Part 348. It's all in the mind, isn't it?

 My journey of deconstruction has led me to the conclusion that there is no objective truth.   Concepts such as morality, natural law, divine law, and human rights are not of  metaphysical origin: they are creations of the human mind.  We may choose to to live a life of love, of kindness, of humility, of caring.  We my choose to support and campaign for concepts of human rights and social justice.  However, we should not delude ourselves into believing that such concepts are the creation of an objective agency external to humanity.  The temptation is to cloak such concepts with a veneer of objectivity or universality: of being god given, or an element of a natural order.

What matters are the choices we make. My choice is to try to follow and promote the concepts of love and justice attributed to Jesus.  It doesn't matter who Jesus was, it is the ideas ascribed to him that matter. 

Part 347. How did I deconstruct?

 It was not my intention at the outset to deconstruct my beliefs.  Nevertheless it happened.  Three main elements in the process were:

* Seeking to understand the bible.  The conclusion I drew was that the bible is not the inerrant word of God, nor were its authors inspired from God.  Attempting to understand the context in which the authors  wrote I sought to interpret the underlying concepts contained in the text.  Finally I came the conclusion that I would apply the ideas of the postmodernist Jacques Derrida, namely that words mean what the reader or listener takes them to mean.

* Defining god.  I came to the view that it is an impossible, indeed pointless, task to define god.  Whatever god may be in our minds it is beyond our comprehension, beyond metaphor, beyond symbolism and most certainly beyond anthropomorphism.  When we pray, to what are we praying?  To ourselves,  to our personal concept of god telling us what to do?

*  Following the message of Jesus.  We can each discern concepts and their application found in the teaching of Jesus as set out in the synoptic gospels.  It doesn't matter if Jesus was an actual person, or a myth, the texts being written many years after the concepts were formulated.  What does matter is the overriding concept of love for all, for justice, for preferential treatment for the poor, marginalised and discriminated against.  It is a powerful message that does not need support by any claim of supernatural origin.

Each person comes to their conclusions on the meaning of scripture, god and Jesus.  There is no right or wrong interpretation and we should not presume to claim to have the correct understanding, nor should we seek to influence others with disparaging comments, nor by flaunting an air of superiority, nor by being arrogant.  

Part 346. Tackling poverty.

The poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.

Gustavo Gutiérrez 

The causes of poverty are many and complex.  The effects of poverty  on individuals, communities, social cohesion and government policies also are many and complex.  For many trapped in poverty life is difficult beyond the imagination of the better off.  Sadly many poor people view their position with resignation and apathy.  Some live in fear of bailiffs, loan sharks and social services.  Many are depressed.  

The overriding  problem is that no long-term solutions are on offer.  Instead short-term palliatives and relief is provided.  Essential as this is, it deflects from campaigning for radical change to the priorities of government in the economic and social spheres.  Investment is required to improve education and training, to enhance medical services to tackle the causes of illness, to plan for better housing and environment,  to tackle anti-social behaviour, to improve public transport, to provide jobs and increase wage and benefit levels. 

Apart from material manifestations of poverty there also are other underlying issues.  Racial, ethnic and sexual discrimination has to be combatted if a society is to reduce marginalisation and improve social cohesion.

Followers of the way of  Jesus seek his kingdom on earth, one where we love all our neighbours and achieve social justice.  It is a call to action.  Jürgen Moltmann puts it thus:

"I accept Jesus Christ as my saviour" diminishes the Gospel into an introverted  and  self-centred individualism.

  

Part 345. Inherited poverty and homelessness. The Big Issue.

In the last forty years  I have been an owner-occupier, a lodger, homeless, a sofa surfer and a private tenant.  During this period I have been also a councillor serving on the housing committee of a local authority, an housing association director and a director of a faith based voluntary organisation providing accommodation for up to two years for single homeless individuals whilst providing assistance for them to become self supporting.  

I agree fully with the statements in the article below.  The author is correct in making the link between inherited poverty and homelessness.  There are of course many other factors that lead to homelessness and these need to be addressed.  I support the Big Issue and the direction of travel it is embarking on.

John Bird

11 Dec 2024

Christmas threw up something interesting that we had realised only after we launched the Big Issue. It was the idea that homeless people didn’t just need a home. That, as we called it, “Homelessness was the tip of the social iceberg.” It was the presenting problem. It’s what you saw, but it hid a myriad of problems that often started when people who later fell homeless were born. That they inherited poverty and were coming from behind before they even began the human race.

It was interesting finding ourselves in competition against other homeless bodies that kept going on about more hostels, more beds and more rooms for the people caught in homelessness. And us saying that if you don’t sort out the ridiculous situation of housing people but not addressing the issues of how they became homeless they would end up back out on the streets.

There was a definite revolving door. Most of the people who got put into hostels and used the facilities offered by homeless organisations had been there before, and often on multiple occasions. So people were being kept in an eternal returning.

Unfortunately that is the situation even now, although there is always evidence that people have fallen into homelessness for the first time. But there, on too many occasions, are the seasoned homeless back again, although at times they have been hostelled or housed.

That is why the Big Issue started raising the issue of homeless prevention and homeless cure. We were working in the emergency and we could see how destructive and self-destructive homelessness was for all. We had to try and drag the world towards homeless and poverty prevention. It’s something that we continue to do in our editorial work and with me in parliament.

Now, of course, it is a given that you need to address the reasons why people become homeless. When I say a given I mean that everyone seems to accept it. Each government since has accepted the idea that you cannot just put people in a hostel or a room in a flat and hope for the improvement of their lot. Housing First is one of the major innovations that has grown since our launch in 1991.

What are the solutions to homelessness?

Housing First: What can Finland teach us about tackling homelessness?

The idea is so simple and so necessary: you wrap people around with support – social, mental, physical – when you house people. And thankfully the Scottish government has got behind it. Various other authorities are musing on it, and Manchester under Andy Burnham is taking seriously the whole idea of getting the demons out of people’s lives that caused them to fall into the needs of homelessness.

Yet frighteningly many of the frightening realities come back: it is largely a class issue. That people born into poverty that puts people on the back foot at birth need extra help to break that inheritance. Otherwise it is likely to lead to a lifetime of dislocation.

That’s why we need Big Issue even more because we are not seeing a wholesale drive to prevent the occurrence and reoccurrence of poverty inheritance. 

Up until the Big Issue’s first Christmas there was little signs of the public getting behind homeless people. Begging threw up too many problems for people. They were not relating to those in the street. Those begging and asking for alms. And then the Big Issue came along and suddenly people could talk and relate to rough sleepers, hostel dwellers and people in the margins. It was extraordinary how quickly the public bought into the idea that the Big Issue was giving people a legitimate means of making money and therefore they were working and earning their own money.

I don’t think any of us who brought the Big Issue into being ever thought we were challenging the thinking around homelessness – you need more than a home – and allowing the public to support people in the street.

Of course, times have moved on and we have had to innovate. We have had to include people caught in poverty and do more around helping those who are vulnerably accommodated. And if we don’t help them they fall into homelessness. There are deep, deep issues now, post-Brexit, post- the cost of living crisis caused by the Liz Truss regime; by the incredibly mad increase in housing costs and the continuation of the low-wage low-investment economy that we live in.

That the 2008 financial crisis was paid for by squeezing local authorities of their social support money and caused an increase of burdens in the NHS, our schools and other parts of the welfare system. Not to forget the damage done to us by the Covid crisis.

Big Issue itself will have to make major changes in how we work because of the new problems thrown up by new levels of destitution – 33 years is a long time to be on the planet, but still there are big issues needing to be sorted. The biggest problem is the lack of central coordination of government, public and charity coming together to kick a hole in preventing homelessness and the poverty it comes from. It’s still all scattergun and will remain so until government abandons its inherited responses to poverty that have yet to work.

John Bird is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Big Issue. 

Part 344. The way it is.

There was a time when I was recently divorced, penniless, homeless, unemployed and living many miles from my home town. I was sofa-surfing in properties situated in an area of multiple deprivation.  Eventually I secured employment, accommodation and rebuilt my life.  It was a torrid time but I had some advantages: a degree, a driving licence and determination to climb out of the morass I had walked into.

For me poverty and destitution are not concepts. They are a reality I have experienced.  The desperation, despair, fear and depression that comes with poverty is very real. Many in such a situation perceive no way out or end to their misery or misfortune.  It is a life sentence with little prospect of parole.  It is a life in chains created by a society that cares little for them.  Mitigation may be available in the form of foodbanks,  warm areas, soup kitchens and free clothing. But such provision does not resolve the causes of the factors leading to poverty and destitution.  The so-called safety net is not fit for purpose.

For followers of Jesus the imperative must be for systemic change to achieve social justice and indeed bring his kingdom on earth.

Part 343. Action is the antidote to despair.

Caring for the poor by creating a just economy is not optional for Christians.

Anon

How do we create a just economy and do away with poverty and destitution?  How do we overcome the divisive effect of poor and wealthy regions in the United Kingdom?

The answer to both questions is: political action resulting in the passing of legislation. How do we secure the requisite political action?  Learned reports ad nauseum, petitions, campaigns seemingly have little impact on the electorate or the manifestos of the political parties. Very little has changed in the thirty years I have been active in the social justice sphere.

Below is a passage from the BIG ISSUE published on 9th December. Lottie Elton 9 Dec 2024

Blackpool has the lowest male life expectancy in the UK. 

People in the most deprived parts of the country are now expected to die up to a decade sooner than people in wealthier areas.

Shocking new figures have exposed stark life expectancy divides across the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Blackpool now has the lowest male life expectancy in the country – the first time since records began in 2001 that Glasgow has not come bottom of the rankings.

A baby boy born in Blackpool between 2021 and 2023 is likely to live for 73.1 years. In affluent Hart, Hampshire, the life expectancy for baby boys is 83.4.

Glaswegian girls born during this period have the lowest life expectancy in the country, at 78.26 years. Meanwhile, girls born in Kensington and Chelsea are expected to live to 86.46.

The rankings are evidence of a “clear geographical divide,” the ONS has warned. The 10 areas with the highest life expectancies for both women and men were in southern England. The vast majority of areas with the lowest life expectancy were in Scotland and northern England. And the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned that it shows the “devastating impacts of poverty on life expectancy”.

Joseph Elliott, Lead Analyst at JRF, described the figures as “shocking but not unexpected".

“Not being able to afford essential items like enough food or heating robs people of options and dignity but also impacts their health. This in turn puts pressure on public services in more deprived areas, which are staggering under the weight of hardship,” he added.

“If we want people’s health to improve, we need to hear how the government intends to immediately bring down hardship as a first step. But we also need to see the longer-term change that’s needed if everyone in our country is going to have the same chances of good health, regardless of where they live.”

A JRF spokesperson on social media added that “being born into poverty could take years off your life. This is not OK.”

In the vast majority of areas, life expectancy has fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 70% of areas seeing an overall decline. “We are yet to see a recovery from the decrease in life expectancy we saw during the pandemic,” the ONS explained.

Yet in deprived areas, the downward trend has been ongoing for years. In Blackpool, for instance, life expectancy has dropped 18 months since 2014, when it was 74.7 for men. 

During this time, austerity has slashed local council funding for preventative health services. According to a report tabled to Blackpool council this year, the local authority has roughly £1,400 less per person to spend on its population than it did over a decade ago. Its public health grant has been cut by £10 per person since 2013.

Last week, academics from the University of Glasgow published a book linking regional disparities in life expectancy to government policy.

In Glasgow – until this year repeatedly the city with the lowest male life expectancy in the UK – spending pressures have wiped nearly half a billion pounds over the council’s budget over the last 10 years. 

In their book Social Murder? Austerity and life expectancy in the UK, Dr David Walsh and professor Gerry McCartney explore how such cuts impact health – and argue that the decline in life expectancy evidences a “dereliction of duty from those in power”.

“Life expectancy is about more than just health – it’s about the kind of society we live in,” Dr Walsh said. 

“And in the early 2010s, after decades of continual improvement, life expectancy in the UK stopped increasing, and for a great many it actually declined. This is something that simply should not be happening in a wealthy society.”

The previous Conservative government’s austerity spending cuts shaved nearly half a year off the average person’s life between 2010 and 2019, research out earlier this year revealed.

The Big Issue has previously reported on disparities in ‘healthy life expectancy’ – the number of years a person can expect to spend in “good health”. Across the UK, the healthy life expectancy gap between the healthiest and unhealthiest local authority is 23.5 years for women and 21.2 years for men.

it brings shame on our society that we are prepared to accept this state of affairs. How do we energise people to demand change?  Have the interests of the better off been protected and advanced at the expense of the poor? Yes has to be the answer.  How should secular and faith organisations respond?

Below are my previous posts on poverty.  

Part 173. Shocking. 23rd October 2023

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has funded the production of a report entitled: Destitution in the UK 2023. It is sombre reading, it is shocking. The report, in full, is available online and I commend it. Please read it.

The report states 1.8 million households equating to 3.8 million individuals live in destitution. Destitution is defined clearly in the report. Indeed there is an underclass in the UK as defined by JK Galbraith in a USA context. Galbraith said we have the means to overcome destitution, politically we prefer not so to do.

The situation is a damning indictment of the political process and the Civil Service. It is also an indictment of religious bodies. The latter are good at providing bandages but are reticent in attacking those causing the wounds. Religious bodies should be leading campaigns demanding change. No longer is the cry sustainable that religion should keep out of politics.

Christian churches need to engage with the political process, to shout out for social justice, to show leadership in the pursuit of His Kingdom on earth.

Part 187. Another damning indictment. 11th December 2023

In Part 173 reference is made to the report of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation entitled Destitution in the UK 2023. The report paints a shocking picture of the failure of the political process to alleviate and tackle the causes of extreme poverty.

Last week the Social Justice Commission of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) published its report Two Nations: the State of Poverty in the UK. It is further evidence of the failure of politicians to tackle poverty issues in any sustained meaningful way. The report tells of a widening gulf between main stream society and a depressed and poverty-stricken underclass. Shades of JK Galbraith. The gap is wider than it has been since Victorian times and risks becoming a chasm. The Chief Executive of CSJ states a strategy is needed to go after the root causes of poverty: education, work, debt, addiction and family. The report adds crime, poor housing and health to the list.

The Commission's membership includes Lord King. Former Governor of the Bank of England.

Tim Farron. Former Leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Andy Burnham. Former Labour minister and currently Mayor of Greater Manchester.

Miriam Cates. Conservative MP for Penistone & Stocksbridge.

(Cates is an evangelical Christian. She has been touting Tory MPs to oppose any proposals to ban conversion therapy and is no friend of the trans community. A former chief at CSJ she is married to a minister of a church supporting conversion therapy.)

Sadly, the latest report is likely to gather dust as have many other reports on the causes of poverty. There will be wringing of hands and expressions of concern but doubtless failure to tackle the systemic issues. As Galbraith noted society has the means to deal with the issues, it is unwilling to pay the cost. Instead there will be minor adjustments to alleviate the symptoms but nothing meaningful to tackle the causes.

From a Christian perspective we are told by Jesus to love our neighbour. Bishop Desmond Tutu said we should stop pulling people out of the river: instead we should go up river, find out why they are falling in and put a stop to it. The churches are very good at pulling people out of the river but woefully inadequate at demanding systemic change to stop them falling in. Christians individually and collectively should campaign vigorously in the political arena for systemic change to overcome poverty. Somehow I do not believe the denominations will engage politicians with the determination, passion, perseverance and zeal that is required to force change. But change is needed, urgently.

Part 222. Poverty: a stain on the nation. 26th January 2024

Yesterday, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a further report on poverty in the United Kingdom: UK Poverty 2024. The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK. It is another truly shocking report and further clear evidence of the need for the campaign by the churches to demand government takes urgent action.

It is shameful that poverty levels are so high. The report is easy to find on a search engine and I have downloaded the Foundation's news article, which contains a download link to the report, to my Facebook page: John Hopkinson Theology Page. It is a long detailed report and well worth close study.

*Please take a look at the Let's End Poverty website: letsendpoverty.co.uk. it is brimful with campaigning ideas and action. Better still, join the campaign.

Part 291. Another damning report. 17th June 2024

Hardship, poverty and destitution should have no place in an affluent society, yet it looms large in Britain. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation published today another damning report: The impact of hardship on primary schools and primary and community healthcare.

It is an indictment of the political process that it enables this situation to exist and continue and also of a wider malaise in society. Faith and secular organisations have united to campaign against poverty, sadly with little impact on politicians, media and society. Read the election proposals and propaganda coming through your letterbox. How much is devoted to the subjects of poverty and destitution? Very little I surmise. The reality is as identified by JK Galbraith many years ago: we have the means but lack the will to effect change. 

Part 313. Here we go again. Another report on poverty. 23rd August 2024

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a report: Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2024. It is a long, detailed document containing many statistics. It is sober reading.

The report is the latest in a long line of reports over the last fifty years that between them have attempted to identify the scope and causes of poverty, destitution, deprivation and inequality. The conclusion to be drawn is that precious little has been achieved to diminish or eradicate the problems.  

There is a recurrent theme: the need for political will to make systemic changes to achieve both short-term palliative and long-term structural change. There is the need also for joined-up thinking to tackle issues across a wide area of activities: housing, health, education, training, employment opportunities, pay, social and care services, environment and planning. Shades of the Bains Report!.

It is imperative that secular and faith organisations continue to press politicians to implement legislation to achieve systemic change. JK Galbraith in the 1960s wrote, in the USA context, that politicians had the means but lacked the will to effect the necessary changes. So it is in the UK sixty years later. 

Part 342. Love your neighbour: duty of care

I am of an age when the inescapable reality of one's mortality sinks in.  It is inevitable: I  accept it with equanimity.  Friends and colleagues have died and my time will come.  My belief is that death is the end, no after-life in heaven or hell.  So, I do not order my life in order to secure a passport to heaven.  I refuse to accept the blandishments of purveyors of the concepts of metaphysical theology, doctrine or creeds. 

Instead, I seek to follow the teaching ascribed to Jesus encapsulated in the command to love your neighbour as yourself.  Loving your neighbour is inclusive: no exceptions.  It does not recognise boundaries.  All fall within its remit.  Furthermore it is not limited to supporting people at the point of need.  It extends to seeking the sweeping away of the causes of oppression, exclusion, marginalisation and poverty.  It is a demand for systemic change to achieve social justice.

Systemic change involves challenging those with the power to effect change: politicians, church leaders, business leaders. Such challenges are a threat to the established order and are likely to be opposed vigorously.  It shifts the balance between the haves and have-nots.  Any shift towards social justice requires extension of the concept of duty of care.

This will be the subject of later posts.  Here is an example to be going on with, hopefully to whet your appetite.  In the UK thousands of families live in destitution.  Previous posts have referred to reports on this situation.  The demand should be that families are lifted out of destitution and the way of achieving this is for the state to owe such families a duty of care to ensure their lot is improved.  It would require legislation to impose a duty on government to achieve this objective.  The extent of such a duty and its enforcement would be delineated by the legislation. 

 

Part 341. A paradigm shift

Over the years I have moved from a conservative evangelical outlook to one grounded in liberal, progressive, radical and deconstructivist ideas.  I have shifted from labelling myself as a Christian to describing my views as following the teaching ascribed to Jesus, with an emphasis on promoting systemic change to achieve social justice.

Liberation theology developed by Gustavo Gutierrez  and Leonardo Boff has been a significant influence, as has the Christian socialism of Martin Luther King Jnr and Desmond Tutu.

Recently I read the following quotation by the late Tony Benn, a Christian Socialist and Labour Party MP.

Socialism is the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope that you can build a better world.

I concur.  

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Part 340. For info.

 My posts 332 to 339 summarise my current theological thinking.  I have nothing further to add and have no desire to engage in repetition.  This is my final post on theology, at least for the time being,  Future posts will concern the ongoing battle for equality within The Salvation Army and the disputation within the Church of England over Living in Love and Faith.

I intend to post on the subject of the interrelationship of politics, economics, law and sociology in the context of social justice issues.