recognition and doorway rituals for same sex as well as different sex coupling, and more in fact, anything indeed that involves pleasure and informed consent together.

Tim Farron as a 'biblical Christian' must feel constrained, as will his fellowship of Evangelical Christian co-worshippers, regarding anything beyond the limited biblical insights. Thanks to him for allowing others to pursue their own: but on what basis? Allowing others to sin, due to being liberal to his fingertips? Is that not participation in the sin of others, when surely they should be persuaded to get inside the bubble.

Very odd. It makes no sense to me. I am liberal to my fingertips too, but this is because I think knowledge is only darkly found in conditions of free enquiry. I am liberal in religion and liberal is sociology and liberal in politics, a liberal view that has plenty for the collective sense. After all, we evolve to be collective in many species.

I am sorry for the emotionally dependent, but the Bible is no longer a source of essential knowledge. We get it elsewhere. It is only one of the providers of mythology. It was created and collected by a Church institutional arrangement and helps maintain that arrangement in many breakout forms.

All religion is like this: Arabia in the seventh century is a mystery and took about century to write another mythic history. Scriptures are full of all sorts of errors. Ancient religions in the east were always about mythology and no one thought any worse for it (life was a story). But the grounds of 'being historical' have changed, and I worry about politicians dependent on an emotional fill-up every Sunday and perhaps more often.