Martin Luther King Jr.: Epistles & Prophets

Peter Challen writes that in observance of the lasting impact of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s ministry, Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City is offering a new video curriculum free of charge.

Martin Luther King Jr.: Epistles & Prophets brings together an interview with Civil Rights icon and theologian Ruby Sales and expert speakers exploring contemporary black/white relationships through writings by James Baldwin, Thomas Merton, and King that resonate powerfully today.

Use the segments in faith-formation educational settings large or small, or on your own. Each video comes with a set of questions to help facilitate further reflection.

The material can be viewed online or downloaded at www.trinitywallstreet.org/mlk.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marvin Gaye - Abraham, Martin And John.

Protection of the Commons: Quilligan Seminars

One of the central themes in Charles Eisenstein's bestseller Sacred Economics is the Commons. James Quilligan, an internationally known policy consultant and economist, who has recently led a highly acclaimed seminar series in London on The Emergence of Commons-based Economy, has the development and protection of the Commons in the centre of his professional work.


Here is an outline of the series of Quilligan seminars. The debategraph, the rawfootage of all the 12 seminars as well as the talking points and introductions are here and reflections by a participant are here. You will also find all the above links as well as other related ones here.

A further series of five Quilligan Seminars to be held from October 22-26^th will all deal with the currency of life and the understanding of gift in relation to the preventing of new enclosures and the protection of the commons. 

This series, at present, will consider:

• 'Recovery of the Commons evolving around us' - Mutualising land and capital into commons bodies for community benefit and individual enterprise.
• ‘A Roadmap to sustainable community based healthcare and how together we will make it work’ - Raising awareness of our possibilities for generative action in healthcare. Creating Connections for sustained shared attention and structures of engagement for doing what needs to be done to make sustainable healthcare possible.
• ‘Establishing an Economic System that protects the Commons’ - Plenary and work-groups on Tax, Money, Financial Sector. 
• ‘Enhancing the range and recruitment of a critical mass.’
• Conferences on Money and Alternative Currencies with Thomas Greco, (being planned by LETSlinkUK - http://www.letslinkuk.net/).  Details at this stage from london@letslink.org.
• Book Launch of Fred Harrison’s ‘The Traumatised Society’ at St James Piccadilly, 3.00 - 5.00pm.

More details at this stage from peterchallen@gmail.com.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good Charlotte - The River.

The Commons Matrix

The following comes from Peter Challen:

The Commons Matrix

Attend to

a common theory of value,

integrally rooted

in both spirit and matter,

found in

philosophy, anthropology,

linguistics, communication, organisational behaviour;

in technology, history, culture,

environmentalism, economics,

law and political theory:

to explore and expose

many of the leading myopic

extant presuppositions

in our present systems,

heading for decline.

Recovering our mutuality,

note ahead the...

QUILLIGAN SEMINARS

Away with straight-edged rulers

to save a fractal universe.

In nature's persistent emergence

treat money and land as social commons,

like air and oceans,

the bio-sphere and deep deposits

of past storing centuries,

to serve all generations ahead.

Join our proto-type of

systemic recovery and renewal

at the Quilligan Seminars

in twelve days of May,

2012.

The Quilligan Seminars are an intensive social innovation project of 12 interrelated seminars in 12 days involving leading NGOs and thinks tanks. This series will foster an educational and research collaboration for facilitating transition to a more equitable world. It will demonstrate how differing starting points can lead to a commons ground. You can participate in one or more of the seminars.

James Quilligan is a globally renowned commons theorist/activist, policy analyst, and founder of the Global Commons Trust. He writes: "Modern economics has turned labour into a utility of the market and government. But the principles of the commons (people's negotiation of their own norms and rules for the management of social and natural resources) show us how to transcend utilitarian economics by transforming the traditional division of labour. New forms of value are already being created by these commons, whether they are traditional (irrigation ditches, pastures, indigenous cultures) or emerging (intellectual property, social networks, collaborative innovation)." To learn more about Mr. Quilligan’s work, click here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - Isolation.

What is the role of the commons in the economy?

Rev. Canon Peter Challen of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice is one of the organisers for an intensive social innovation project of 12 interrelated seminars in 12 days involving leading NGOs and thinks tanks. What is the role of the commons in the economy? will foster an educational and research collaboration for facilitating transition to a more equitable world. It will demonstrate how differing starting points can lead to a commons ground. You can participate in one or more of the seminars.

James Quilligan is a globally renowned commons theorist/activist, policy analyst, and founder of the Global Commons Trust. He writes: "Modern economics has turned labour into a utility of the market and government. But the principles of the commons (people's negotiation of their own norms and rules for the management of social and natural resources) show us how to transcend utilitarian economics by transforming the traditional division of labour. New forms of value are already being created by these commons, whether they are traditional (irrigation ditches, pastures, indigenous cultures) or emerging (intellectual property, social networks, collaborative innovation)." To learn more about Mr. Quilligan’s work, click here.

James Quilligan's work on managing local and global commons is developing understanding of how in a commons-based economy:

• consumers become the producers of their own resources
• trusts set a cap on the extraction and use of a resource to preserve it for future generations
• businesses flourish by renting a proportion of the resources outside the cap for extraction and production
• governments tax a percentage of these rents, funding a basic income for citizens and the restoration of depleted resources
• the power of decision-making returns to the people, enabling them to participate in the decisions that affect them directly
• the traditional property ownership model is eclipsed by a trusteeship model of sustainability, quality of life and well-being
• the lessons of community based resource management have major implications for post-liberal forms of multilateralism and global governance.

He will present a series of 12 seminars, workshops and other educational events during his 12 day visit to London in the Spring. (Look up details here.) Those events will be convened by a variety of organisations. Confirmed conveners include:Finance Innovation Lab, School of Economic Science, St. James Piccadilly, IPPR, NEF, Civil Society Forum, and School of Commoning.  The kick-off seminar will be hosted in the House of Commons.

Starting from many different points of engaged intellectual and scholarly concern, research and practice, the various seminars will explore the understanding of the Commons as perceived from each seminar’s perspective, guided by James Quilligan. Together, they represent an emergent curriculum of theoretically grounded and action-oriented studies in the key economic, political, and social issues of the Commons.

During his visit, these seminars will examine together such questions as:

• Economically, what steps are needed to adjust the rules of the present interest-driven, debt-based economy to the sustainable targets of our natural, social and cultural commons?
• Politically, how can the philosophy of individual wealth (ownership, division of labor, reciprocity) be reconciled with the interests of collective wealth (trusteeship, the unity of producers and consumers, complementarity)?
• Socially, would it be possible for people's trusts to create sustainable limits to protect our commons for future generations, then rent the remaining resources to business for production and distribution, and provide these revenues to government for the funding of social dividends and the restoration of the depleted commons?

The vital and complex questions introduced in these seminars do not have easy answers. The investigation into how the “commons” may connect and synergise the economic, social, philosophical, spiritual, and political spheres, and facilitate the great transition to an equitable and sustainable world, is an ongoing challenge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pink Floyd - Money.

Meltdown .... A PowerPoint presentation

Peter Challen has sent me an interesting PowerPoint presentation entitled 'Meltdown' about the next phase of the Global Financial crash, originally prepared and circulated by Dr Mike Haywood. Let me know if you'd like a copy and I'll forward it to you.

In summary, the presentation argues that ...
The debt mountain, peak oil, population growth, resource depletion, population growth, the pension time bomb and climate change are all interconnected. Remember, only 3 dozen economists correctly predicted the 2008 global financial crisis, out of a profession of 20,000 members. Not one of the World politicians and Central Bankers saw the crisis coming, but all of them claim to know the remedy.
Meltdown did not occur in October 2008, but we were within 4 hours of it happening. It has only been deferred. The reasons for the 2008 crash have not gone away. The US housing market is still in freefall and US and European Banks are becoming increasingly insolvent, although they won't admit it. Economic growth will be stifled by rising oil prices. The bailouts are not working. World Politicians, Bankers and Economists are trying to maintain the status quo but they are losing control. Fundamentally, the real systemic causes of the crisis are rarely discussed with transparency and have not been addressed. Fractional Reserve Banking and universal public ignorance of banking practices are the cause of all our global problems.

The collapse will happen within the next couple of years. The Eurozone or USA will most probably be the epicentre. The interconnectivity of the financial system means we will all be affected. What happens next after the collapse is impossible to predict. History is replete with examples but not on a Global scale. Massive political unrest will prevail. There will be a rise in popularity of extreme left and right political parties.
Peter recommends them as a valuable set of slides, graphs and summaries that might usefully be viewed before the Moving Planet day seminar at St James Piccadilly on September 24 see http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regina Spektor - Fidelity.

Identifying money power behind climate change

IDENTIFYING MONEY POWER.
behind
CLIMATE CHANGE'.

The open Christian Council for Monetary Justice [CCMJ] invites you to examine the 'treasure that corrupts', the new idol of money, in relation to climate change, at St James Piccadilly, 10 am – 1pm September 24th.

THE CONTEXT

PEOPLE - most are corporate serfs; some happy but millions miserable.

LAND - a few people control the majority of land and resources.

THE FINANCE SYSTEM - supports and protects processes that impoverish billions and degrade the planet.

DOMINATION BY MULTI-NATIONALS - control of the global economy now lies with multinational corporations, not democratic governments.

RSVP: peterchallen@gmail.com.

www.moving-planet.org

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi.

Post-Denominational Human Consciousness

I received the following Christmas greeting today from Peter Challen which I thought was well worth sharing more widely:

"We have many opportunities and much hard work before us in 2009, as the incarnational resonance of Christmas implies.

The mind-shift required of us in the present global stress challenges us all to set our own lives in the big picture. Here is my attempt, based on Shakepeare's wise quip ' A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' We are in pursuit of inclusive justice and can find leads in many places.

POST DENOMINATIONAL
HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

All things apposite not opposite,
birth emergent out of universe
that reaches always for transcendence
without ever leaving immanence.
Natality easing into life-consciousness,
body in soul, never soul confined to body,
ecumenicity ensuring cosmic inclusiveness,
catholicity providing whole earth identity,
protestation keeping boundaries open,
pentecostal fire retaining enthusiasm,
orthodoxy securing tentative limits,
heterodoxy escape from dogma,
friends awed by inspiration,
and good faith, in all faiths,
offering love, passed on, not back;
pastors as prophets
and prophets pastors too,
in cyclical ceaseless creativity
gift of life eternal.

CODA

Language
being only mundane metaphor,
these terms with any other name
hold just as true
to an ineffable unity in totality,
confined frame containing all being.

Peter Challen 12-08"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Annie Lennox & Al Green - Put a Little Love in Your Heart.

Monetary Justice

Recently I met Revd. Peter Challen, the son of former St John’s Vicar, Revd. Charles Challen (who interestingly, like me, was both a Vicar at St John’s and a curate at St Margaret’s Barking). Some people at St John's remember Peter as he grew up here, arriving aged nine and leaving aged nineteen.

Peter is now the Chair of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice (CCMJ) and a founding member of the Global Justice Movement (GJM). I met him at a conference on Mission in London’s Economy where he spoke about the way in which the global economy is based on monetary principles that are contrary to scripture and which create injustice for the majority of the world’s population. This affects us all because the work that we do and the things we buy support a system that leaves many around the world in poverty.

Peter says that, "we read the Gospel as if we had no money, and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the Gospel." Yet no aspect of our individual and corporate lives is more crucial in determining human welfare and few subjects are more frequently addressed in our scriptures. “Burdens of debt at personal, corporate, national and international levels and the disregard of biblical teaching on usury,” Peter argues, “are conspiring to create immense social disease.”

What can we do about this? Understanding the issues is a good start. Peter has written a book called Seven Steps to Justice (New European Publications, 2002) or there are articles on the CCMJ and GJM websites. Supporting organisations that address issues of fair trade, both through financial giving and by buying fair trade, helps to make a difference. Campaigning on issues of fair trade, people trafficking etc. by writing to MPs, signing petitions or attending marches are small things in themselves but when large numbers of around the world speak together on these issues then change begins to come. Finally, the Bible calls all to lifestyle changes as a result of our faith and this is where significant change can begin, if we live more simply in order that others can simply live.

Peter’s analysis of global economics has major challenges for all who respond to it but I find it inspiring to know of a previous member of St John’s who is engaging deeply with the issues of our day and want to find out more about his work and the challenges it poses for us.