Who's the boss?

Last night I heard 2, or possibly all 3, would-be prime ministers say, "You are the boss," as their answer to the question of how to clean up politics. What a superficial and favour-currying thing to say. Where does it leave leadership and vision? To say to the general public - some of whom still don't even know who Nick Clegg is - that they are the boss sends shivers down my spine. If you take this mantra to its logical conclusion you end up with the tyranny of the masses, the rule of the uneducated, and an abdication of responsible government.

It's same argument about parent-power in schools. It sounds good as a vote-catching phrase, but actually parent-power can result in pushy parents who are only concerned for their own offspring interfering in the professional running of schools by competent teachers.

Democracy is not about governments just doing what the public want. If that were the case then governments would bring back hanging, and would evict law-abiding people of non-white ethnic backgrounds. Democracy is about choosing a government that has a vision to govern.

I shall be listening carefully to Messrs Clegg, Cameron and Brown in order to get a sense of their vision for government, not how they will simply please the public in order to gain their votes. I'm still undecided about how I shall vote, though I think I have decided how I shall NOT vote. There is still time to decide, and I think it will make a big difference to the political landscape this time round.

The Paradise Garden

Last night we enjoyed a top-class concert given by the young orchestra 'Sinfonia d'Amici' under their conductor Harry Ogg, an undergraduate at Cambridge. Our daughter was playing the cor anglais in the beautifully evocative and sensual 'The Walk to the Paradise Garden' by Delius. The orchestra is made up entirely of students, at school, university or music college and would stand comparison with any good professional group. The playing in the Delius brought out every nuance and layer of sound colour, and was followed by a wonderfully taut performance of Rachmaninov's 'Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.' Not so much a rhapsody as an inventive set of variations. The concert finished with a rich, full-blooded performance of Tchaikovky's 5th symphony, played with a mixture of delicacy and swagger.

What was so inspiring about this concert, apart from the music itself, was the initiative that Harry Ogg has taken in founding the orchestra. It started with friends from the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, but as they leave left the LSSO it has begun to take on a life of its own. Harry is both a musician and an entrepreneur and I wish him and the orchestra well.

The God Delusion Debate

I was lent a DVD recently of a debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox, both of Oxford University. The subject was Dawkin's book, 'The God Delusion'. To hear two such intelligent men going head to head in the finest example of polite intellectual debate is truly refreshing. John Lennox argues from a convinced Christian worldview that Dawkins' arguments are self-destructive and inconsistent.

Make some time to watch the full debate here http://www.fixed-point.org/index.php/video/35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate

Fixed Point Foundation, based in Birmingham, Alabama, has organised other debates of a similar high standard. If you want to know how to answer the agenda of the 'new atheists', then here is a place to start.

'The hand that made us is divine.'

Two series on the BBC deserve special praise at the moment: 'Wonders of the Solar System' and 'Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds'. Both have left me in awe of the natural created order of the earth and the solar system. For example, the way two of Saturn's moons, through a process called gravitational resonance, have caused a gap in the rings around the planet; or the way the gravitational pull of Saturn on one of its moons causes the moon to flex which in turn creates enough heat to make frozen water vapourise and spurt out in columns hundreds of kilometres high.

Or, in Richard Hammond's series, how a type of fungus which develops on horse manure launches it spores with such velocity that they can escape what is called 'the zone of repugnance' - a lovely scientific term that describes the area round the manure that a horse doesn't want to eat. The velocity that these spores are launched with results in a force of 2,000G. (Apparently 5G force on the human body is enough to cause a person to black out.)

None of this proves the existence of God, but with the intricacy and design of the natural order I can't help thinking of Joseph Addisons hymn:

The spacious firmament on high,

with all the blue ethereal sky,

and spangled heavens, a shining frame,

their great original proclaim.

The unwearied sun from day to day

does his Creator's power display,

and publishes to every land

the works of an almighty hand.

It's programmes like this that make me want to fight to keep the BBC as it is. "Hands off, Rupert Murdoch and your sons!"

Music of the Resurrection

At the weekend we were in Shropshire where, on Saturday, we took part in a 'Come and Sing' performance of Messiah conducted by my father-in-law, who has just turned 90. However many times I have performed the work - I've sung it, played the organ for it, and conducted it myself - it never fails to stir me as it reaches its grand climax: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain...Blessing and honour, glory and power...Amen." Musically it can be explained by the succession of choruses building towards the magnificent final fugue, and, with orchestral accompaniment, the trumpets bringing the crowning splendour at the end. But, uniquely for a musical work, the work has great theological power as it tells the salvation story of Christ's birth, death, resurrection and ascension. First performed in 1742 the work seems to have universal appeal for people of faith or no faith. Maybe it is because although the text is selected entirely from the bible, the name of Jesus is hardly mentioned. For Christians the work obviously portrays the great hope of resurrection 'through our Lord Jesus Christ', but for those who are not Christians the music still evokes tremendously inspiring feelings of 'something better'. If salvation could come through music, I'm sure this is where it would be found.

Whether performed by amateurs or profesionals, accompanied by full orchestra or organ, in the concert hall or the church, Messiah is surely the greatest and most popular of English oratorios.

As we were driving back through the increasingly heavy traffic of the M40 and M25 we listened on Radio 3 (always my station of choice in the car) to my favourite Beethoven symphony, No. 3 'Eroica'. The performance was preceded by a fascinating talk in which the speaker drew out the themes of death and resurrection - this time the death of the archetypal hero. When Beethoven started writing the symphony he was inspired by the heroic liberating acts of Napoleon Bonaparte, and dedicated the symphony to the great leader. Famously, though, when Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven scratched out the dedication as he felt the revolutionary hero had turned tyrant. The symphony can be interpreted as 1) the portrayal of the hero (Napoleon), 2) a funeral march: the death of the hero, or the heroic ideal, 3) a new birth - the music of the scherzo brings life and joy, and finally 4) the hero remade in which reason and enlightenment triumph over tyranny. This is shown through the use of fugal writing - so often used by composers from Haydn onwards to bring reason and order to the climax of great symphonic works. I found it a compelling interpretation, but of course the very nature of music means that the story it tells can be interpreted in many different ways.

Messiah is powerful not just for the music, but for its story of God's saving acts through Jesus Christ. Beethoven's 'Eroica' symphony is powerful both for its music - amazingly radical at the time of its first performance in, I think, 1803 - and for its portrayal through a universal medium of a universal message of hope and the rebirth of heroic ideals.

Music of the North

No, not Scotland, but the snowy expanses of Finland. I've just got back from hearing the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing the 6th and 7th symphonies of Sibelius. Like Mahler who told the conductor Bruno Walter not to look at the mountains around him because it was all in his music, so Sibelius seems to capture the essence of the northern European wastes of Finland. There is something about his music that paints pictures of bright snow, ice crystals, cold water, gloomy pine forests in the mist, and dark mountain peaks. But at the same time it is playful and full of positive energy.

Like many great artists Sibelius was wracked by self-doubt, to such an extent that the last 30 years of his life were virtually silent musically. But he had become a hero of Finnish independence from Russia, giving his countrymen that stirring orchestral piece Finlandia, and in 1940 he was voted by the audience of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra their 'favourite living composer.'

I've only lately come to appreciate the music of Sibelius. Maybe because it takes some time to unfold, and you're never quite sure where it is going. Tonight's performance was all the better for the fantastic playing of the LPO. In their encoure - 'Valse Triste ' - I've never heard such quiet playing from orchestral strings before: absolute pianissimo. It even stopped the audience coughing - you could have heard the proverbial pin drop.

The debate about assisted suicide

Here is a link to a thoughtful blog by my erstwhile friend at theological college, Doug Chaplin:
http://clayboy.co.uk/2010/02/assisted-suicide-competing-visions-of-human-dignity/

I believe that if we are to be heard on the floor of the debate it's vitally important to continue to argue in the language that most people speak, that is the language of secular human rights and pragmatism, even though as Christians our motivation may come from somewhere higher.