Between: slavery

Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts

Friday, 15 November 2024

Seen and Unseen: Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs

My latest article for Seen & Unseen is entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally:

'The Sorrow Songs, Stolen From God and Grace Will Lead Me Home are three deeply moving and challenging albums, with [Angeline] Morrison and [Cohen] Braithwaite-Kilcoyne as the exceptional musicians linking all three, that tackle the history of the transatlantic slave trade, unearthing both incredible tales and uncomfortable truths. The Church is among the institutions that need most to hear and receive the truths and tales these albums share.'

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

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Angeline, Cohen and Jon - Grace will lead me home.

Friday, 21 October 2022

Church Times - Art review: Michael Forbes, Blk this & Blk that . . . a state of urgency, at the Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham

My latest review for Church Times is Michael Forbes, Blk this & Blk that . . . a state of urgency, at the Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham:

'ON ENTERING Gallery 1A at the Djanogly Gallery, one sees a series of dismembered torsos — the arms of all the figures being absent — of the crucified Christ in cast Jesmonite, primarily white, but with gold and pink also used, and hung upside down from ropes the ends of which trail across the floor. In this, the largest sculptural installation here, some of the torsos wear life jackets, pointing to recent political and humanitarian events.

Untitled I highlights “how the white European male has dominated the image of Christ” and challenges white viewers with the question how they “reconcile exemplifying Christ whilst reaping unjust benefits from being white”. Forbes has, for many years, questioned this aspect of religion, “believing that it is morally and theologically incumbent upon Christians to realise how whiteness confers privileges that have an impact on the lives of black people and people of colour”. The installation (through the inclusion of life jackets) raises these questions in relation to the legacies of the slave trade and also the current refugee crisis.'

Click here for my Artlyst diary for October which also includes this exhibition.

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here. See also Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history?

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Ben Harper - With My Own Two Hands.

Sunday, 25 September 2022

Free from lies and enslavements

Here's the reflection I shared this evening at Evensong in St Catherine's Wickford:

In this passage (John 8.31-38,48-59) we are given two definitions of what it means to be free. Jesus gives these two definitions to people who were living under Roman rule and where, therefore, a conquered and oppressed people.

The first definition is about living a life in which we are free from entanglements of lies because we know the truth. An article in ‘Psychology Today’ states that “when it comes to the core challenges of adult life—career, money, sexual identity and marriage—fooling yourself can have devastating consequences.”

The article continues: “In each of these domains—think of them as the four horsemen of self-deception—we face situations that require us to make difficult decisions in the face of doubt and uncertainty. The result is anxiety and a strong temptation to hide from the truth. “People keep secrets from themselves because to acknowledge the information would be extremely anxiety-producing,” says New York City psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Gail Saltz. Self-deception and worry reinforce each other, making it harder and harder to face the facts.”

The way out of this situation is to know and accept the truth about ourselves – “accepting our flaws alongside our strengths” as that “provides a bulwark against excessive self-deception” as also “does coming to peace with our own internal contradictions and learning to withstand difficult feelings, such as doubt and fear.” Acknowledging the truth about ourselves sets us free from anxiety, free to leave in peace with ourselves.

Jesus spoke this truth to people who were living a lie. The people say to him: “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Yet, they are people living under the rule of an invading power – the Roman Empire - so are not free. Jesus’ challenge to know the truth about themselves and be set free through that knowledge is, therefore, particularly pertinent to them. In what ways are we also hiding from the truth about ourselves?

The second definition is to do with sin. Jesus identifies sin here with enslavement; in other words, some other power or force that controls us. Such a power could be external, as with the occupying Roman Empire, or it could be internal, as with the kind of lies about ourselves we have been considering which come to define who we are and how we act. The Bible speaks about love of money and various kinds of addictions in those terms and uses the idea of idolatry to describe such forces or powers that come to control us and compromising the freedom that we find in God.

Jesus says that our primary identity, within which we are free from the control of others, is that of being a child of God. When other forces or powers control us, then our identity as God’s child is compromised and we experience separation from both God and the freedom that we find in God’s presence. In what ways do we experience enslavement in our lives? What are the factors or forces that control our behaviours and actions?

Jesus is saying that when we know and affirm and make central to life our identity as a child of God, then self-deception and other internal or external controls fall away and we are free to become the people we were created by God to be. Fully realising that freedom involves a lifelong journey which reaches its culmination in heaven when we are finally and fully free to be the people we are in God’s presence and to enjoy others for who they are. In the challenges he poses to us through today’s Gospel reading, we are called to begin that process of self-discovery that is also God-discovery by seeking to free ourselves from lies and enslavements by inhabiting our true identity as children of God.

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The Call - What's Happened To You.

Artlyst - Winslow Homer: Beyond The Sea – National Gallery

My latest review for A rtlyst is of Winslow Homer: Force of Nature at National Gallery:

‘Homer’s concern for the plight of freed slaves began during his childhood, when discussions of slavery and the abolitionist movement were very much a part of his daily life. At one point his parents attended different churches: his mother Henrietta attending a church that was abolitionist, and his father Charles attending another that was strongly against. Later, they moved to Cambridge with abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was also a strong supporter of women’s rights.

While his interest in the pressing issues of his time, such as conflict and race, feature strongly in his work it is the relationship between humankind and the environment expressed in restless seascapes that becomes his principal focus, reflecting both his travels around the globe and his home on the coast of Maine.

The sea takes over, so that by Winter Coast (1890), the abstract force of the raging sea overwhelms both land and canvas swamping the image and imperilling the vulnerable hunter facing wild nature. In today’s context, this is a disturbing image that connects with concerns about rising sea levels. The power of the ocean is literally overwhelming.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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The Innocence Mission - Lakes Of Canada.

Sunday, 4 April 2021

Something we have barely been able to imagine that goes by the name of resurrection

Here's my Easter message as Chair of Churches Together in Westminster:

On Good Friday at St Martin-in-the-Fields I spoke about Christ’s forsakenness on the cross using, as an equivalent for that experience, a book ‘Blackpentecostal Breath’ written by the academic and artist Ashon T. Crawley as a love letter to his people; African Americans with a history of enslavement and therefore of having been treated by others as objects to be bought, sold, abused and killed, rather than valued as people.

Crawley writes: ‘Having been said to be nothing, this is a love letter written to we who have been, and are today still, said to have nothing. And to a tradition of such nothingness.’

However, Crawley continues by writing of ‘a love letter to a tradition of the ever overflowing, excessive nothingness that protects itself, that with the breaking of families, of flesh, makes known and felt, the refusal of being destroyed.’ He then says that, ‘There is something in such nothingness that is not, but still ever excessively was, is and is yet to come.’

I ended my Good Friday reflection with the thought that, in the words of Al Barrett and Ruth Harley, ‘There is something that endures. Something that defies despair, and the dispersal orders of the powerful. Something that gives hope … that we have barely been able to imagine … Something that goes by the name of resurrection’ (‘Being Interrupted’).

In the words of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘There lives the dearest freshness deep down things’ which ‘will flame out, like shining from shook foil’ (‘God’s Grandeur’).

As we emerge from our latest lockdown - uncertain of the future, not knowing what the pandemic will bring next, yet needing and searching for hope – this is the understanding of resurrection we need in this moment. The dearest freshness deep down things that suddenly flames out, something in nothingness that still ever excessively was, is and is yet to come, something we have barely been able to imagine that goes by the name of resurrection.

Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

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Mark Heard - Rise From The Ruins.

Monday, 17 February 2020

CtiW Newsletter - Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

The latest Newsletter from Churches Together in Westminster - No. 18 (Winter 2019/2020) - is now available at Newsletter 18.

This edition of the newsletter includes:

Report of CTiW General Meeeting
Report from London Prisons Mission
Talks on “Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking” given at the 2020 AGM
CTiW Executive Members for 2020
CTiW Review

The AGM report includes talks from Kevin Hyland OBE, former UK Independent Antislavery Commissioner, who spoke on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, Major Heather Grinstead, Deputy Director for The Salvation Army's Modern Slavery Unit, and Abigail Lennox, Local Programme Coordinator - Modern Slavery Post-NRM Survivors Support Service also contributed. The Salvation Army provides a specialist support for all adult victims of modern slavery in England & Wales. In addition, Caroline Virgo from The Clewer Initiative, Dr Julia Tomas, Anti Slavery Coordinator at The Passage, and the campaigner Elizabeth Matthews provided additional information about Modern Slavery.

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The Clash - Working For The Clampdown.

Wednesday, 12 February 2020

Church Times: Elizabeth Kwant - Am I not a woman and sister

My latest review for Church Times is of Elizabeth Kwant's Am I not a woman and sister at the International Slavery Museum Liverpool:

'This is an experience of being with those on the edge, an opportunity to see those who have been commodified and traded as they really are, women and sisters. Kwant’s work opens up a space in which empowerment occurs, hidden experiences are brought to light, and wider narratives (concerning the construction of identity and the recording of history) are brought into question.'

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here.

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Robert Randolph and the Family Band - I Need More Love.

Friday, 22 March 2019

Hidden in plain sight

Modern Day Slavery is the focus of the 2019 Diocesan Lent Appeal which will raise funds for five charities that are already working to end Modern Day Slavery in London. These are: Tamar; Ella’s Home; Love 146; The Rise Project (The Children’s Society); and Kalayaan.

Bishop Sarah explains: ‘There are at least 40 million victims of modern day slavery in the world today, and tens of thousands in the UK. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, in a capital city heralded for its history and culture, modern slavery is thriving. Thousands are forced into domestic servitude, forced labour or sexual exploitation in plain sight of Londoners, and many more are at risk of falling through the cracks, hidden from the view of the authorities, charities and the church. Behind those statistics, there are real people. Whether it be a woman or girl trafficked to work in the illegal sex trade, a man forced to work on a construction site or a child married against their will, none are free.’

We are asked to prayerfully consider how we can raise awareness of an issue that is ‘Hidden in plain sight’ whilst also raising funds to support the partner charities, all of which do equally incredible work, to help those trapped by Modern Day Slavery.

Last Sunday at St Martin-in-the-Fields Elizabeth Matthews led an awareness session on Modern Day Slavery in which she shared the following information:

There are estimated 40.3 million slaves around the world today:

10 million children
24.9 million people in forced labour
15.4 million people in forced marriage
4.8 million people in forced sexual exploitation

Every 30 seconds someone somewhere becomes a slave.

A SLAVE IS: forced to work – through coercion, or mental or physical threat owned or controlled by an ’employer’ through mental or physical abuse or threat of abuse dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’, physically constrained or has restrictions placed on their freedom of movement.

FORMS OF MODERN SLAVERY

Forced labour happens when a slave, under the threat of punishment, is forced to work or perform services against their will.

Debt bondage or bonded labour (the world’s most widespread form of slavery) happens when a slave borrows money they cannot repay & are required to work to pay it off & then loses control over both the conditions of their debt & employment Human trafficking happens when, using violence or threats or coercion, people are transported, recruited or harboured for the purpose of exploitation.

Descent-based slavery happens when a person is born into slavery because their ancestors were captured and enslaved.

Child slavery often confused with child labour but is much worse: child labour is harmful for the child & hinders their education & development, child slavery occurs when a child is exploited for someone else’s gain. It may include child trafficking, child soldiers, child marriage and child domestic slavery.

Forced and early marriage when someone is married against their will and cannot leave the marriage. Most child marriages are considered slavery.

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WHO IS VULNERABLE?

There is no typical victim of slavery – victims are of all genders and all ages, ethnicities and nationalities. However, it is normally more prevalent amongst the most vulnerable, and within minority or socially excluded groups. Poverty, limited opportunities at home, lack of education, unstable social and political conditions, economic imbalances and war are some of the key drivers which contribute towards vulnerability. Slaves today are usually controlled by fear and desperation, not physical shackles.

The AVERAGE age of a slave TODAY? 12 years old.

A SLAVE MIGHT: appear to be under the control of someone/reluctant to interact with others not have personal identification on them have few personal belongings, wear the same clothes every day or wear unsuitable clothes for work not be able to move around freely be reluctant to talk to strangers or the authorities appear frightened, withdrawn, or show signs of physical or psychological abuse dropped off and collected for work always in the same way, especially at unusual times, i.e. very early or late at night.

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MODERN SLAVERY IN THE UK: ANYONE CAN CALL HOTLINE: 08000 121 700 2009

National Referral Mechanism (NRM) created to respond to & investigate suspected slavery, to free any slaves subsequently discovered. only certain organisations could/can do a referral BUT, it did not support rescued slaves, and traffickers got away without punishment. Therefore 2015 Modern Slavery Act makes prosecuting traffickers easier:

consolidates slavery offences & increases sentences bans prosecuting victims of slavery for crimes they were forced to commit (such as drug production or petty thefts)
introduces child trafficking advocates to better protect trafficked children
requires UK businesses to publicly report on how they tackle slavery in their global supply chains establishes an independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner to overlook the UK’s policies to tackle slavery

THERE IS STILL INSUFFICIENT SUPPORT FOR FREED SLAVES.

In 2017, 5,145 potential victims of trafficking and slavery were referred to the National Referral Mechanism. This was the highest number recorded by the UK authorities since the figures were first compiled in 2009 and a 35% rise from 2016. British nationals made up the highest number of cases for the first time, followed by people from Albania and Vietnam. The Global Slavery Index estimated that there were 136,000 slaves living in the UK on any given day in 2016, reflecting a prevalence rate of 2.1 slaves for every thousand people

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/ https://www.antislavery.org/

ANYONE CAN CALL HOTLINE: 08000 121 700 When in doubt? Report!

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The Golden Gospel Singers - Oh, Freedom!

Wednesday, 24 October 2018

Revelation: fixed and unchanging or dynamic and evolving

Here's my reflection from today's Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 3. 2 - 12) speaks of a revelation from God which was based on the work of Jesus but the understanding of which developed after Jesus’ ascension. The eternal purpose that was carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord is that we all now have access to God in boldness and confidence and the realisation which followed Christ’s ascension was that this access applied to the Gentiles as well as the Jews and was therefore for all people everywhere.

This revelation began when the apostle Peter was told in a dream to eat food forbidden in Torah and then went into the house of a Gentile and saw the Spirit of God fall on outsiders. Writing about this incident David Runcorn asks where was Peter to go biblically to explain this? What began with this incident went beyond the received revelation as long understood; something very new was going on and we shouldn’t underestimate how disturbing this would have been.

Peter and the leaders of the church in Jerusalem proceeded in vulnerable obedience under the compelling guidance of the Spirit. What they began to realise was that God was creating a community based on radically new belonging and identity in Christ, one that is yet to be fully revealed – neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. This was the revelation which came to the apostle Paul and on which he based his mission and teaching. It is this revelation that underpins our reading from the letter to the Ephesians.

David Runcorn notes that this means that an unfolding revelation is evident within the scriptures. This is important in today’s Church because many of the issues on which there is division or debate come down to the extent to which the revelation of God’s will for us in Jesus is fixed and unchanging or is dynamic and evolving.

Those who argue that the traditional teaching of the Church cannot be changed because it is based on an unchanging revelation from God have opposed the remarriage of divorcees, the ordination of women priests and bishops and currently oppose the inclusion and marriage of those in same-sex relationships. Those who argue that there is an evolving and developing revelation as God continues to speak and act in contemporary society are driven back to the scriptures to review whether past cultural understandings have obscured aspects of the original texts which can then lead us into new understandings of God’s revelation. In relation, for example, to the ordination of women, this meant that we recovered an awareness that women were among those called by Jesus to be his disciples and women were to be found as leaders within the Early Church. As a result, our understanding of the necessity for women to be ordained changed leading, in time, to the ordination within the Church of England of women as priests and bishops.

If we think about these processes in relation to a practice like that of slavery, we see that this understanding of a developing and unfolding revelation of God is accepted in practice by most, if not all, Christians. Slavery was an established practice throughout ancient cultures, including the Roman Empire in which the Early Church was established and grew. Slavery is mentioned in the New Testament but is not condemned and no call to free slaves and eradicate slavery is to be found therein. Slavery continued essentially unquestioned until the 18th century when the campaign for its abolition began. The Church was one of many institutions in society that was involved in the Slave Trade and which resisted the Abolition Movement. However, the Abolitionist’s re-examination of scripture focused attention on the freeing of slaves in The Exodus and St Paul’s support of the slave Onesimus as indicating an understanding of God’s acceptance of all that militated against the maintenance of slavery. This understanding of scripture has become widely accepted in the Church, despite being the reverse of earlier, and therefore traditional, teachings.

This process of change began with the revelation spoken about in today’s Epistle that all have access to God in boldness and confidence and the realisation that this access applies to Gentiles as well as Jews. This revelation is, in essence, one of inclusion that, as Paul states there is no distinction - not Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female – that prevents human beings from having access to God in boldness and confidence. Our Epistle is, therefore, about both the unfolding revelation of God’s will and purpose in our own day and time and the inclusive nature of God’s embrace of humanity through Jesus Christ. Those who seek inclusion in the face of traditional Church teaching are true to those revelations and, therefore, true to scripture.

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Peter Case - Words In Red.

Thursday, 14 July 2016

Addicted to sin & selfishness

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

If there was a common theme to the past weekend for me, it involved addiction. There were encounters at both churches with those who were influenced by their addictions, including an attempted theft and incidents of dealing. The lives and behaviour of those involved were clearly governed by their substance abuse making interaction with them difficult and meaning that they tended to reject the sources of support offered to them.

Then on Sunday, in the annual service celebrating the Arts organised by commission4mission, the art group of which I am part which will exhibit here in September, we heard poems, songs and stories for one of our artists, Anthony Hodgson, who has found release from his addictions through faith in Christ. As a result, his art explores the themes of addiction and release.

The effects of severe substance addictions are very clear and can be seen around us daily. It can be easy for those of us who are not in that situation to condemn those who are and to believe that we are not affected by addictions ourselves.

However, that is not what scripture says about our situation. Scripture regularly, as in our Epistle today (Romans 6. 19 - 23), uses the imagery of addiction about our sinfulness as human beings. We see it here in the references to our having been slaves to sin. Essentially, what is being claimed is that we are addicted to selfishness and independence. Until we turn to Christ, we are separated from God because our lives are turned in on ourselves; oriented around our needs, wants and wishes. In our day and time this is a reality which has been used as the basis for our consumerist culture, where we are continually persuaded to buy stuff we don't actually need in order to assuage our sense of inadequacy and boost our sense of ego. Those who manage large or unsustainable levels of personal debt will readily acknowledge the overwhelming nature of the pressures which cause us to spend, spend, spend.

As with any addiction, it is vital that we reach a point in our lives where we acknowledge that we are actually powerless in the grip of powerful forces which control us - slaves to sin, as we have acknowledged that St Paul expresses it - and need to recognise that we need outside help. That, of course, is where God comes into the picture, as it is only when we can look outside ourselves that our addiction to selfishness can begin to be broken.

Looking to God firstly addresses the insecurities and fears which underpin our focus on protecting and benefiting ourselves. God's unconditional love means that we can be sure that we are loved absolutely and can therefore look outside ourselves, our fears and anxieties. Looking to God also involves acknowledging the claim that others have on our lives and gives us a frame of reference beyond ourselves. Jesus speaks of this in terms of love for God, for neighbours and for ourselves.

Our reality, whether this is visibly apparent or hidden, is that each of us is gripped by forces beyond our control and that it is only as we become open to God and others that the addiction to selfishness can be managed and mitigated.

Alcoholics Anonymous teaches its users that they are always recovering alcoholics. Christianity teaches that we are all recovering sinners. Just as those who go to AA have a 12 step programme which enables them to be a recovering alcoholic rather than an alcoholic, I wonder whether we have the equivalent in place to deal with our own personal addictions. The 12 steps of AA are actually as relevant to all other addictions as they are to alcoholism. The starting point is to admit that we have been powerless in relation to our actions and that our lives had become unmanageable. Then to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity and to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.

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The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work.

Wednesday, 26 August 2015

Stolen Lives: Private viewing

Tonight I was at the St Bride Foundation for a private viewing of Stolen Lives, a new web based project which looks at issues of historical and contemporary slavery through music, songs, words, images, film and animation.

Stolen Lives is a collection of 17 freely dowloadable multi-media animations which will be of use to schoolteachers, especially those teaching at Key Stage 3 (ages 11 - 14) and Key Stage 4 (ages 14 – 16), but also to youth groups, museums, music and dance groups, and churches and faith groups. The project is also interactive with the website enabling users to post their own performances or interpretations of the material, allowing for a much broader sharing of ideas and practice.

Stolen Lives is a collaborative, open-educational project, bringing together academics (The Wilberforce Institute - Hull University), musicians (Paul Field and others), artists (Peter S. Smith) and educationalists (Sue James).

Paul Field is composer & Creative Director for the project. He has worked as a Songwriter, Composer, Producer and Performer in the UK and around the world. From the release of his first album 'In your eyes' (with Nutshell) he has written around 800 songs over four decades. He has received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters and Composers and a Dove Award (and two nominations) from GMA in Nashville along with numerous other awards from ASCAP in the USA. He has had #1 chart success with his songs in the UK, USA, Holland, South Africa and Germany. He has received many Platinum and Gold records for his work.

Peter S Smith, who created the visuals for the project, is a Painter/Printmaker with a studio at the St Bride Foundation in London. He studied Fine Art at Birmingham Polytechnic and Art Education at Manchester. In 1992 he gained an MA (Printmaking) at Wimbledon School of Art. Examples of his work can be found in private and public collections including Tate Britain and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. His book 'The Way See It' (Piquant Press) is a visual monograph of contemporary work by a professional artist who is a Christian, which provides an illustrated introduction to the art of engraving.

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Stolen Lives - Midnight Rain.

Saturday, 8 August 2015

Stolen Lives: A sense of moral repugnance against modern-day slavery

Stolen Lives is a new web based project which looks at issues of historical and contemporary slavery through music, songs, words, images, film and animation.

‘Stolen Lives’ is a collection of 17 songs and narratives designed to have multiple uses. It is anticipated that the resources will not only be of use to schoolteachers, especially those teaching at Key Stage 3 (ages 11 - 14) and Key Stage 4 (ages 14 – 16), but also to youth groups, museums, music and dance groups, and churches and faith groups. The project is also interactive. It is hoped that users will post their own performances or interpretations of the material that has been put together, allowing for a much broader sharing of ideas and practice.

The pieces provide starting points for discussion and also hope to inspire new creative work in art, dance, drama, images words and music for schools and other groups or individuals interested in the issues. These are all available as a free resource on the Stolen Lives website.

Professor John Oldfield, Director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) the University of Hull, is the project leader. Kevin Bales the co-investigator. Music is by Paul Field and visuals by Peter S. Smith.

Behind the project is a serious intent, namely to use music and images to promote awareness of modern-day slavery and – just as important – the pressing need to do something about it. Nineteenth-century abolitionists were well aware of the power of music to persuade and inform: indeed, anti-slavery songs were an important part of their opinion-building activities, particularly in the United States. The same is true of images, whether Wedgwood’s famous image of the kneeling slave, or the cross section of the slave ship ‘Brookes’. ‘Stolen Lives’ follows in the same tradition. Put simply, the aim is to use music and images to inform public opinion and, in the process, create a sense of moral repugnance against modern-day slavery and for slavery in all its forms.

We should never underestimate the power of such aids to change attitudes and impact on policy and policymakers.

As William Wilberforce so memorably put it: ‘You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know’.

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Paul Field - Strange Cargo.

Monday, 12 May 2014

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: St Pauls Cathedral

The development of the idea and practice of installation art from the 1960s onwards has meant that it is no longer necessary to think of church commissions solely in terms of permanent commissions. This change in thinking has meant that St Pauls Cathedral, rather than attempting the tricky negotiations which would be entailed by seeking to add to its existing permanent array of art (from the delicate carvings of Grinling Gibbons in the quire to Sir James Thornhill's dome murals, as well as the Victorian mosaics and Henry Moore's Mother and Child: Hood), can instead explore the encounter between art and faith through a series of temporary interventions by artists, which have included Rebecca Horn, Yoko Ono, Antony Gormley and Bill Viola.

These interventions are often linked to particular anniversaries, as is the case with the two current temporary installations by SokariDouglas Camp CBE and Gerry Judah.

All the World is now Richer by Sokari Douglas Camp, six life-sized steel figures representing successive stages of the slavery story, commemorates the abolition of slavery but here also celebrates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr preaching at the Cathedral. The figures arrived at the Cathedral following a tour which had taken in the Houses of Parliament, Bristol Cathedral, the Greenbelt Festival, St Georges Hall Liverpool and Norwich Cathedral. At St Pauls they have been installed inside the West doors opposite contemporary icons of Christ and his mother. This positioning adds to the dignity and worth of the figures Sokari Camp has crafted; figures whose shadows also speak their worth - ‘From our rich ancestral life we were bought and used but we were brave, we were strong, we survived, all the world is richer.’ The work was inspired by the words of liberated ex-slave William Prescott: "They will remember that we were sold but they won’t remember that we were strong; they will remember that we were bought but not that we were brave.”

The Commemorative Crosses by Gerry Judah are part of the Cathedral's commemoration to the Great War of 1914-18. These twin white cruciform sculptures, each over six metres high and recalling, in their shape and colour, the thousands of white crosses placed in the war cemeteries across the world, are angled at the head of the nave to act like doors opening into “a sacred space of hope where people in all our diversity are invited to come together to worship, to respect and to learn from each other” (The Reverend Canon Mark Oakley, Chancellor of St Pauls Cathedral). A further contrast – this time, geometric - is discovered when viewed from below as the straight lines and angles of the crosses span the great circle of the Cathedral’s dome creating a contemporary version of a Celtic cross.

On the arms of the cross are intricate models of contemporary and historical settlements decimated by conflict – such as we see daily in the news. These settlements appear like crustaceans clinging to the smooth, straight lines of the crosses; a symbol of human endurance enabled by the cross or the cross as the enduring symbol of suffering humanity? From other angles, these crosses appear to be like a futuristic space ship or the fuselage of a plane; the cross as either transport to the future or plane crash or both!

These interventions enrich both the daily pattern of worship in the Cathedral and the experience of the thousands who visit daily. Their temporary nature offers something new even for those that are regular worshippers at St Pauls, while the contrast that they provide with the existing art and permanent architecture of the Cathedral means that they also fulfil the key requirement of installation art; “a friction with its context that resists organisational pressure and instead exerts its own terms of engagement.”

A moment of partial stillness ensues among the tourist hordes for the prayers led and said hourly. Then I see my friend Tricia Hillas, newly in post as Canon Pastor, resplendent in her robes and crossing the expanse of the Cathedral's floor led by a Verger to take a memorial service at which the Duke of Kent was to be present. The work of the Cathedral continues amongst the crowds - sometimes hidden, sometimes centre stage - while, throughout, the art and architecture soundlessly speak to all those who come.

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Leonard Cohen - The Future.

Sunday, 27 October 2013

The Year of Jubilee

When we have a General or Local Election I wonder whether you read the manifesto’s of the candidates that you are able to vote for. I guess that most of us don’t. Often they are quite wordy and many people don’t believe a word that is written in them.

The political parties know this, as is demonstrated by this quote from a post entitled Why manifestos still matter (even if nobody reads them) from Labour List:

“Given the amount of time and effort that goes into producing election manifestos, the number of people who actually read them is frighteningly small. Every campaign, parties make determined efforts to get them onto shelves but their sales hardly threaten JK Rowling or even the authors of well-known political diaries (still available in all good book shops) ….

But for the millions of voters who decide the election outcome … well for the overwhelming majority, life’s too short.”

The passage that Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4. 16 - 24) was the manifesto for his ministry and for the kingdom of God. We would do well not to ignore this manifesto because what Jesus spoke about here he actually did in the course of his ministry. He did exactly what it says on the tin, as the advert goes.

Jesus’ manifesto was taken from Isaiah 61 and is all about release. Release from poverty, imprisonment, blindness and oppression. What Jesus is proclaiming would have been recognised by his hearers as the announcement of the Year of Jubilee – “the time when the Lord shall come to save his people.”

The word ‘jubilee’ stems from the Hebrew word ‘Yobel’, which refers to the ram or ram’s horn with which jubilee years were proclaimed. In Leviticus it states that such a horn or trumpet is to be blown on the tenth day of the seventh month after the lapse of ‘seven Sabbaths of years’ (49 years) as a proclamation of liberty throughout the land of the tribes of Israel. The year of jubilee was a consecrated year of ‘Sabbath-rest’ and liberty. During this year all debts were cancelled, lands were restored to their original owners and family members were restored to one another.

The people listening to Jesus knew about Jubilee but had never heard anything like his statement before. What Jesus was saying and how he was saying it was astonishing. They had heard teachers talk of the law before but this was something so amazing that they were in awe. Jesus was in another league because he claimed to be the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 61:1–2.

Jesus stated that he had come to ‘proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18–19). That is the year of jubilee and so Jesus proclaimed his coming and the coming of God’s kingdom as the time of Jubilee – a time of release for all people from those things that enslave us and trap us.

Each one of us is a slave to sin and blind to the truth about God because we have chosen to live selfish lives turning our backs on God and the way of life that he had created for human beings to live. In turning away from God’s ways we do not do away with gods altogether instead our desires run riot and we become slaves to them worshipping other gods; whether they come in the form of money, sex, celebrity or whatever.

Jesus comes to free us from all of these enslavements and to open our eyes to the way in which God created human beings to live; loving God with all our being and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

This isn’t something that is just for us as individuals however. It is also something which can impact all of society. After all, the Old Testament Jubilee was intended for the nation of Israel, not simply individuals within it. A contemporary example of this happening in practice is the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which is part of a global movement demanding freedom from the slavery of unjust debts and a new financial system that puts people first. Inspired by the ancient concept of ‘jubilee’, the Jubilee Debt Campaign works for a world where debt is no longer used as a form of power by which the rich exploit the poor. Freedom from debt slavery is a necessary step towards a world in which our common resources are used to realise equality, justice and human dignity. It is particularly important that we think about such things at the end of One World Week where people from diverse backgrounds have been coming together to learn about global justice, to spread that learning and to use it to take action for justice locally and globally.

We can see from all this that, in order to understand what our release means, we need to be people who know and understand the Bible. Chapter 4 of Luke’s gospel shows us clearly that Jesus was immersed in the Hebrew scriptures and saw them as speaking about himself. When he was tempted by the Devil at the beginning of Chapter 4 he defended himself by quoting from the Bible. In that passage he used the Bible to tell the Devil what he will not be like and here, in the synagogue, he used the Bible to tell everyone what he will be like. We can do the same if we read and understand what God is saying to us in the Bible both about those things from which our lives need to be freed and those things to which we need to dedicate our lives, talents and time.

The people who heard Jesus were, initially, impressed by what he said but as they realised that Jesus intended this Jubilee to be for all people they rejected him and tried to kill him. What will our response to Jesus’ manifesto be? Will it be the rejection that he experienced from the people of Nazareth? Will it be the apathy and disbelief that we accord to most political manifestos? Will it be the cynicism or distrust that some feel towards events like One World Week? Or will it be acceptance of the release from slavery to sin that Jesus offers to us and involvement in his work of releasing others from sin and from debt?

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U2 - Beautiful Day.