(Divine) ‘Nature and Personhood’ ? - A personal reflection on the Christian Aid Annual Lecture 2021

Reh im Klostergarten (Deer in Monastery Garden) by Franz Marc, 1912-13

Distinguished economist Sir Partha Dasgupta gave the address at the first Annual Christian Aid Lecture that took place at St Martin in the Fields on 6th September 2021 which can be viewed at this link. His lecture set out to show how our disconnection from nature results not only in environmental damage but impoverishes our understanding of the economics of poverty and development. The themes raised in his lecture; stability, regulation and transformation of behaviour through communitarian institutions; the importance of relationship; have obvious parallels in Christian communities, particularly monastic communities of the nature envisaged in the Rule of St Benedict. 

Start:Stop - Decisions, decisions!

Georges Rouault, Christ and the Apostles, 1937-8

Hello and welcome to this week’s Start:Stop reflection from St Stephen Walbrook, my name is Phillip Dawson.

Decisions, decisions! Before the lockdown, one newspaper reported that we each make up to 35,000 decisions every day. Sounds a bit far-fetched to me – but whatever the figure, I imagine it’s considerably lower at the moment. It may be no exaggeration to say that at the present time, life and death decisions are being made by those with responsibility for our health and wellbeing. Decisions which, for the most part, are outside of our control. Decisions which are certainly having an impact on people living in the poorest countries in the world; supporting whom is the focus of this year’s Christian Aid Week appeal, which continues until Saturday.

On Thursday, the church celebrates the life of St Matthias. Virtually all we know about him is from a few short passages in Acts of the Apostles, which I’m about to read. This tells us that he’d been a loyal follower of Jesus right from the start, as had another man, Justus. Faced with the task of selecting a replacement after the death of Judas, the eleven remaining apostles found they could not decide between Matthias and Justus, so they prayed to the Lord, before casting lots. The rest, as they say, is history - or perhaps 'unknown' history in the case of Matthias.