The other week through Tearfund’sSuperdager application in Facebook i sent the following message to the BBC’s Director General Mark Thompson in relation to the BBC decision i force George Alagiah to resign as Patron of the Fairtrade Foundation:
Dear Mr. Thompson,
Regarding the forced resignation of George Alagiah as Patron of the Fairtrade Foundation, the BBC is concerned that Fairtrade causes a ‘potential conflict of interest’ and ‘could undermine [his] impartiality’.
But Fairtrade is not controversial. The Fairtrade mark has become mainstream – more than 70 per cent of the UK population recognise it, and Fairtrade goods are on every high street. Worldwide, consumers spent over £1.6 billion on Fairtrade products in 2007 – that’s over 1.5 million producers and workers in 58 developing countries now benefiting. Who can say this is controversial?
Surely criteria could be agreed that will serve to ensure that both the integrity of the BBC and Mr Alagiah’s enduring service to the Fairtrade Foundation are effectively safeguarded.
Please reconsider Mr Alagiah’s forced resignation from the Fairtrade Foundation and allow him to continue acting as Patron.
Rhys Llwyd
This week i received the following response from the BBC:
I understand that you are disappointed that George Alagiah had to step down from his role with the Fairtrade Foundation.
On its website www.fairtrade.org.uk/get_involved/donate/ the Fairtrade Foundation asks its supporters to help fund its “lobbying and influencing key players across society in commerce, government and campaigning groups” and that the organisation will “continue to push the Government to ensure that all aspects of the global trade system are fair and supportive of development”. Other leading charities have said that The Fairtrade Foundation seeks to “transform trading in favour of the poor and disadvantaged”. Such an ambition is the prerogative of the charities. Many may find it admirable though others may take a different view of global economic priorities.
It is not the business of BBC journalism to take a view on this or to be perceived to take a view. We are committed to due impartiality which means we don’t take sides on issues of controversy. Our job is to represent all sides in an argument accurately and fairly and test them as rigorously as we can to allow our audiences to reach their own judgements. And it’s not enough for our journalism to be impartial. We must also be seen to be impartial. That’s why it’s inappropriate for a BBC journalist to take a high profile, public role representing an organisation which, as the charity makes clear, takes a very particular view of the controversial issue of global trade.
Thank you once again for taking the trouble to share your views with us.
Regards
Craig Wilson
BBC Complaints
This response from the BBC is shocking because it legitimizes the argument for un-fair trade! Proverbs 28:5 springs into mind: ‘Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.’ In the name of impartiality the BBC have in reality made their stand by tolerating injustice.
Saturday night I went to the Tony Campolo meeting in Carmarthen. The Chapel was packed out, possibly as much as 500 there, seldom do we see preaching meetings attracting so much people in Wales these days. Most of the people there were from the Baptist Union of Wales’s English convention which was held during the day but also a good number of local folks turned in – many of them Welsh speakers which was very encouraging.
The meeting started with some worship lead by a well rehearsed local (I presume) worship band. They launched through a few modern day classics like King of Kings Majesty, Mighty to Save and Light of the World before powering through the victorious Crown Him With Many Crowns. The Spirit’s present was very much felt during the singing by all who were there. This was followed by a word of prayer and a reading from scripture then Campolo took to the pulpit.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22: 34-40)
His message was a warm but also hard hitting mix of a call to personal faith in Jesus and a challenge for Christians to live their lives in the light that Jesus laid it all down for them. His delivery was rather eclectic – he used a lot of humor and also used a lot of stories he’d picked up during the years to convey his point. But when needed he reverted to some good old fashioned Baptist staring the congregation out and shouting on us to repent and follow Jesus anew.
He finished his sermon with one of his often used motifs: “When you were born, you cried and everybody else was happy. The only question that matters is this: When you die, will YOU be happy when everybody else is crying?”
The meeting was bought to a close with the very Welsh, at the request of Campolo himself, Guide me O Thou great Jehovah. This was one of those meetings that I will remember for years to come.
One of my favorite Christian thinkers of our time is Tony Campolo, I have huge respect for him. This Saturday he’s the keynote speaker at the English Welsh Baptist’s annual Union meeting and the evening meeting is public so I’m going to hear him speak live. I’ve been reading the books and tuning in to the podcasts for some years now so I’m really looking forward to see and hear him in flesh. It really saddens me that some Christians go around branding him as a Liberal only because he preaches the Kingdom of God in it’s full glory and not only personal salvation. He still affirms the importance of personal salvation only that he teaches that the Gospel is more than personal salvation only. In my view he knocks the nail on it’s head and brings a much needed counter emphasis to the evangelical world.
The meeting is at 7pm, Saturday 13th June at Tabernacle Chapel, Waterloo Terrace, Carmarthen – £5 on the door. Arrive early to avoid disappointment.
Here is an adaption of a few ideas R. Tudur Jones gave in his paper Christian Nationalism (1979), it’s very interesting because although R. Tudur Jones himself is a Christian Nationalist he does not believe as many Christian Nationalists do that God created the nations. His understanding is that God ordained men to be cultural beings and through their cultural endeavor they created nations. So nations and cultures should not be guarded and kept simply because they were created by God but rather because they were created by man who created them under the Sovereignty of God.
Wales shares with other Christian nations the conviction that God has been at work in its history. The conviction goes back to the very dawn of our history when our forefathers began to become conscious of themselves as a specific people as the Roman Empire of the west disintegrated. The conviction can be expressed in many ways. It can be a powerful belief that the nation has enjoyed divine protection during the vicissitudes of its history. It can also be a belief that it is especially favored by God and is an elect nation doubtless this way of thinking owes much to familiarity with the Bible. The Bible has much to say about nations and their fate and. above all, it has much to say about Israel as God’s elect people. And it is quite obvious that Christian people in many lands have understood the histories of their own nations on the analogy of the history of Israel. It is a small step from this conviction to the assertion that nationality is to be understood as one of the ordinances of creation, a radical form of community created by God.
But God did not create nations, God created man and man formed nations. This is why it is misleading to talk, as some theologians have done, of nationality as one of the “orders of creation”. At the same time, the various forms of society that man has evolved during the centuries have a close connection with God’s work as creator.
When we turn our attention to a nation’s life, we realize that all cultural work of its people has a deep religious significance. It has to do with their obedience to God. If they produce social institutions, or works of art, or literature, or systems of jurisprudence and of economics, in the light of God’s covenant with man, that Nation’s life has not been in vain. To extinguish such a nation’s existence thoughtlessly is a matter of serious moment. And such a heritage may well be extinguished by the nation’s own citizens as well as by a foreign oppressor.
It will not do to argue that the Bible provides us with no guidance in political matters. Let us remind ourselves of our starting-point. Man is to serve the glory of God in every aspect of his life as a creature in creation. His religious obedience to his God is expressed in his work as a maker of culture. Politics is very definitely a part of man’s appointed sphere of religious labour. It would be astounding if the volume which is to serve as man’s guide in glorifying God refrained from saying anything about politics. And in fact, the Bible is a surprisingly political book. Is is rather interesting, in the view of the attention being paid at the present time to both the ‘Theology of Politics’ and the ‘Theology of Liberation’ that some of their leading principles were being promulgated in Wales well over a century ago. Gwilym Hiraethog knew his Bible. Worship and politics are not the same thing; but they cannot be divorced from each other without denying that God is God and that this world is his by right of creation and redemption.
Not my words but the words of R. Tudur Jones. Very interesting.
Back in February I wrote about the use of contemporary music in Welsh language worship and the lack of it in Welsh churches. In Wales we have an enormously rich poetic heritage and because Wales has been, until recently anyway, a ‘Christian Nation’ from it’s beginning that poetic heritage is one of praise. One of the main arguments I hear against contemporary worship is that “the new songs” (what exactly is the difference between a ‘hymn’ and a ’song’ I’m not sure?) are poetically and theologically shallow compared to the great works of the Welsh tradition. On the whole I agree with that notion and It’s seen even more acute in Welsh because all contemporary hymns are translations from the English. Some, like say ‘In Christ Alone’, have translated well but others just don’t work in Welsh. We desperately need new contemporary hymns written originally in Welsh, in the mean time my personal preference is to re-arrange the old classics to guitar.
In the recent Llanw festival I lead the worship in one of the meetings and i chose to set and old rich Welsh hymn to a new arrangement. We kept the same tune and I think we even kept the same chord structures but yet again it sounds fresh. Here is the video, words with a rough translation into English underneath:
Caned nef a daear lawr,
fe gaed ffynnon
i olchi pechaduriaid mawr
yn glaer wynion;
yn y ffynnon gyda hwy
minnau ‘molcha’,
ac mi ganaf fyth tra bwy’:
Halelwia!
Dyma’r dŵr a dyma’r gwaed
redodd allan,
ac o’i ystlys sanctaidd gaed
i olchi’r aflan;
hon yw’r ffynnon sy’n glanhau
yr aflana’;
yn dragywydd mae’n parhau:
Halelwia!
Let heaven and earth below sing,
There is a well
To wash great sinners
Shining white;
In the well they have
I will wash myself too,
And I will sing forever while I live:
Hallelujah!
Behold the water and behold the blood
which ran out,
And from his holy side flowed
To wash the unclean;
This is the well which cleanses
The foulest;
Eternally it endures:
Hallelujah!
Dyfed, lost somewhere on Ynys Môn, he's honestly not as far out as this picture suggests!
I first met Dyfed when I got my interview to be Warden of John Morris Jones two years ago. John Morris Jones is the Welsh speaking hall of residence at Bangor University. At the time Dyfed was Head Warden of Rathbone, the “English Hall” next door, and he also administrated the whole warden system of the University. During the interview I remember him taking a keen interest in two things. First of all he took a keen interest in my research field and secondly he took a keen interest in my faith – I think I must have said in the application letter that I was a committed Christian. All this baffled me as he hardly asked anything directly about the job and role I was being interviewed for!
When I got home to Aberystwyth that night I was intrigued so I turned to that post-modern god for answers, Google. I found out that Dyfed, in addition to his warden and student support services role, was also a part-time lecturer in the Theology Department and he had been in full time ministry and was planning to return to it at the end of the year. It would be an exaggeration to say that we are now best friends but as brothers in Christ I like to think anyway that I knew I had a fellow Christian I could turn to if the whole Warden thing got to me! He perhaps doesn’t know it, but he did have a sort of role in advising me what Church to go to when i arrived in Bangor. I very much enjoyed our short but frequent chats on the way to the laundry, at the Christmas dinner, and when he took his dog for a walk.
Dyfed has now left the University and returned, with his lovely wife Helen, to full time ministry on his native Ynys Môn. He has a very very interesting blog where he shares some of his vision for the work of the Kingdom on Ynys Môn. What is great is that Dyfed and Helen are really doing it, for example Helen has taken over the running of the Post Office in Brynsiencyn, the village they have moved to. The previous postmaster retired a few months ago and no one was willing to take on the service. Fortunately the office has been kept open by someone on a temporary basis, but now Helen’s time has come to take it over. Dyfed tells that ‘there is a lot of life in it for her and she is excited at the prospect of being at the heart of village life.’ It is a great opportunity to serve the local community. Brynsiencyn is a relatively poor village, with many elderly people depending on the post office to receive their state pension. Not having this service locally would have meant a bus journey to Llanfairpwll. This whole rooting in to the community for the Kingdom really excites me and is a huge encouragement.
So, keep a look out for Dyfed’s blog if you want to be encouraged and inspired.
This post follows on from the last post about Rob Bell and also a kind of reply to a few questions raised by Steffan in his comment on the last post. I do appreciate Steffan and others’ comments which help me keep my feet to the ground and my eyes towards the Cross.
I said that the conservative evangelical scene I was bought up in (and which I still consider my self a part of) was strong on sin management theology (which is of the upmost importance, I’m not arguing otherwise) but weak on going on to seek a deeper understanding of the Cross, a deeper understanding of the restoration through Jesus, and deeper understanding of His Kingdom. Steffan mentions Don Carson, John Piper and Tim Keller, and here in Wales Gwynn Williams as reformed evangelicals who do address the issues I seem to think that have been largely neglected by that very tradition. First of all, I must admit that I am not familiar with the work of John Piper and Tim Keller and I’ll come on to Don Carson in a bit so let me address Gwynn Williams first.
Gwynn Williams
Gwynn’s address to the Aberystwyth conference in 2007 (which is now published as a book called Croes fy Arglwydd) had a profound effect on me and I still regularly listen to the sermons in the car. What Gwynn did was to give an in-depth explanation and defense of the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement based on and exegesis of Romans 3:21-31. But although Gwynn’s addresses were majestic I don’t think even Gwynn himself would claim that he covered the full meaning of the Cross, the full implications of the restoration through Jesus and then it’s outworking through his Kingdom. Gwynn’s emphasis was important, perhaps the most important angle to get right but it was only half the story, the half I had been over fed with in the tradition I was bought up. Carrots and peas are good for you but eating only carrots and peas and nothing else is not good!
Tim Chester
It’s not that I find the reformed evangelical account wrong; only that it tells half the story. There is another half to the story of the Cross and to the story of redemption and restoration. Perhaps Rob Bell and Brian McLaren over compensate a little at times (in the same way as some reformed evangelicals over compensate the other way) so let me put out four other names that get the balance better to bring this discussion back to the centre: in the States one could look towards Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis and here in England and Wales one could turn to the work of Tim Chester and Dewi Arwel Hughes.
I didn’t get round to talk about Carson, next time it must be.
I write this on the eve of Good Friday. Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, for my sins but Christ dying on the Cross was so much more than that. It was the crux of his restoring plan and the setting groundwork for the future establishment of a new heaven and new earth – the forgiveness of our sins was an important part of this but it wasn’t only that.
The logic thought of great twentieth century evangelical intellectuals such as Francis Schaeffer, Herman Dooyeweerd, E. L. Hebden Taylor etc… was very modernistic in it’s outlook. They argued till death with modernism and it’s thinkers but they did it, ironically and probably unknowingly, in a modernistic way. They all, of course, loved their saviour, but their word view, one could argue was not a Jesus follower one but a modernistic one and they battled against modernism using modernism’s own intellectual tools rather than a humble Jesus from Nazareth way.
Rob Bell by going down a different route to the last generation of evangelical thinkers is not a heretic just for coming up with new post-modern approaches to intellectual dialog. He is simply doing what the previous generation did and what, of course, Paul did at the biblical Mars Hill! (Acts 17) One must engage the thought of the day to present Jesus as a personal saviour and as a universal redeemer.
I have been very much influenced by Mark Driscoll’s sermons since I first listened in 18 months ago. But if I think about it he doesn’t introduce any different ideas or emphasis from the emphasis I was taught growing up in a Conservative Evangelical Church here in Aberystwyth. He does it in a more cool/hip/rad/street-cred/cussing way, but content and emphasis wise it’s nothing new for me.
Bell on the other hand balances me off nicely from an emphasis that was missing in my conservative evangelical upbringing. I became a Christian around the age of 14 I think – but for many years after that I didn’t grow in the faith because the only thing I was taught was sin management theology – I already got that and what I needed was a deeper understanding of the Cross, a deeper understanding of the restoration through Jesus, a deeper understanding of His Kingdom. From the age of 18 onwards I saw that there was more to Christianity than sin management theology and by the age of 23 when I first got hold of books by people like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell I discovered that there were other Christians out there who had been through the same journey as me!
Sure, some things Bell says I don’t agree with but are there any people out there who would agree that men like, say, Martyn Lloyd-Jones got it right on every single issue? Of course not.
Our world has been living beyond its means, financially and environmentally, while the most vulnerable suffer the consequences.
This financial crisis means radical policy changes are being discussed at the forthcoming G20 summit in London tomorrow.
Right now is a unique opportunity to pray for a fairer, more sustainable world.
Tearfund is calling on Christians to put God first and join the movement asking for jobs, justice and a greener economy.
Billions of dollars have been made available and ‘thrown’ at bankers in recent months by Western governments despite their frequent failure in the past to meet aid targets.
There is anger about these double standards in developing countries.
World leaders have the chance to build economic policies that will sustain the environment and will limit the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable communities.
Pray for the G20 leaders and finance ministers as they focus on how to respond to financial crisis and formulate new global financial arrangements
Pray for all Christians to show their concerns at this crucial time through prayer, fasting, marching and simple advocacy approaches to local and national leaders. We worship a God of justice and power. Let’s place our hope in him to work through world leaders at this time to bring about justice and change.
Rhys is just finishing his PhD on Christianity and Welsh Nationalism at Bangor's Theology Department and has just started work as a Pastor in training at Penuel, Bangor's Welsh language baptist church.
His passion is to be a part of God's transforming of Welsh language Christian witness in Wales in response to this he is board member of Gobaith i Gymru who are developing beibl.net which is a modern Welsh paraphrase of the Bible and also Llanw, a newly launched Welsh language Spring Harvestesg festival!
His other interests include graphic design and music – you can tune in and hear his hip-hop project at www.societyprofiad.com.
Saturday night I went to the 
The logic thought of great twentieth century evangelical intellectuals such as 
Our world has been living beyond its means, financially and environmentally, while the most vulnerable suffer the consequences.
