No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg

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This is an attractive book, the speeches at mostly 3 or 4 pages long, with plenty of pictures in between.

As Greta has travelled she has, in essence, been making the same speech, the same point. Therefore as a collection one might feel it is repetitive – but that this is probably a grossly myopic comment – this is not a retrospective collection of speeches given over a lifetime it is published as part of ongoing active campaign.

I think I have been long aware of need to act to counter climate change so I was surprised that even for me these were a bit of a sucker punch. I probably talk the talk but do I really walk the walk on changing lifestyle in the interests of the climate? The power of her direct address making it very hard to pretend that she is talking to “other people” - Greta is looking you in the eye and asking what the hell you are doing?

How will COVID change this conversation? With politicians lining up to be “guided by the science” there is an opportunity to hold them to account to place equal weight on the climate science. And the ability for populations to accept massive shifts in working patterns and behaviours can also be played back – the quickest way to cut the carbon footprint of your daily commute is to work from home! It will be interesting to see how that plays out, and for the sake of the planet I hope it plays out well.

Why does God care who I sleep with? By Sam Allberry

This was reviewed in Church Times and being aware that Sam Allberry, as a Gay Man and a member of General Synod, currently has a significant influence on the thinking of the Church of England (through his advocacy of celibacy as the only proper Christian path for those that are, as he calls it, same-sex attracted) I wanted to take the opportunity to hear how he gets to that point of view.

I tried to come to this book with an open-mind – to consider Sam’s argument on its own merits – I think it is important to affirm that fact that Christianity is big enough to reach different conclusions from valid positions of integrity - and I am actually disappointed that I found it rather incoherent. I put my hand up, it is unlikely that I would ever come to agree with his conclusions but I could accept respecting them as reasonable alternatives.

Sam uses the age old rhetorical technical of first presenting a straw-man position and then successfully countering it with the presentation of his own position. If you want to win an argument it is generally easiest to set the terms of both sides of it.

He sets out a number of damaging expressions of sexuality – incest and paedophilia, rape and sexual abuse, the sexual commodification of people through porn and prostitution. It is not difficult to demonstrate that Sex that is driven by greed and selfish gratification, rather than any care for the other person, is destructive.

All of that I completely agree with – but the next step for Sam is to say that the only context where these destructive tendencies are avoided is mixed-sex marriage. Although this book is not particular thinking about same-sex relationships there is a clear sub-text in the way the argument is structured.

Firstly we get an idealised version of marriage – which is part of the conclusion that marital sex is inherently life affirming. Sam ignores any disconnect between what marriage “is meant to be” and what are often actually is. Never having been married I know nothing of the sunlit uplands of marital sex but I have had some wonderful life affirming sex, as well as some encounters I regret deeply, maybe I am lucky but from what I hear is good and bad sex are likely in equal measure within marriage as they are outside.

There is some worrying blurring of ideas of consent within marriage – although he states that “Paul would only countenance couples abstaining from sex by mutual consent, and the same is true of having sex too.” This doesn’t seem to be what the various quotes from Paul actually say, and it does not make sense – if you need mutual consent to abstain, then the logical conclusion is that you don’t need mutual consent to have sex. This seems to run significant risks of condoning marital rape. And these passages made me very uneasy.

He also seems to tie himself in a few knots by making marriage and sex primarily about procreation, in order to exclude same-sex couples from all the life-affirming things he says about it.

That marriage, at its best, is a great context to in which for children to grow up is a valid conclusion. However, to say that children conceived in any other context are disadvantaged doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny. But more importantly, to say that sex that is not open to the conception of children is somehow impaired raises so many questions that go unanswered – this would seem to align to the “traditional” Roman Catholic position and so I would have to infer that Sam Allberry would advocate against contraception.

Also starting with Adam and Eve (who we might conclude co-habited without any formal marriage ceremony) there is a narrative about the need for male and female to come together to make a successful relationship. This is expressed in terms of “equal but different” - that there is something distinctly different between any particular man and particular any women – and these two form a two part jigsaw that fit together as a whole. This also means you have to see an overwhelming commonality in the contributions that ever man and ever women can bring to a relationship, the jigsaw would seem to be endlessly interchangable? We could spin the wheel and have a different Husband and it would have not material impact on the quality of the relationship…

Among the other problems, despite being a single man himself, this position seems to make it hard to value singleness as a potentially valid and rich life. And leaves Sam stuck in the 1980s asking a gay male couple “who is the wife?” and lesbians “who takes the bins out?”.

And then he gets to the Woman at the Well, and I had to write in the margin “wow, he really is going there...” It you are trying to make the case for marriage being an unrelentingly positive experience it would probably be best to side step the case of a Women who has had 5 husbands, and in now in an relationship with a man who is not her husband. 5 times wonderful? Although I don’t think the text says how the 5 marriages ended, some of the husbands might have died, Sam is confident they all divorced her – in under the laws at the time husbands could divorce their wives but not vice versa. For 5 men to reject her, Sam sees a common factor - her, “she was also too much for them.”

Up until this point I had found it a weak and ineffective attempt to prop up outdated views, and in some ways been comforted that Sam didn’t seem to be able to access better arguments. But then this moment of victim shaming really pissed me off, and reminded me how toxic some who speak in the name of Christ are… My jaw dropped, I was angry, and I felt myself jumping up from my seat to get between San and the Woman to say “you shut up now” - if the situation was real would I be so bold?

I am Nobody’s Nigger by Dean Atta

Out of print but can be found on Abe 

after reading Pink Flamingo I had to read this Dean’s other published work.

To have poems about gay sex, unambiguously about sex is delightful – even when the feelings are complicated – not all the sex is good, not all of it is life affirming – but it is spoken about with honesty – we are given access to truth.

One poem…

More than this

I knew, before we’d even spoken

My skinny-jean-clad punk-rock poet

Tattooed and pierced

Painted and punctured

Denim, metal and ink

Pint glass in one hand

Poem in the other

Mouthfuls of beer dislodge illicit imagery

And forbidden metaphors

Crumpled A4 sheet casually discarded

As the last lyrics leave his lips

He leaves me naked

On a tobacco and cannabis speckled rug

On his living-room floor

Wrapped up in a blanket, damp with semen, lubricant

And the cold tea we spilled in our frantic lovemaking

‘I’ve got to go to work,’ he says’ ‘You can let yourself out.’

I guess it’s nice to know I can get what I want

But maybe I should want more than this.

Sheepshagger by Niall Griffiths

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If I had to sum this up in one word it would be “bleak”, if you gave me two words it would be “unrelentingly bleak”.

The dislocation from society of the rural poor can become a bit of a tired trope but it is expressed here with such gut-wretching authenticity that it is fresh.

The violence is told without blinking – this is not pantomime violence it is horrible. And there is a building sense of doom – there is not redemption on offer here.

All this comes together to make this a must read...

Refuge and Renewal Migration and British Art by Peter Wakelin

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This book, and the exhibition it accompanied, highlights the important positive contribution immigrants have made, and continue to make, to our national life. We need to celebrate anything that helps the counter-narrative to wave of reactionary anti-immigration rhetoric that currently dominants our public discourse.

Taking a long view, beginning with Huguenots, noting a less than impressive welcome Monet and his compatriots, and asking awkward questions about our self-congratulation for the Kindertransport and forgetfulness of the adult Jews who were denied entry, it builds to the big question mark against our current attitudes and policies.

We have been enriched by people we have made it bloody difficult to come, to be accepted, and then quietly co-opted their success as our own.

This was an uncomfortable read.

Seeing God in Art by Richard Harris

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I was a little disappointed in this book if I am honest.

The 30 images are an interesting selection, albeit not really taking us beyond the Western tradition.

But I found the reflections somewhat pedestrian and what really frustrated me is that most didn’t really respond to the actual image – maybe a reflection on the Biblical event depicted but not a reflection on this particular depiction.