Census figures: Pluralism is here to stay

Yesterday the Office for National Statistics released data for religious populations from the 2011 Census. Angus Ritchie, the Director of the Contextual Theology Centre has posted a very helpful comment on these statistics. 

In his response Angus suggests that:

"In the midst of the debate which these figures will provoke, it is worth getting some perspective. The majority of English and Welsh people identify themselves as Christian, at a time when wider social pressures give less and less encouragement to such identification. There is no room for complacency – and no point in denying that this number has declined substantially in the last decade. But these figures tell of a striking persistence of religious belief and practice. The public square continues to be a place where people of faith and people of no faith coexist in large numbers – with people of faith forming the substantial majority ...

Whatever else we make of the Census figures, this much is clear: pluralism is here to stay, with a growing array of religious and secular worldviews commanding significant allegiance. Whatever challenges this presents to the churches, it is hardly the world the ‘New Atheists’ have been campaigning for. The task for us all is to negotiate and build a truly common life – bearing witness with confidence and generosity to that which we believe most deeply."

The Contextual Theology Centre’s Presence and Engagement Network (PEN) is holding an event in Southwark on Making Sense of the Census on the afternoon of Monday 18th February – before the PEN 2013 Lecture, to be given by the Dean of St Paul’s, the Very Revd David Ison.
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Bruce Springsteen - Land Of Hope And Dreams.

A different way of doing things

Larry Elliott wrote about Elinor Ostrom in yesterday's Guardian concluding:

"For the most part, the world is not run along the lines suggested by Ostrom. It is overfished, increasingly deforested, ravaged by those who care nothing about resource management and local communities, dominated by dogmatists who think they know best. But there's something heartening about an economist who doesn't claim to have all the answers and who suggests there is a different way of doing things."

Andrew Brown often seems to me to offer a very honest take on the media and his piece on the Royal pranksters is the latest in this vein:

"What's constant in this story is the assumption that we, the public, deserve to see others humiliated. Pity and scorn, it seems, are appetites which everyone has a right to gratify."

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Graham Parker and the Rumour - Hey Lord, Don't Ask Me Questions.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Pink Floyd - Money.