Faith

Do the right thing.

July 19, 2021 by Tim Barry Leave a Comment

It’s a source of amazement just how many people download and obediently use the NHS Covid-19 app. Whether that’s checking into a shop or staying inside because the app has told you to ‘self-isolate.’ Whilst some will argue this level of compliance demonstrates people pulling together, it’s actually a revealing insight into our relationship with big tech and the way we have been groomed to the point of no longer valuing privacy. So many people allow Google and Amazon to listen in to family life 24/7 without so much as a second thought. It was little wonder that much of the UK happily volunteered to letting the government know where they’ve been and with whom, via the NHS Covid-19 app.

Today, we are hearing about the chaos this app has wrought on the lives of those who insist on still using it. Not only are there reports of the app pinging you to ‘self-isolate’ because it picked up proximity to a neighbour’s app through the adjoining wall of the house, but there is even the worry of looming food shortages. To be generous would be to call this an ‘unusable system’. However, delve a bit deeper and it starts to smell like a variant of the totalitarian Chinese social credit programme. Reports also suggest that many are now deleting the app, perhaps waking up to the tyranny on their phone.

From the outset, the NHS Covid-19 app has been sold as a way ‘to protect your loved ones;’ indeed, many have felt guilt tripped into using it. The reality is thinly disguised coercion and what we have come to expect from the government on all things Covid.

“We are fast approaching the day when we will need to show our papers…”

Douglas Murray puts it well in the Telegraph recently with his article Britain is sleepwalking into a state of perpetual Covid tyranny. We are fast approaching the day when we will need to show our papers (read NHS app) to gain entry to sports events, restaurants, nightclubs, shopping centres and probably best to forget about foreign travel. In France there is talk of preventing entry to hospitals, of all places, without a vaccine passport. I wonder how long it will be until churches fall in line…

All this is fine if you are at ease with state control of this magnitude. However, history tells us that this level of control and coercion is never a good thing. Freedom is a bedrock of our culture and has its roots in our Judeo-Christian heritage from which many of our laws and way of life have grown. To be sure, this freedom is hard won and yet all too easily given up, as easily as installing an app.

Since when have you been bound to an app on your smartphone? You are not subservient to it. It should have no rule over you.

Do the right thing – protect those you love by deleting it.

The challenge of ‘A Hidden Life’

January 28, 2020 by Tim Barry Leave a Comment

This week I went with a couple of fellow Foresters to see Terrence Malick’s new film A Hidden Life. Whilst I had scanned a review of the film, the truth was I had not fully registered the sheer scale, depth and length of what I was to sit through. However, it was a line from Rod Dreher’s excellent review of the film – “the best evocation of the Gospel ever committed to film” that was enough for me to say ‘yes’. Not knowing what to expect was both exciting and unnerving, exciting because we were heading out to the cinema, unnerving because I had an inkling it might be demanding…

The film is long. I’m talking Peter Jackson timings here. Yet, whilst the pace is slow, it does not drag and is a testament to the skill of Malick’s artistic direction – a feat made all the more impressive due to the paucity of dialogue.

“We create admirers. We do not create followers. Christ’s life is a demand. We don’t want to be reminded of it.”

A Hidden Life is strewn with Biblical references and parallel’s to the Gospel. A memorable scene is when the main character Franz Jägerstätter is talking with a local man touching up the artwork in their village church. Looking at the painting of Christ on the church wall, he says to Franz, “We create admirers. We do not create followers. Christ’s life is a demand. We don’t want to be reminded of it.” This is the linchpin of the whole film – the straightforward, yet costly reality of what it means to follow Jesus. He then goes on to make a somewhat prophetic statement that there is an even darker time coming when men won’t fight the truth, they will just ignore it.

It seems that time has come.

The film is emotionally charged, especially with regard to Franz and Fani’s three children and the impact of Franz’s decision on them. It makes for uneasy watching if you have children yourself. What would I do? Do I admire Christ or actually follow Him?

For me, a striking aspect of the film was the fundamental stance that Franz takes. He knows where the line is and he refuses to cross it. Many of us today move the line much, much further up the field and the result is that compromise eases itself in. Just like Franz, we have all the reasons under the sun to ignore the line in front of us.

It was telling that Franz was the only one in the village who saw the line and refused to cross it. The refusal cost him everything and I guess this is the challenge of the film. It would have been so simple, so easy for him to make just the smallest compromise, yet he remained steadfast, resolute and above all, free.

I am struck by the compromises I make in my life, more comfort, a bit more ease. What’s more is that I’ve got so used to it. The solution is not to go looking for trouble, instead perhaps this film is a timely reminder. A reminder to consider whether I simply admire Christ, paying Him lip service in word and action or am I actually willing to take up my cross, lose my life and follow Him?

On the way back, in the car, we chatted about where we draw the lines today. In the workplace this has become particularly hazardous. It’s no longer enough to abstain from ideological assent, you have to partake or else. In essence, the lines have become more fundamental and therefore much more costly.

Franz Jägerstätter kept it simple: “I can’t do what I believe is wrong…”

If you get the chance, go and see the film.

Nice is good.

January 4, 2016 by Tim Barry Leave a Comment

Those in high profile positions such as the Archbishop of Canterbury have a level of responsibility placed upon them that few of us will experience in this life. His recent New Year message was broadcast on the BBC and raises some thought provoking questions with regard to the role of the church in our culture and what the Gospel is really all about. Whilst it’s easy to pass comment from the sidelines, sometimes incisive comment is required if it draws attention to serious issues that would otherwise pass many by. Gavin Ashenden manages to do just that.

Faced with either being faithful to Scripture and tradition, and challenging the perversities of a culture that rejects Christian values, or making secular accommodation, he has chosen accommodation.
– Gavin Ashenden

Read the article in full here.