This weeks Quantum comes to you from a motel in Warwick, Queensland. We look at the Suez canal; Satanic shoes; names in Scotland; Myanmar; Batley grammar school; Chinese boycotts; China in the Phillipines; Jonathan Fletcher; the 40th anniversary of Chariots of Fire; Foucault’s abuse; The C of E and BAME quotas; White theology; Winchester and statue of Greta; the Spectator Easter editorial and an Easter version of Hallelujah.
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You can listen to it on Spotify or here…
We rejoice with those how have unblocked the Suez canal, consider the most popular names in Scotland; Nike v’s Satan’s shoes; the inconsistency and dangers of the Batley grammar school situation.
China hits back against corporations who have dared to criticise them, and sent their ghost fleet into the Phillipines. Myanmar continues to kill its own citizens. And Taiwan mourns more than 50 dead in a train crash.
In the mad world we think of the school in Australia that is getting its male students to publicly apologise for being male. And the C of E setting up BAME candidate quotas, as well as the Oxford theology course which states you can’t be white and a Christian. Whichester University is putting up a statue of Greta Thunberg. Plus Oxford students need to forget about staff notation which is a symbol of white supremacist classical music, such as this from Beethoven.
This interview from Glen Scrivener with a victim of Jonathan Fletcher is revealing and brave.
We also remember the 40th anniversary of Chariots of Fire
And the sad but not surprising story that the father of Woke, Michel Foucault, was a paedophile..
Premier Christianity refuse to apologise for their treatment of me – this song is my response.
James Mumford has a wonderful Easter article in this weeks Spectator.
And we finish with this beautiful song…
Feel free to support Quantum here –
Happy Easter…
An interesting article by Unherd about the intolerant Calvinist origins of Wokism
https://unherd.com/2021/03/the-tyranny-of-diversity-training/
Interesting, prejudiced and ignorant….
Here is another good article on Calvinism, Puritanism and Wokeism
https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/analysis/analysis-puritans-woke-1662/
I am most disappointed in Premier for their ill-treatment of you, David, and have sent them the following email:
‘I have today heard David Robertson‘s description, on his podcast, of his recent treatment by Premier over the article he wrote for you about the Meghan and Harry interview. I am very disappointed to hear of the shabby way Premier has behaved towards him. His reputation has undoubtably been damaged, and quite unfairly. The article was originally approved by Sam Hailes and there was no good reason to apologise for it and withdraw it. I understand people felt hurt, but that is not enough of a reason.
I will not be donating further to Premier until you apologise to David Robertson.’
I am also praying for justice to prevail here.
Hello Pastor
I hope you and Mrs Robertson have had a very happy and holy Easter.
This is slightly older news but the German Lutherans are apparently promoting LGBT nonsense in schools as part of a diversity campaign.
“The mainline German Evangelical Church and its regional member churches have largely evolved to theologically liberal positions on issues such as human sexuality and gender. Statistics show that the mainline Protestant historical denomination in Germany continues to suffer strong losses in its membership.”
https://evangelicalfocus.com/europe/7999/do-not-be-afraid-german-protestant-schools-use-bible-verse-in-prolgbt-campaign
A related linked article – the Catholics aren’t faring much better either, even in the wake of local lad Ratzinger’s papacy:
https://evangelicalfocus.com/europe/4415/one-third-of-protestants-in-germany-does-not-believe-in-god
It is incredibly sad this is happening in the birthplace of the Reformation.
Hi. Here’s the email I got from the Wokesford Centre for Woke Religion or whatever they’re calling themselves. It has the confence details.
#DismantlingWhiteness – further details
Dear participant,
Many thanks for registering for ‘Dismantling Whiteness: Critical White Theology, an online day conference on Saturday 17th April. We’re excited to be able to tell you that you are one of 500 people who have registered, and it promises to be a lively and challenging day.
We’re writing to share more details of the conference programme with you, and also to ask you to share some information with us.
We want to create an online conference that is a safe enough space to have some challenging conversations. To help with conference ‘security’, and also to help us get to know a bit more about each other before the day, we’re asking you to please:
· Send an email to us (to Revd Dr Al Barrett, hodgehillvicar@hotmail.co.uk), including:
o ‘#DismantlingWhiteness’ in the subject line
o A brief paragraph telling us who you are, your context, and your particular interest in the conference.
o Letting us know if you give us your permission to share your name, contact details, and introductory paragraph, with other conference participants.*
o Indicating your 1st and 2nd choices of ‘theme/stream’ for the ‘short paper’ session in the afternoon (see below).
· When you ‘arrive’ on the day, please ensure that your Zoom user name matches up with the name you are using to register.
Many thanks, and looking forward to seeing you on the day,
Revd Dr Al Barrett, Revd Dr Jill Marsh, Prof Anthony Reddie
Dismantling Whiteness: Critical White Theology – conference programme
Sat. 17th April 2021
10.30 Welcome
10.40 1st Speaker (including 5 mins questions taken from the chat) [Rachel Starr]
11.10 2nd Speaker (as above) [Paul Weller]
11.40 10 min break
11.50 20 mins in groups to respond to the invited speakers
12.10 Plenary conversation
12.30 Lunch break
1.15 Welcome back
1.25 Streams of short papers (3 presenters in each of 9 streams – see below)
(with 5 mins break between each 30 min session, 20-25 mins. paper, 5- 10
Q&A)
A) Autobiographical
Erica Dunmow, Made in the image of God… autobiographical reflection
Lyn Burnhope, Dismantling whiteness: an auto/biographical reflection
Nigel Rooms, Is God dismantling my Whiteness?
B) Congregational Church Life
Grace Milton, Cultural expectations of Christian conversion in the UK
Jill Marsh, How whiteness works in local congregational life
Victoria Turner, Interrogating Whiteness in a Working-Class Church Community
C) (Inter)national Papers
Andrew Clark Howard & Andrew Picard, Dismantling settled whiteness (NZ)
Louis van der Riet & Willhelm Verwoerd, Dismantling whiteness within the DRC (SA)
Michael Brendan McCormack, The Utter Failure of White Religion (US)
D) Institutional Whiteness
Eric Stoddart, The White Gaze
Peter Cruchley, Waking Jesus from the dreams, worries and won’ts of Whiteness
Sally Rush, The experience of the white chaplain and community worker
E) Complexifying whiteness
Chris Shannahan, The ambivalent plurality of whiteness
Clive Marsh, Is ‘Dismantling’ the Right Word?
Kevin Ellis, I have become hybrid
F) Visual representations
Beth Joss-Pothen, Critiquing White Jesus
Cath Kennedy, Racial representation in Godly Play materials
Victoria Omotoso, Who do you say that I am?
G) Learning programmes
Alastair McKay & Carey Haslam, ‘Being White’ programme
Cathy Ross & James Butler, Anvil Journal and Whiteness
Kate Massey, Amazing Grace: case study of a pilot learning community
H) Whiteness and England
Augustine Tanner-Ihn, Decolonizing a Colonial Church
Alexandra Brown, A womanist theologian with the private education sector
Colin Marsh, The story of England’s land
I) Whiteness and Place
Al Barrett, ‘What would the Roman centurion do?’ Negotiating place and space as a white person in a race-divided world
Cobus Van Wyngaard, Dismantling white theological imaginations of place
Zachary Guiliano, Deep Roots: Pervasive Whiteness and the Slaveholding Church in Christian History and Theology
Sounds like a great racist day…I suspect dominated by a group of white privileged people showing just how much they don’t understand the bible…