Corporate culture vs Kingdom culture

The New Yorker is an unfailing source of insight and humour.

Just love Paul Noth’s cartoon from 30th Nov edition. It speaks for itself.

Lessons from history: the 1922 fall of Smyrna and the modern world

One of my reading habits/disciplines is to try to read about every place I work in or visit. One of the dangerous joys of living near the unsurpassed Daunt Books is that it feeds this habit perfectly! If you don’t know it, Daunt’s warrants a visit to London W1 all by itself. Its genius is simple – a travel bookshop that groups fiction, history, maps and guidebooks altogether, by country and region. Now why don’t they all do that.

Because my Langham Partnership work takes me to Turkey twice a year (see various previous posts), I’ve been reading quite a lot about the country and its history over the last few months. I picked this book up there as a result and couldn’t put it down. Some may be familiar with Giles Milton’s other books (like Nathaniel’s Nutmeg and Big Chief Elizabeth etc) and he is a wonderful writer. This is no exception, though the focus is of a particularly dark chapter in European history.

First World War Aftershocks

Every war has its unintended consequences, and the First World War was no exception. Perhaps its greatest aftershock was the collapse of the centuries-old Ottoman Empire, a fact that perfectly illustrates the complexities of a war that had been sparked by a political assassination in Bosnia and the aggression of Germany’s Kaiser Bill. After years of the relatively quiet co-existence of different ethnic and religious groups, the new Turkish republic was carved out in the flames of terrible ethnic tension and indeed cleansing. No city represented the agony of this process more than Smyrna (modern Izmir). Smyrna had been the grandest of cities – huge, ancient, fabulously wealthy with department stores and opera houses, idyllic landscapes and above all, great diversity.

Giles Milton has written a well-crafted, multi-layered account of its fall in 1922. This involved painstaking research on the day-to-day events surrounding its destruction that terrible September – but without the wider national and international perspective, this would have remained simply a remote if chilling episode in increasingly distant history.

Why Smyrna Matters

But Smyrna’s fall was a crucial moment for so many reasons:

• It explains or illustrates so many of the geopolitical tensions that exist today: between Greeks and Turks (especially in Cyprus); within former Yugoslavia; the debates about Turkey joining the EU. Atrocities and follies were not isolated to one side or another – Greeks invaded Asia Minor in vain pursuit of the “Megali Idea” (the big idea). They sought to avenge the centuries of Ottoman suppression of Greek culture in the region by uniting the 1000s of ethnic Greeks with Athens. The new Turkish nationalists were incensed by the occupation of Constantinople by the 1WW allies and the invasion by Greece. Roused by Ataturk, Smyrna was their greatest prize after Constantinople, being the richest trading city of the old empire. Milton convincingly explains that the city was certainly destroyed by Turkish soldiers, despite historical spin to the contrary – and the image of 1000s trapped in the small space between the burning buildings the harbour waters is truly pitiful. The fate of the hundreds of Armenians and Greeks sent on forced marches into the Turkish interior is too grim to imagine.
• It depicts the now lost but charmed existence of colonial life – the so-called Levantines (British, Americans, French, Italians etc) of Asia Minor lived in luxury and extraordinary wealth, strategically placed to capitalise on the European trade with the East. This was epitomised by the fact that there was even a district of the city inhabited by Americans actually called ‘Paradise’ (hence the book’s title). Drawing on diaries and other first-hand accounts, Milton captures the atmosphere of denial and invincibility before Smyrna’s inevitable fall.
• Most significantly, to my mind however, is Milton’s account of how the decisions of a precious few, secluded behind locked doors hundreds of miles away, can affect the fate of millions. Political compromises, prejudices and whims can have the equivalent of the Butterfly Effect. In particular, Lloyd-George bears much of the blame, easily swayed by the charm and rhetoric of Greek Prime Minister Venizelos and his romanticised notions of what Greece had been and should be – and he refused to listen to those who knew better. It took a simple telephone call from one prime minister to another to spark a 3-year conflict in Asia Minor, resulting in the deaths of 1000s, the enforced migration of 100,000s and the misery of millions. L-G is by no means the only one of course. But ’twas ever thus.

Only a few heroics

None of the principle actors comes out of this smelling of roses – the usual cocktail of pride, folly and passion is at play. But Milton highlights the heroics and nobility of some individuals: like the Ottoman governor of Smyrna, Rahmi Bey – an old Anglophile socially at ease with all the different cultures and groups of Smyrna, he actually resisted the orders to round up Armenians that came from the Sultanate in Constantinople.

Official tourist map - click image for tourist info to see how 1922 gets glossed over

He even sought to negotiate with the British during the First World War in order to protect Smyrna’s diverse population (despite this being treasonable once the Ottoman Empire had allied with the Kaiser). Or there was the decidedly unprepossessing American Methodist minister and YMCA employee, Asa Jennings. He found himself blagging his way into a temporary appointment as a Greek admiral in order to oversee the evacuation of hundreds of desperate refugees – an extraordinary story.

This is a brilliant and gripping book about a terrible time. Milton manages to glide between macro and micro levels with ease, and to my outsider’s view (at least) seems sufficiently balanced and objective. But he also intersperses the grim realities with accounts of extraordinary coincidences, moments of absurdity and above all a very human story. Oh that we would learn of the dangers of ignorant war-mongering in distant realms… The story of Smyrna will not be known or remembered by many now (though it should be) – I certainly knew far too little about it. But what its destruction represents is all too contemporary… Iraq and Afghanistan anyone?

World AIDS day 2009 – statistical realities

I posted about World AIDS Day a year ago (and yesterday got 100s of hits as a result). But I came across this graphic representation of the current stats for 2009, representing %increases and decreases. Chilling. The 5 biggest rises are way off most people’s mental maps… Click on it to be able to interact in more depth.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 15 (December 2009)

Bit of a bumper Treasure Map this month – plenty to get chewing on…

Sacred Treasure

• Vinoth Ramachandra offers a characteristically challenging and provocative reflection on some encounters he’s had in the USA.
• An interesting article about Tim Keller in New York magazine: Why Tim Keller wants to save your yuppie soul.
• Am grateful to The Simple Pastor for this critique of one church’s massive rebuild programme in Dallas. I couldn’t agree more – and looking at the church’s website videos, i have to say i found some of the assumptions about what church is almost chilling.
• This is stunning – a graphic depiction of the Hebrew conception of the universe. Of course sceptics may have a field day with it, assuming that it fatally undermines the whole validity of such a conception. But that is to miss the point. It is all a question of perspective. This is the way the universe seems to those who live in within it – and is no less problematic than the convention of describing dawn and nightfall as sunrise and sunset. There clearly isn’t a physical 3-tier universe – but that is a far cry from suggesting that there is nothing more to the universe than the material or physical. Which is why countless cosmologists and physicists are increasingly accepting theism.
• An enjoyable irony in the continuation of the atheist bus saga.

Topical Treasure

• A fascinating case of cross-cultural difference: How Obama carrying his own umbrella went down during his recent trip to China.
• A superb collection of images of the Berlin Wall, before, during and after

• Looking at the images above (of drought-afflicted American Midwest in the 1930s), which is it? Journalism, Propaganda or Art? Or all 3. Film-maker Errol Morris (director of the gripping docu-film The Fog of War) has some interesting thoughts in the New York Times.
• Who is a true hero? What is honour? What makes someone noble? Some great questions and suggestions raised by an installation of projections onto the Guards Chapel in London, home of the Household Cavalry. (HT Jason Ramasami)
• I like this:

Quirky Treasure

• The power of the human imagination and a history of invention – a stunning origami animation – shame it’s just an advert for a silly old insurance company…

• How many secretaries does a President need!? Check this out… Just imagine the pride and sense of achievement on becoming the Principal Deputy to the Deputy Assistant Secretary (and the size of business card that would be needed to fit all that in).
• Finally, The Ultimate Productivity Tool. Very useful…

John Wyatt’s Matters of Life and Death (2nd edition now out)

With impeccable timing (i.e. the week we had our Christians Facing Issues service on Assisted Suicide), one of the key people involved in the service (you can see him introducing the whole issue very helpfully in the first youtube clip I posted) has a book out. Prof John Wyatt originally wrote his Matters of Life and Death in 1998 (based on his 1997 London Lectures of the same name). This has been fully revised and updated to include a number of recent developments in start and end of life debates. It is an excellent book and he really knows what he’s talking about (he is Professor of Ethics and Perinatology at University College, London).

For some bizarre reason, IVP asked me to write an endorsement – quite why, I don’t fully understand for I am by no means an ethicist nor at all medical (though perhaps being married to a nurse-midwife is some sort of qualification – a stretch I realise) – but John is a faithful and long-standing member of All Souls, so here it is anyway!

The experience of shrill headlines and some scientists’ over-reaching claims can be bewildering at the best of times. But when that feeling is coupled with the vague unease that ethical boundaries have been crossed, it is a great relief to know that wise guides like John Wyatt are at hand. I am immensely grateful for the new edition of this book. Skilfully combining  the insights of a scholar, the compassion of a practising doctor and the nuanced convictions of a mature Christian, Wyatt is uniquely qualified to write it. His style is readable and fluent, but never superficial or sloganeering.

Because he takes care to tackle difficult ethical questions head-on, applying biblical wisdom and drawing on a wide range of case studies (some of which derive from his own professional experience), I cannot recommend this book enough, to medical professional and concerned onlooker alike.

So all I can say is check it out! Matters of Life and Death is the simply best thing I’ve read on these difficult issues and will certainly help to get you thinking.

Bible in 1 Hour from LA

Earlier this month, I was speaking at a Korean American church in Los Angeles. One or two of the chaps worked hard to put this video of it together, so here it is. If you can’t face the thought of actually having to look at me, then i completely understand.

Here is a pdf of the handout: Bible in Hour & Why It Matters

For those who’d prefer the text (infinitely preferable, in my view), here is the original article on which it was based (for CMF’s Nucleus magazine).

Your Life, Your Death, Your Choice? (Christians Facing Issues 4: Assisted Suicide)

STOP PRESS: Note updated links for talks

This Sunday saw the 3rd in our occasional Christians Facing Issues services, and this time the topic was Assisted Suicide. It’s in the news a lot and one thing is certain – it seems it is impossible to have a careful rational discussion about it in the current climate. Christians too often are just as guilty of jumping onto hobby horses or launching into soundbites as anyone else – so this service gave a fantastic opportunity to avoid that by informing, challenging and offering a considered and constructive response.

Hugh Palmer’s 3 really helpful talks can be downloaded here…and then Hugh plus conversations with John Wyatt & Dimity Grant-Frost here and here

It was particularly helpful to hear from both professionals in the field and those for whom it is a very close and difficult subjects. Fortunately, these are available as videos on the langhammedia youtube page. Here is the introduction that the indomitable John Wyatt (Prof of Ethics and Perinatology at UCH) gave (an excellent production again by Simon Green and co)

Particularly striking were the interviews with Baroness Campbell, Sarah Meagher and our dear friends and members of the church, Alan & Sheila Toogood (go to langhammedia for the full interviews)

Finally, Dimity Grant-Frost did a really helpful explanation of Palliative Care:

And then Frances Whitehead lead the prayers, concluding with this wonderful prayer attributed to St Augustine of Hippo:

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake,
or watch, or weep tonight,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ.
Rest your weary ones.
Bless your dying ones.
Soothe your suffering ones.
Pity your afflicted ones.
Shield your joyous ones.
And for all your love’s sake.  Amen.

California dreaming – a few pics

Just back from California, after a few meetings in LA and then speaking in a church in San Francisco. Really encouraging time – and great to (re)connect with friends new and old in both cities. Here are a few pics (click on each for the whole Flickr set):

San Francisco

Los Angeles

How God’s Gospel Went Global – An overview of Acts

Every summer, we have an All Souls week away called Cornerstone. Each year we seek to get our heads round one particular book, and this year’s focus was the Book of Acts.

This is how I broke it up (and gave it cringingly contrived alliterative headings):

1. Acts 1: Mission Momentum
2. Acts 2-6: Bound Believers
3. Acts 7: Heinous Hostility
4. Acts 8-15: Aliens Accepted
5. Acts 16-20: Gospel Guardians
6. Acts 28: The Story Doesn’t End Here… (an all age talk for the final morning, not recorded)

There was also an optional evening seminar on Acts & The Holy Spirit. The aim of Cornerstone is both to be a chance to go more in-depth than is ever possible back at All Souls, as well as to have a holiday. So we have an intense start to the day – each session is 50-60 minutes long, followed by 30 minutes of small group discussions – then the rest of the day is for fun and jollity.

These are now all available as an iTunes podcast (or if you prefer, you can get them direct from the host, Jellycast).

For those who are have been asking, the most helpful book in preparation was Chris Green’s brilliant guide to teaching Acts, The Word of His Grace. It’s one of those books to sell your shirt for (though Amazon currently says its temp. out of stoke – I do hope that’s not a bad sign). What I particularly valued in Chris’s stuff was his big picture approach (invaluable for what we were trying to do this summer). He’s plugged away at Luke’s overall structure and purpose and seen how that works out along the way. Because my brain is especially prone to working that way, I particularly found his tables helpful – some of which i nicked, adapted or developed for the handouts.

These are available here:

• Talks outlines
• Background information

London’s Biggest Survey EVER??! If you could ask one question…

In the run up to the series of Passion For Life events next Feb/March, we’re doing this survey at All Souls for non-churchy friends. It takes the question that Rico Tice has used for years as the launchpad for the first evening of the Christianity Explored – and we’re using it to devise the 3 sermons that the boss, Hugh Palmer will preach on the surrounding sundays:

• 28th February 09
• 7th March 09
• 14th March 09

I thought I’d join in the fun and do a Q survey of my own – have cheated slightly by second-guessing some of the answers, but there’s still a space for you to add in your own if you don’t like the suggestions…

There’s a limit to the number of votes this can receive – but click on the survey image (above) to get to the real thing…