It is pretty difficult to believe that it has been 12 months since I blogged about the last state opening of parliament. Parliament is due to prorogue with the 2008/09 session scheduled to take place on Wednesday 3 December.

The corridors of power will once again be filled with woman in evening gowns and pearl, peers in ermine and Members of Parliament in the usual garb.

The Royal throne will once again be used and, for one day, the Queen’s robing room won’t be just another point of interest on the line of route tour through Parliament.  The usual parties will once again  take place in various corners of both Houses in celebration and as a way to relax before the madness of the business starts all over again but more importantly, we will get details on the business of government for the next year.  It is hardly the last opportunity for the government to shine before the local or national elections (which will take place in 2010) but this will still be an important speech as it will be time for the Prime Minister to shine and show his leadership as we go through an economic down turn

For anyone reading this blog who does not know what the British National Party is, it is not just a political party among other political parties. The BNP has a long history and, when I grew up in the 1970s, and remember the days of its predecessor, the National Front; a hate group.

Historically they were made up of the working classes, wore doc martins and skin-heads. They were known for tac tics such as putting razor blades behind their posters, to rip to shreds the hands of anyone who dared to tear them down.

They have changed considerably since then. The image has been cleaned up and, though many professions are banded from becoming members, the unthinkable has happened. An old membership list has been posted on the internet detailing names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and the profession of their members. See the news article on the BBC website.

Great consternation has broken out on all sides of the argument, but what is most shocking to me is that, allegedly, a vicar is said to be named on the list. It is shocking because someone who should be professing the love of Christ, by holding membership, is in reality preaching something quite different; something that has no place in the Kingdom of God.

…and it was pretty bad!

I have spent a short while gauging different views in the arguments for and against religion and politics.

As far as I can see, there are those, including humanist, secularists and atheists, who argue for the separation of church and state. Religion should, they say, play no part in the policy making process and even religious schools are completely off the agenda. In the interim, where religion is taught, secularism should also be taught.

There are also those who believe that religion, as with any other world view, has its place in the policy making process and should also inform it. Christian supporters argue that Christ is the example, fulfilling people’s physical needs before their spiritual ones.

Another argument, also from the Christian camps is that there should be no mixture of the religious and the spiritual and religion has played some role in many of the wars this world has lived through.

There is something convincing in all the above arguments but, what I would like to ask here is, should Christians run for political office? And, should there be any restrictions placed on those holding an office/position in church from also standing for political office?

It has been a long time since I last wrote in this blog.  For a while life seemed to go into free fall.  I lost a friend, I lost my grandmother and then I had to catch up on a lot of work that I had missed on my course.  I was battling to keep my head above water, pay my bills, find work and get my papers in.

In fact, papers seemed to naturally fall to the bottom of the pile.  If I didn’t get them in on time there would always be time later.  If I didn’t get them done on time, then it would be me loosing money.  On the other hand, if I didn’t pay my bills or my mortgage, the story would be quite different.  It could mean repossession or having my utilities cut off.

As it happened help came just in time.  I received a call from someone who I hadn’t spoken to for some time and a job came up in his office.  Some months later and I am one of the longest serving members of staff and holding the fort! While I don’t want to sound ungrateful, it is getting in the way of my studies.  I travel around 20 miles a day for the first 3days of the week, traversing London from East to West.  In fact, I leave London when I get to the west and work among a small immigrant community.

While I have made quite some headway, financially, I still have a long way to go.  I have been looking for more work closer too home but even that takes my attention away from my studies.  I recently lost another childhood friend but it hasn’t hit me in the same way.

In the coming months I hope to be able to make some headway on reading and paper writing.  I may not graduate at the same time as my class mates but I will eventually graduate.

I have some real problems with keeping the Sabbath and, despite being a life long Adventist (apart from a stint of turning away from the church), I get confused when some tend to preach a different doctrine of the Sabbath than the one which I understand from the Bible.

I am not under any illusion that the fourth commandment says keep the Sabbath.  As an Adventist I understand our teaching which says that the commandment is only memorialising the activity of God at creation and, when we celebrate the Sabbath, we are in fact, following the example given by God at the very foundations of the world and that the Sabbath is as binding today as it was when given at Mount Sinai and as it was for Adam and Eve.  Despite that, I still have to ask myself what it means to keep the Sabbath in light of the world in which we live today.  I also understand that some reject any kind of contextualisation saying that it opens the doors to all kinds of erroneous teachings.  But, if you will, hear me out.  

How does locking ourselves away on the Sabbath go any way to demonstrating our understanding of the great commandment to love God and love people?  Isn’t it true that they only things that it demonstrates are exclusion and seclusion?   We shouldn’t fear being labeled a rationalist, replacing human reason above divine revelation or that of the written word and suspend all thinking processes saying that there is nothing that we can or should do on the Sabbath saved the few activities which are given as examples in the Bible.  

I fear that there are many in our church who would find Christ’s method of keeping the Sabbath just as controversial as the Pharisees found it.  

When Christ’s disciples plucked ears of corn on the Sabbath they were condemned by the Pharisees.  When Christ healed on the Sabbath day the ruler of the synagogue was indignant.  From here lines have been drawn around those things that can be done and that can’t be done on the Sabbath.  It is not ok to work on the Sabbath unless you are in a caring profession such as nursing and medicine.  But it is not only those professions which have a caring aspect to them.  It is because of the division we have created between those things which are sacred and those things which are secular that we have come up with divisions as to which professions are sacred and which are not.

The sacred secular split forces the mind into believing that there are only a few limited professions which are caring.  The rest fall under a different category and as a result that has affected the way that we see ministry and who can do ministry and when ministry is being done. 

I don’t know about you but, it saddens me that, even though we have the examples and words of Christ written for us in the Bible, we still get it wrong and still purpetuate the same practices of the Pharisees and that we close our minds to exactly what God would have us do.  After all, it is His Sabbath day and not ours.

The whole nation was riveted yesterday morning to see flying penguin.  Never before seen, these penguins were taking off and flapping their wings on the BBC Breakfast programme on Tuesday 1 April.  You can see the clip here on the BBC iPlayer.

Well, not quite.  Over the years the BBC have done some great April Fools gags and this one has to rate among one of their best.  You can see the making of the clip for the next five days only here.

The last time that I put up a link for my books for sale on Amazon, I sold quite a few books.  That sale has slowed down however.  So, I am putting the link back up again in the hope that it will boost the number of people viewing my storefront. 

I sold a few books to those counties where friends live so I thank everyone who passed on the link or put it up on the Facebook page!

Earth Hour is a global event which will be taking place on Saturday 29 March at 8pm local time (where ever you are) to switch of all electrical equipment.  That will mean total darkness for an hour.  The aim is to create awareness about energy consumption - not that you can be living in the west right now and be completely unaware of the move toward reducing our collective and individual carbon output.

If you want to find out more or join in, check out the Earth Hour website.

There are many out there that say that you shouldn’t talk about politics or religion in polite company.  There are many within the church (various denominations) who say that religion should be kept out of politics.  There are also those in religion who refer to anyone involved in politics in less than christian terms.  I don’t quite understand either position. 

The way that I see it is this, you can do politics without the politicking.   Let me explain.  I have campaigned on the door step at election time, I have support Members of Parliament and other elected as well as non-elected representatives in their work and, for 5 years now I have been involved in politics on a local level.  In each of these role what that has meant is getting to know local people, local issues and working to resolve problems where there arise.  Sometimes those problems are personal, sometimes they are organisational and sometime they are political.  While there have been many around me who have resorted to manipulation and even a lie here and there (sometimes big and sometimes small), I have used my role to have a direct impact on people’s lives and I would like to think that the impact is positive.  

Essentially it means representing their views and concerns to the appropriate body. Sometimes those concerns can be about how their application for a housing transfer has been handled.  Sometimes it might be about how their estate is clean or their repairs done (or not done in far too many cases).  Sometimes it can be as simple as requesting for a form to be sent to a local residents.  On the other hand, there are also much more complex problems.  The women, for example, who keeps coming to see me about her application for leave to remain in the UK (an immigration matter which is usually dealt with by the local local MP but she keeps coming back to me).  She talks to me about the major illnesses which she is now living with and her desire to get her passport back so that she can go ‘home’ before she dies. 

On a less grave note but nonetheless a serious one, is the incident which occured one Bank Holiday.   On the Friday a block of flats had the water supply cut off.  The weather was hot, the children home but there was only a stop-cock on a local street corner.  That was a massive problem which was made even worse by the fact that the lift was taken out of commission at the same time.  This left the elderly, those with young children and some living with disabilities with the prospect of climbing flights of stairs with buckets of water.

In both instances I have represented the case for those whose voices have been drowned out by bureaucracy.  I have lobbied for injustices to be put right so residents can be alleviated of their heavy burdens in what is an already over-burdened life.

In essence,  I work to sort out the mess that no one else wants to sort out.   For my troubles I get told that I am a liar because I am involved in politics, I get side-lined marginalised and made to feel as though I have step in something very, very smelly. 

Not very nice I know. 

I guess that you wouldn’t be too surprised if I told you that, that is just the treatment that I get from the church organisation.  Not the members, you understand - even though the members make up the organisation but that is just a dichotomy that I will never quite get to grips with. 

Those members of the good old British public, on the other hand, who have lost their trust in politics and politicians treat me quite differently.  They say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.  They stop and smile and say hello to me when they see me in the street and they remember that I was their to help them, that I spoke to them and that I took the time to do something that would make in impact on their lives.

The point is the contrast in reactions. On the one hand, there is the reaction of Christians who I would expect to be more supportive, kinder, more patient and accepting.  On the other hand, there is the public who I should expect to be hostile, ungrateful, rude and even belligerent.  In both instances my expectations are blown.

Nothing is quite as you would expect it to be but then politics is a strange old life and religion even stranger. 

Would I give either up?  Not on your life!