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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The Evangelical slide into Fundamentalism
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Grammatica
If British Evangelicals formed as large a percentage of the British population as American Evangelicals do in the United States, would they:
attempt to control school curricula (i.e. demand revision of history texts, tamp down teaching that incorporates critical thinking, or insist that YEC be taught along with the theory of evolution?)
No, because, to most UK evos, these are complete non-issues. They overwhelmingly do not see a contradiction between evolution and their faith, or science and their faith, or the use of critical thinking and their faith.
quote:
strongly influence government policy on women's health issues (i.e. contraceptive availability)?
No. Large numbers of Catholics might, but UK evangelicals are not only overwhelmingly accepting of contraception, but of the idea that God intended sexual activity within marriage to be for pleasure, irrespective of the possibility of conception. Contraception is available free of charge on the NHS, and I don't know of any UK evo group that opposes this. I'm surprised by the suggestion that this is not also the case in the US, though I'm also surprised (to put it mildly) that anyone would ideologically oppose a comprehensive, free at the point of delivery Health Service.
The one issue that would probably unite UK evos in seeking to change the law would be abortion, where overwhelmingly they are opposed to the current practice. Even there, though, I think the majority would like to see a (more or less severe) tightening of the regulations controlling it, and a ban on late-term abortions, rather than a broad-blanket criminalisation.
quote:
claim the exclusive right to represent religion in the public sphere (i.e. insist that public prayers be given only by Evangelicals, or see to it that their religious holidays, but no others, are publicly celebrated)?
I think UK evos would desire that those offering public prayers should be evangelical (which is not quite the question that you asked) and certainly would want more freedom of action for evangelicals to express their faith in the public arena (so no banning of Christmas Carols/Nativity scenes etc from public buildings). But we'll take any holidays we can, I think.
How much like or unlike that makes UK evos to their US co-religionists, I'm not sure. But when I think of a UK evo, I think of someone like ken, Alan Cresswell or Barnabas62 (OK, they are incredibly bright and articulate examples, but I'm talking about their (small p) political views). I guess I'm at the extreme left of UK evangelicalism, being pro gay marriage, believing in ultimate reconciliation, and thinking PSA is a serious heresy, but even I haven't been cast into the outer darkness by my evo church.
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think you've identified a major Pond difference, Grammatica, we don't have a Deep South ...
At least, not in the way that the US has. We have a disenfranchised under-class certainly, and plenty of pockets of poverty, under-achievement and so on ... but we don't have any equivalent to the Red Neck States.
Well, you do have a North, with some of the same dynamics, though, obviously, with many differences also.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
Well, you do have a North, with some of the same dynamics, though, obviously, with many differences also.
Very different I believe. The cities of the UK North are largely industrial in a way that I believe is more typical of the US North. If I'm right about the US they're more like Detroit than they are like the midwest. Basically they rose in population with the industrial revolution and then began economic decline as the Tories took apart manufacturing industry and coal mining.
The far right periodically gets a foothold in local or European politics only to regularly lose it in the next policial cycle. But otherwise the big northern cities are solidly Labour. The country and small towns vote Conservative, but that's an entirely different political agenda.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
This one doesn't really care, nor do most of the people I know.
We get a few bishops in the House of Lords. Yeah great, but everyone's trying to reform the HoL out of existence anyway. We're officially under the queen, but I've never met her (only her hubby) and AFAICT her headship makes zero difference to my life. We occasionally make a few quid by marrying people who live in the parish, but they'd probably want to get married in our nice building whether or not we were officially the state church.
I've heard it argued that disestablishment would set us free to pursue our mission but I'm sceptical: the Methodists are the closest non-established comparison to the CofE and they aren't exactly doing great.
You seem to be saying that whether a church is established or not is no guarantee of success. How we define success is debatable of course, but the facts are that the CofE has far more buildings, more attenders, more of a general cultural presence (in the media as among the general public) and more resources, I imagine, than any other single denomination in England. It's hard not to see this as a reflection of the CofE's historical and current status as the established church. Some of these advantages would probably remain were the CofE to be disestablished, but your comment about the Methodists suggests that you feel that establishment somehow protects your church from a potentially undesirable fate. I.e., establishment DOES matter.
My suspicion is that the House of Lords and the Queen etc. matter principally as symbols, not as important things in themselves. They symbolise the continuing presence of the CofE - and in some people's minds, of Christianity - at the heart of national life. While these symbols exist in the background they can safely be ignored, but efforts to remove them are uneasy reminders that the central place of the CofE, and of Christianity, cannot be taken for granted. I think this is why English Anglican evangelicals (not to mention other Anglicans, and even other kinds of evangelical) have little to say about them.
I'm afraid not.
My basic opinion, which I think is pretty representative, is that disestablishment would be far more trouble than it's worth. Establishment as it exists today is neither significantly beneficial nor significantly detrimental to either side, but the process of disestablishment would be one almighty hassle, and could do damage to the church by letting the secularists be seen to win a fight. In summary: it's just not worth it.
Posts: 2821 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John D. Ward:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I don't think race is an issue for UK evangelicals. I don't think class is either, but gender most certainly is - honestly I think that UK evangelicals would support a straight man of any class or gender.
I think you mean "a straight man of any class or race".
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) Yes, whoops.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I don't think race is an issue for UK evangelicals. I don't think class is either, but gender most certainly is - honestly I think that UK evangelicals would support a straight man of any class or gender.
I don't think a new Welsh Revival would support the Tories, probably the opposite! All the main parties fail on the traditional evangelical 'issues', but the Tories fail the most on issues of social justice, poverty etc. I think class is the major divider here.
I think race is an issue in some respects. For example, ethnic minorities are far less likely to vote Tory than other people - yet black majority churches, which are mostly evangelical, are growing quite fast in comparison with certain other kinds of church.
Class is relevant too, I think. A wealthy evangelical and an unemployed evangelical may have different views about which party will best serve their economic interests. Or are you suggesting that evangelicals vote only on the basis of morality and/or social justice, and never consider the money in their pocket? Considering the oft-repeated connection between Protestantism and capitalism perhaps it would be unlikely if class and money were irrelevant to evangelical voting patterns.
It really depends on the ethnic minority I think. People from the Indian subcontinent and China tend to be more conservative. That's mirrored in the US, where even amongst latinos there's variation - Cuban-Americans generally vote Republican whereas Mexican-Americans tend to vote Democrat.
It would be interesting to see to what extent working class conservatism is widespread amongst UK evangelicals, and to what extend that's a result of them being evangelical or the surrounding culture.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
[qb]In my undergraduate days in the 1980s, I remember three things that remianed with me about Evangelicals at the university. Not all of course. but a sizable number. And there was certainly a goodly fellowship of them.
The first was a genuine suspicion about the faculty of theology. The Christian Union would pray regularly for the souls of the dons in that faculty. There was a distrust of those who sought to think critically about the Christian faith and biblical texts.
Was your experience from 'inside' or 'outside'?
My experience* of it was much more anti-establishment based, (although often isolated instance).
Broadly it was assumed that rather than thinking critically they were parroting the secular line and self advancement. And that they had a distrust of us being taught to think critically about the Christian faith and biblical texts.
*more or less CU side, wishing well for chapel but on CU terms.
Oh no, they didn't believe the faculty were 'proper' Christians although most of the dons were clergy.
It was that desire to distinguish who was 'in' or 'out' or who was a 'proper' Christian that I found the most repugnat.
Thank goodness for other Christian groups like the Student Christian Movement.
Indeed, the Student Union made the Christian Union change its name eventually to the Evangelical Christian Union so to make it clear that they (1) did not exclusively have to right to 'Christian' (2) and to make it clear what they were peddling.
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
Well, you do have a North, with some of the same dynamics, though, obviously, with many differences also.
In the denomination I know best, the Methodist Church, the most strongly evangelical congregations seem to be in the north of England. But I don't think this is necessarily true for evangelicalism per se. It's a question of history.
quote:
US Evangelicals predominate in the Southern states. These states are characterized by lower than average household income, high poverty rates, high un- and underemployment, lower than average educational attainment, and higher than average rates of divorce, single motherhood, drug and alcohol use -- in other words, by joblessness, poverty, and the social ills of poverty.
Northern England is generally poorer than southern England, true, but in the UK churchgoing is more common among the middle classes than among the disadvantaged. Belief without regular churchgoing crosses class boundaries, but for British evangelicals regular churchgoing is likely to be a strong part of their identity, barring special circumstances.
I've heard about the high rate of divorce, teenaged pregnancy, etc. among American evangelicals, but not about the drug and alcohol abuse. One's tempted to say that they need to go and put their own house in order rather than pester politicians!! Many commentators would blame their poverty for their challenging behaviour, but there must be more to it than that.
My guess is that in the UK, people who found themselves living with all of these problems would no longer call themselves evangelicals, and would no longer be seen as evangelicals by others. Maybe British evangelicalism is less tolerant, but there's no social or political advantage here to claiming the evangelical label. Therefore, if the strict standards aren't to your taste, you simply walk away and shed that identity. I know of a church near me that takes a very dim view of divorce, apparently. How would they cope with drug and alcohol abuse, and 15 year olds in the youth group getting pregnant!? I can't see them turning a blind eye just because the individuals concerned insist they've been 'born again'. It makes no sense in the British context. But that's just my perspective.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
Well, you do have a North, with some of the same dynamics, though, obviously, with many differences also.
Very different I believe. The cities of the UK North are largely industrial in a way that I believe is more typical of the US North. If I'm right about the US they're more like Detroit than they are like the midwest. Basically they rose in population with the industrial revolution and then began economic decline as the Tories took apart manufacturing industry and coal mining.
The far right periodically gets a foothold in local or European politics only to regularly lose it in the next policial cycle. But otherwise the big northern cities are solidly Labour. The country and small towns vote Conservative, but that's an entirely different political agenda.
Very helpful, thanks. The political affiliations of the displaced industrial workers of our Great Lakes "Rust Belt," which (I agree) is the part of the US most closely corresponding to your North, are in flux, and have been for some time.
This is the group once known as "Reagan Democrats." They switched their votes (though not always their party affiliation) in the 1970s, owing to their rejection of the Democratic position on a whole raft of social issues. Democrats were seen as "peaceniks" who were "soft on crime," supported feminism, which (they believed) was destroying the traditional family, and, most unforgivably of all, promoted the interests of African-Americans at the expense of the white working class. Your group, in contrast, continued to vote Labour.
Somewhat earlier, the Dixiecrats of the US South had been lured away from the Democratic party by Nixon's "Southern strategy"; white Southerners of all classes who were angry at Lyndon Johnson and the Northern Democrats for passing the Civil Rights Act and support of the Civil Rights Movement were welcomed into the Republican Party.
I'm not sure what to make of it, except to note once again the incalculable depths of the influence that race and racial conflict have had on American politics. Class might finally determine one's politics in Britain, but race and racial anxieties can easily trump class in the US.
And I wonder whether the political affiliations of US Evangelicals and Northern Catholics aren't really traceable to Southern and white working class opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, and the religions have just more or less tagged along.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
Well, you do have a North, with some of the same dynamics, though, obviously, with many differences also.
In the denomination I know best, the Methodist Church, the most strongly evangelical congregations seem to be in the north of England. But I don't think this is necessarily true for evangelicalism per se. It's a question of history.
quote:
US Evangelicals predominate in the Southern states. These states are characterized by lower than average household income, high poverty rates, high un- and underemployment, lower than average educational attainment, and higher than average rates of divorce, single motherhood, drug and alcohol use -- in other words, by joblessness, poverty, and the social ills of poverty.
Northern England is generally poorer than southern England, true, but in the UK churchgoing is more common among the middle classes than among the disadvantaged. Belief without regular churchgoing crosses class boundaries, but for British evangelicals regular churchgoing is likely to be a strong part of their identity, barring special circumstances.
I've heard about the high rate of divorce, teenaged pregnancy, etc. among American evangelicals, but not about the drug and alcohol abuse. One's tempted to say that they need to go and put their own house in order rather than pester politicians!! Many commentators would blame their poverty for their challenging behaviour, but there must be more to it than that.
My guess is that in the UK, people who found themselves living with all of these problems would no longer call themselves evangelicals, and would no longer be seen as evangelicals by others. Maybe British evangelicalism is less tolerant, but there's no social or political advantage here to claiming the evangelical label. Therefore, if the strict standards aren't to your taste, you simply walk away and shed that identity. I know of a church near me that takes a very dim view of divorce, apparently. How would they cope with drug and alcohol abuse, and 15 year olds in the youth group getting pregnant!? I can't see them turning a blind eye just because the individuals concerned insist they've been 'born again'. It makes no sense in the British context. But that's just my perspective.
As I understand it, in much of the Southern US, evangelical churches (SBC and the like) are usually the local church - in smaller communities it's a community hub, like the local parish church in a UK village. Also, not so much the other issues, but teen pregnancy is indirectly caused by evangelical churches in the South campaigning for abstinence-only sex education in public schools. I think evangelical churches in the South would rather teens be parents than be on birth control or have abortions, so it's tolerated in a way it wouldn't be in the UK.
[ 11. August 2012, 23:11: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
For what it's worth, I'm a card carrying Labour Party member, eco-socialist, feminist, pro-choice and pro marriage equality. I identify as Open Evangelical and MOTR-to-low Anglican (weekly Eucharist but modern music). Pretty sure my stance is not a common one ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
How would they cope with drug and alcohol abuse, and 15 year olds in the youth group getting pregnant!?
There's a lot of serious denial, for one thing. Where I live, everyone's aware of the levels of drug and alcohol abuse among the young, but people refuse to discuss the problem openly.
There's also a very strange tendency here (strange to me, anyway) to point the finger at others who are doing exactly what you are doing, apparently in an effort to deflect condemnation that otherwise might fall on you. For example, I can recall sitting in a doctor's waiting room, doing some involuntary listening to a long diatribe about lazy people on disability from a woman who finally admitted she was on disability herself.
quote:
I can't see them turning a blind eye just because the individuals concerned insist they've been 'born again'. It makes no sense in the British context. But that's just my perspective.
Well, but that's what they do. You are a high school girl, you get pregnant, you "repent," and you are welcomed back into fellowship.
Another standout memory for me: the young woman who explained that she was teaching Sunday School through high school, "and then my daughter was born."
It just happened, you see.
It's strange to me, too, but it's how people live their lives.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
On the university issue, here are a few thoughts:
1) CUs are a game of "let's play church leaders". They're never going to be the most mature places. They also contain many 18 year olds who are far from home and are trying to survive with their faith intact, let along evangelise their corridor. It's not surprising that they want to cling to their faith rather than testing the boundaries of non-realism or whatever.
2) What Alan Cresswell says is entirely true. I've been affiliated to one university (different from Alan's) since before I joined the Ship, and relations with the other groups of Christian students, with local churches and with the denominational chaplains have all waxed and waned.
3) If campus ministry were left solely to the SCM, it would be a disaster. That's coming from someone who's held office in his SCM group (and his CU, as it happens). For all their faults, evangelical CUs perform a vital function. For all its 'welcome', that SCM group is now dead: it evidently didn't welcome enough people.
4) It's possible to play around with fancy ideas without applying academic rigour, and it's also possible to give a very intelligent, rigorous and well thought-out talk that uses very few long words. While I've met plenty of Christians of all stripes who wouldn't examine their own beliefs too hard, I'd say that the talks I heard at the CU were consistently more intellectually demanding than those I heard at my (non-evangelical) church.
All that's coming from a Catholic turned evangelical, attending a non-evangelical Methodist-Anglican church, who sat somewhere between the CU and the liberals during my degree and generally got quite pissed off with them both.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
How would they cope with drug and alcohol abuse, and 15 year olds in the youth group getting pregnant!?
There's a lot of serious denial, for one thing. Where I live, everyone's aware of the levels of drug and alcohol abuse among the young, but people refuse to discuss the problem openly.
There's also a very strange tendency here (strange to me, anyway) to point the finger at others who are doing exactly what you are doing, apparently in an effort to deflect condemnation that otherwise might fall on you. For example, I can recall sitting in a doctor's waiting room, doing some involuntary listening to a long diatribe about lazy people on disability from a woman who finally admitted she was on disability herself.
quote:
I can't see them turning a blind eye just because the individuals concerned insist they've been 'born again'. It makes no sense in the British context. But that's just my perspective.
Well, but that's what they do. You are a high school girl, you get pregnant, you "repent," and you are welcomed back into fellowship.
Another standout memory for me: the young woman who explained that she was teaching Sunday School through high school, "and then my daughter was born."
It just happened, you see.
It's strange to me, too, but it's how people live their lives.
I wouldn't judge those teenage mothers too hard, considering their churches push so much for a total lack of comprehensive sex education in schools and they are taught by wider society that sexual relationships = success. Sorry if I'm missing something here, but why shouldn't a teenage mother be welcomed back into a church fellowship if they've repented?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
As I understand it, in much of the Southern US, evangelical churches (SBC and the like) are usually the local church - in smaller communities it's a community hub, like the local parish church in a UK village.
I'm sure you're right, but this strikes me as somewhat ironic!
quote:
Teen pregnancy is indirectly caused by evangelical churches in the South campaigning for abstinence-only sex education in public schools. I think evangelical churches in the South would rather teens be parents than be on birth control or have abortions, so it's tolerated in a way it wouldn't be in the UK.
I can understand this. But the interesting question is why these young people are so highly sexualised in the first place. I think they must live in a highly conflicted culture, where both piety and sexual license jostle for priority in the same small space. It must be very confusing.
[ 11. August 2012, 23:41: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
...Contraception is available free of charge on the NHS, and I don't know of any UK evo group that opposes this. I'm surprised by the suggestion that this is not also the case in the US, though I'm also surprised (to put it mildly) that anyone would ideologically oppose a comprehensive, free at the point of delivery Health Service.
We're in the opposite corner of the country from the Deep South, in a state generally considered liberal (though with a strong conservative minority). One of the local High Schools (roughly ages 15 to 18) that serves a lot of poor rural students got a grant to have a Health Center, as many of the children otherwise received no medical care.
However, the conservative churches in the county raised such a storm of protest that the Commission refused to accept the grant, even though it would not cost them anything. The reason? Medical staff, if asked, would provide information on birth control to teenagers who were, or were likely to be, sexually active, in accordance with State law. Not providing birth control, mind you, just information about it.
I won't try to characterize the churches involved as to whether they were Evangelical, Pentecostal, Fundamentalist, or whatever. More commonly the words used to describe them are typed using the shift key and the top row on the keyboard.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
As I understand it, in much of the Southern US, evangelical churches (SBC and the like) are usually the local church - in smaller communities it's a community hub, like the local parish church in a UK village.
I'm sure you're right, but this strikes me as somewhat ironic!
quote:
Teen pregnancy is indirectly caused by evangelical churches in the South campaigning for abstinence-only sex education in public schools. I think evangelical churches in the South would rather teens be parents than be on birth control or have abortions, so it's tolerated in a way it wouldn't be in the UK.
I can understand this. But the interesting question is why these young people are so highly sexualised in the first place. I think they must live in a highly conflicted culture, where both piety and sexual license jostle for priority in the same small space. It must be very confusing.
I don't think they're any more sexualised than any other group of teenagers, they're just not given the resources to handle it in a responsible way. It's normal for teenagers to want to have sex, it's what their bodies are telling them to do. Good sex education will teach them about relationships and that if they're sure they want to have sex, to use contraception. Comprehensive sex education actually lowers the age at which people become sexually active (as evidenced by the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries).
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sorry if I'm missing something here, but why shouldn't a teenage mother be welcomed back into a church fellowship if they've repented?
I don't know how well I'm going to do with this:
One teenage girl gets pregnant, doesn't marry the man, tells God she's sorry and is welcomed back into fellowship? I'm fine with that.
But ten or twenty per year? That's different.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sorry if I'm missing something here, but why shouldn't a teenage mother be welcomed back into a church fellowship if they've repented?
I don't know how well I'm going to do with this:
One teenage girl gets pregnant, doesn't marry the man, tells God she's sorry and is welcomed back into fellowship? I'm fine with that.
But ten or twenty per year? That's different.
So what would your solution be? Because excluding these girls from the love of the local church family is not going to stop them from getting pregnant. It just means that instead of teenage mothers being part of the church family, you have teenage mothers who are not part of the church family.
Conservative evangelicals can't have it both ways - either accept comprehensive sex education in schools, or have teenage mothers.
Edited to ask why the girls not marrying the fathers is a problem in your eyes? Shotgun marriages rarely end well.
[ 12. August 2012, 01:18: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sorry if I'm missing something here, but why shouldn't a teenage mother be welcomed back into a church fellowship if they've repented?
I don't know how well I'm going to do with this:
One teenage girl gets pregnant, doesn't marry the man, tells God she's sorry and is welcomed back into fellowship? I'm fine with that.
But ten or twenty per year? That's different.
.... Edited to ask why the girls not marrying the fathers is a problem in your eyes? Shotgun marriages rarely end well.
It's hardly a problem "in my eyes." Absent fathers taking no responsibility for their children; mothers stretched to the limits trying to keep children fed on one minimum wage income; children parked with whomever or whatever while Mom scrambles to keep the family fed; physical and sexual abuse of the children common; everyone fairly well condemned to a life of poverty. And there's more. I assume you are familiar with the literature on the outcomes? I hope you are, because the literature reflects the reality.
So Southern Evangelical churches enable a very destructive cultural pattern. It's hard to get that point across to people who haven't lived in the midst of the wreckage, though.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sorry if I'm missing something here, but why shouldn't a teenage mother be welcomed back into a church fellowship if they've repented?
I don't know how well I'm going to do with this:
One teenage girl gets pregnant, doesn't marry the man, tells God she's sorry and is welcomed back into fellowship? I'm fine with that.
But ten or twenty per year? That's different.
.... Edited to ask why the girls not marrying the fathers is a problem in your eyes? Shotgun marriages rarely end well.
It's hardly a problem "in my eyes." Absent fathers taking no responsibility for their children; mothers stretched to the limits trying to keep children fed on one minimum wage income; children parked with whomever or whatever while Mom scrambles to keep the family fed; physical and sexual abuse of the children common; everyone fairly well condemned to a life of poverty. And there's more. I assume you are familiar with the literature on the outcomes? I hope you are, because the literature reflects the reality.
So Southern Evangelical churches enable a very destructive cultural pattern. It's hard to get that point across to people who haven't lived in the midst of the wreckage, though.
Obviously the fathers have to contribute towards the child(ren)'s upkeep (or the father's parents if the father is below working age). Doesn't mean the father has to marry the mother!
I don't think that churches not rejecting teenage mothers is what enables the pattern. Churches not accepting that sex and relationship education is important in the prevention of teenage pregnancy (and other problems) is. At the very least, if local schools won't offer proper sex education, the church could - for all their other issues, I believe Universal Unitarian sex ed classes are very good and highly regarded. It's a shame evangelical churches aren't so responsible in this area.
I've a) been a teenage girl myself and b) lived in hostels and in areas of the country where similar patterns of teenage pregnancy happen. Lack of love and stability seems to be the main reason that girls either get pregnant on purpose or keep their babies after a surprise pregnancy (lack of contraception is mostly down to pressure from boyfriends and/or problems getting hold of hormonal birth control) - it's definitely not to get a taxpayer-funded apartment because the girls usually live with their parents, the father or in a hostel. A church rejecting them would only make it worse. Churches engaging with them and telling them that actually, God loves them even when society doesn't, would seem to me to be a good thing.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Grammatica
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# 13248
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Posted
Jade Constable, we do live in very different worlds!
Society isn't rejecting these girls. Not at all. It's quite acceptable to have a child or two out of wedlock.
The churches, which take a very punitive attitude toward lib'ruls of any description and are blatantly, openly homophobic, do little or nothing in practice to uphold the "family values" they so loudly trumpet at election time.
Side point: I don't think the Southern Baptists are going to be offering the Unitarian Universalist sex education curriculum any time soon.
[ 12. August 2012, 05:16: Message edited by: Grammatica ]
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Pomona
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# 17175
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Posted
Um, society DEFINITELY looks down on teenage mothers, particularly ones from a poorer background - they are viewed as stupid, irresponsible, bad parents, only doing it for welfare money etc. The view of teenage mothers is different to the view of unmarried mothers in general (who are usually in long term relationships, just not married). Personally I'm glad it's OK to have children out of wedlock in general, if only because I don't want Magdalene laundries or shotgun weddings to be acceptable. I don't think scaring women into being sexually abstinent until marriage is OK (and it generally is women, because men don't have the fear of becoming pregnant).
And I think you misunderstand me - I know Southern evangelicals aren't going to adopt UU sex ed classes, I just pointed out that it's an area the UU church does much better than most evangelical churches. Evangelical churches DO need to face up to the timebomb of teenage pregnancies they are facing thanks to abstinence-only sex ed.
[ 12. August 2012, 05:42: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Comprehensive sex education actually lowers the age at which people become sexually active (as evidenced by the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries).
I think you mean 'raises the age'. People who have been comprehensively educated about sex tend to have their first sexual encounter later.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
More like Pittsburgh, I would hazard a guess, than Detroit. We don't have anywhere like Detroit ...
Places like Flint, Michigan, probably have more in common that northern English cities - but many northern cities, such as Leeds and Manchester have undergone major regeneration in recent decades. Leeds was positively buzzing in the 1990s, although the growth has plateaued out now. It's certainly a much more vibrant city than it was in the 1970s but has lost something of its northern 'bite'.
That said, many northern English cities like Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester are surrounded by areas of deprivation. They have effectively sucked the life out of their own satellite towns - so the Lancashire mill-towns and former coal-towns in West and South Yorkshire are pretty run-down compared to the thriving city centres within eight to ten miles of themselves.
I'm deliberately talking about England here rather than Scotland and Wales - but you can see similar patterns there too - regeneration in Glasgow, a thriving Cardiff but with a depressed Scottish 'central belt' and former mining valleys in the case of South Wales.
All these old industrial areas are solidly Labour.
We do have working-class Tories (my Grandad was one) but we really don't have the equivalent of the blue-collar 'guns, gays and whatever-else-happens-to-be-the-Republican-flavour-of-the-month-reactionary-cause' thing that you have in the USA.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Um, society DEFINITELY looks down on teenage mothers, particularly ones from a poorer background - they are viewed as stupid, irresponsible, bad parents, only doing it for welfare money etc.
Jade Constable, you live in Hampshire, UK. I live in rural Central Florida, US. Those are two different societies that work in two very different ways. I hope you can accept that.
Your middle-class (upper-class?) British society may indeed look down on single mothers. So did the middle-class American society I used to live in.
The rural Southern culture I am now living in does not. Not at all. I was stunned to find that out when I moved here. Single motherhood is extremely common and entirely accepted. That doesn't mean it's a good thing, for the mother, the child, or for the society at large.
quote:
... unmarried mothers in general (who are usually in long term relationships, just not married).
Again, that may be the case in your middle-class/ upper-class Hampshire, but not where I am. Here, a woman tends to live with the father of her child, whom she calls her "fiance," for a year or two, but generally not much longer. Then they split up. Afterward, the father sometimes remains in contact with his child, but often he does not.
It is fairly common for women to go through serial relationships with men, each lasting a couple of years, each producing a child. Children in these families are at a very high risk of physical abuse, even death, from their stepfathers.
Something like this cultural pattern probably exists in many British slums, as well, and I am sure it causes equivalent damage.
There is resistance to thinking that family instability is stressful for parents and causes damage to children; people want to be seen as broad-minded, which, among other things, means supportive of divorce on easy terms and single parenting. The data are in, however.
Interestingly, in recent years, family patterns have diverged sharply. Among college-educated people, who also tend to have higher incomes, children are almost always born in wedlock and the divorce rate is quite low. Among the remains of our working class, on the other hand, the majority of children are now born to parents who are not married to one another. See the recent New York Times article, "Two Classes, Divided by 'I Do'":
quote:
About 41 percent of births in the United States occur outside marriage, up sharply from 17 percent three decades ago. But equally sharp are the educational divides, according to an analysis by Child Trends, a Washington research group. Less than 10 percent of the births to college-educated women occur outside marriage, while for women with high school degrees or less the figure is nearly 60 percent.
And this:
quote:
Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns — as opposed to changes in individual earnings — may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.
“It is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.
Yes, I do think the Evangelical churches have a responsibility here to their congregations, which they squander by attacking gay people and gay marriage, instead of building up and supporting the families in their midst. Here, as in many other ways, however, these churches are simply a product of their own culture's values and assumptions.
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
We do have working-class Tories (my Grandad was one) but we really don't have the equivalent of the blue-collar 'guns, gays and whatever-else-happens-to-be-the-Republican-flavour-of-the-month-reactionary-cause' thing that you have in the USA.
Gamaliel, I wonder what you make of the rise of the British National Party and the English Defence League.
Or is "rise" the wrong word to use? Have the British far right's numbers merely increased from "vanishingly small" to "miniscule"?
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
We do have working-class Tories (my Grandad was one) but we really don't have the equivalent of the blue-collar 'guns, gays and whatever-else-happens-to-be-the-Republican-flavour-of-the-month-reactionary-cause' thing that you have in the USA.
Gamaliel, I wonder what you make of the rise of the British National Party and the English Defence League.
Or is "rise" the wrong word to use? Have the British far right's numbers merely increased from "vanishingly small" to "miniscule"?
The BNP are almost dead, suffering the duel consequences of infighting and being feckless incompetents in every office to which they have been elected, and the EDL are frequently outnumbered by counter-demonstrations. I lived near Burnley for a few years and, while there was some racism around, the BNP were finished.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Um, society DEFINITELY looks down on teenage mothers, particularly ones from a poorer background - they are viewed as stupid, irresponsible, bad parents, only doing it for welfare money etc.
Jade Constable, you live in Hampshire, UK. I live in rural Central Florida, US. Those are two different societies that work in two very different ways. I hope you can accept that.
Your middle-class (upper-class?) British society may indeed look down on single mothers. So did the middle-class American society I used to live in.
The rural Southern culture I am now living in does not. Not at all. I was stunned to find that out when I moved here. Single motherhood is extremely common and entirely accepted. That doesn't mean it's a good thing, for the mother, the child, or for the society at large.
quote:
... unmarried mothers in general (who are usually in long term relationships, just not married).
Again, that may be the case in your middle-class/ upper-class Hampshire, but not where I am. Here, a woman tends to live with the father of her child, whom she calls her "fiance," for a year or two, but generally not much longer. Then they split up. Afterward, the father sometimes remains in contact with his child, but often he does not.
It is fairly common for women to go through serial relationships with men, each lasting a couple of years, each producing a child. Children in these families are at a very high risk of physical abuse, even death, from their stepfathers.
Something like this cultural pattern probably exists in many British slums, as well, and I am sure it causes equivalent damage.
There is resistance to thinking that family instability is stressful for parents and causes damage to children; people want to be seen as broad-minded, which, among other things, means supportive of divorce on easy terms and single parenting. The data are in, however.
Interestingly, in recent years, family patterns have diverged sharply. Among college-educated people, who also tend to have higher incomes, children are almost always born in wedlock and the divorce rate is quite low. Among the remains of our working class, on the other hand, the majority of children are now born to parents who are not married to one another. See the recent New York Times article, "Two Classes, Divided by 'I Do'":
quote:
About 41 percent of births in the United States occur outside marriage, up sharply from 17 percent three decades ago. But equally sharp are the educational divides, according to an analysis by Child Trends, a Washington research group. Less than 10 percent of the births to college-educated women occur outside marriage, while for women with high school degrees or less the figure is nearly 60 percent.
And this:
quote:
Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns — as opposed to changes in individual earnings — may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.
“It is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.
Yes, I do think the Evangelical churches have a responsibility here to their congregations, which they squander by attacking gay people and gay marriage, instead of building up and supporting the families in their midst. Here, as in many other ways, however, these churches are simply a product of their own culture's values and assumptions.
Er, could you please not make assumptions about my background? I'm living in Hampshire for a matter of months before university in September (as a mature student with no financial help from parents). I am *from* a working-class background in Coventry, a strongly working-class former industrial city. I ran away from home at 17 and was homeless in a run-down seaside town with a high proportion of teenage pregnancy and poverty, and lived in hostels with teenage mothers. My mother was a teenage mother and her mother before her. I know what's involved. Teenage pregnancy in these circumstances is normal for the group involved but is certainly looked down on by others within society - working-class people don't exist in a bubble where they don't know any middle-class people.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Also, you seriously think I hang out with upper-class people? Upper-class means aristocracy here, not simply having a lot of money.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Comprehensive sex education actually lowers the age at which people become sexually active (as evidenced by the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries).
I think you mean 'raises the age'. People who have been comprehensively educated about sex tend to have their first sexual encounter later.
Yes, sorry, I tried to edit after the window ended! I have dyscalculia and numbers/distances/time are a challenge for me
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
It is fairly common for women to go through serial relationships with men, each lasting a couple of years, each producing a child. Children in these families are at a very high risk of physical abuse, even death, from their stepfathers.
Something like this cultural pattern probably exists in many British slums, as well, and I am sure it causes equivalent damage.
Grammatica, I suspect you're right that the cultural pattern you describe is common in disadvantaged areas of the UK, or at least more common than in leafy Hampshire (where I also live!).
It's a mark of my relatively sheltered upbringing that I'm surprised and a bit shocked when I hear about children growing up with perhaps a series of step-dads, also several half-siblings, frequent changes of address and so on. And yes, the context in which I hear about families like this is often when a child has been murdered or horribly abused. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
We do have working-class Tories (my Grandad was one) but we really don't have the equivalent of the blue-collar 'guns, gays and whatever-else-happens-to-be-the-Republican-flavour-of-the-month-reactionary-cause' thing that you have in the USA.
Gamaliel, I wonder what you make of the rise of the British National Party and the English Defence League.
Or is "rise" the wrong word to use? Have the British far right's numbers merely increased from "vanishingly small" to "miniscule"?
The BNP are actually not truly right-wing - disgustingly racist, sure, but their policies not pertaining to race actually resemble traditional left-wing policies (with regard to trade protectionism etc). As a result they flourish in traditionally Labour/left-voting areas. Definitely no relation to conservatism in the UK - that's the role of UKIP. The EDL as far as I can tell are pretty much a single-issue party based on Islamophobia.
But aside from at a European level (where the BNP have representatives because no one bothers to vote in the European Parliament elections) and on the London Assembly, the BNP have no power.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
Or is "rise" the wrong word to use? Have the British far right's numbers merely increased from "vanishingly small" to "miniscule"?
The BNP are almost dead, suffering the duel consequences of infighting and being feckless incompetents in every office to which they have been elected
I think you meant dual consequences. I only write because the idea of Shami Chakrabarti taking on and beating Nick Griffin with swords at dawn is just too delightful not to mention.
The panic about the BNP becoming mainstream a few years ago was based on winning a handful of council seats. 'Vanishingly small' to 'miniscule' does indeed about cover it.
The BNP did try to team up with Christian Voice a few years ago. The partnership ended acrimoniously, with the BNP accusing Christian Voice of being creationist and Christian Voice accusing the BNP of being racist.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I think the duel in question was actually between Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, but you're quite right.
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think you meant dual consequences. I only write because the idea of Shami Chakrabarti taking on and beating Nick Griffin with swords at dawn is just too delightful not to mention.
That would not be infighting, though, would it? They are quite capable of slaughtering themselves without any outside interference.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Er, could you please not make assumptions about my background? I'm living in Hampshire for a matter of months before university in September (as a mature student with no financial help from parents). I am *from* a working-class background in Coventry, a strongly working-class former industrial city. I ran away from home at 17 and was homeless in a run-down seaside town with a high proportion of teenage pregnancy and poverty, and lived in hostels with teenage mothers. My mother was a teenage mother and her mother before her. I know what's involved. Teenage pregnancy in these circumstances is normal for the group involved but is certainly looked down on by others within society - working-class people don't exist in a bubble where they don't know any middle-class people.
I'm sorry I presumed wrongly. Thanks for sharing your own and your family's experiences.
I do think society has changed, though, to some extent -- or at least it has changed in the part of the US where I live. The stigma, the shunning of single mothers, really doesn't exist any more. But life is still difficult -- immensely difficult -- for single mothers and their children. As I don't need to tell you, given your own experiences.
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The panic about the BNP becoming mainstream a few years ago was based on winning a handful of council seats. 'Vanishingly small' to 'miniscule' does indeed about cover it.
The European Election figures indicate that the BNP got nearly 950,000 votes; that was 6% of an admitted low turn out, but in any proportional representation system enough to get representation in the legislature - another reason for keeping 'First Past the Post'; sadly that doesn't strike me as 'Vanishingly small' to 'miniscule'.
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Er, could you please not make assumptions about my background? I'm living in Hampshire for a matter of months before university in September (as a mature student with no financial help from parents). I am *from* a working-class background in Coventry, a strongly working-class former industrial city. I ran away from home at 17 and was homeless in a run-down seaside town with a high proportion of teenage pregnancy and poverty, and lived in hostels with teenage mothers. My mother was a teenage mother and her mother before her. I know what's involved. Teenage pregnancy in these circumstances is normal for the group involved but is certainly looked down on by others within society - working-class people don't exist in a bubble where they don't know any middle-class people.
I'm sorry I presumed wrongly. Thanks for sharing your own and your family's experiences.
I do think society has changed, though, to some extent -- or at least it has changed in the part of the US where I live. The stigma, the shunning of single mothers, really doesn't exist any more. But life is still difficult -- immensely difficult -- for single mothers and their children. As I don't need to tell you, given your own experiences.
No problem, although it's also worth pointing out that there are very deprived areas of most areas in the UK, including Hampshire - often side-by-side with richer areas.
Also when I talk about people looking down on teenage mothers, it's generally nothing as explicit as shunning. It's more subtle - from teenage mothers not being made to feel welcome at parent and baby groups, to difficulty being taken seriously by employers or landlords.
I imagine Ireland would make a good comparison with your area of the US, seeing as abortion is still illegal in Ireland and I doubt the abortion rate is high where you live because of cultural pressures.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
For what it's worth, I'm a card carrying Labour Party member, eco-socialist, feminist, pro-choice and pro marriage equality. I identify as Open Evangelical and MOTR-to-low Anglican (weekly Eucharist but modern music). Pretty sure my stance is not a common one
Sounds par for the course in those pockets of South London that haven't sighed up to Forward in Faith!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The BNP are actually not truly right-wing - disgustingly racist, sure, but their policies not pertaining to race actually resemble traditional left-wing policies (with regard to trade protectionism etc).
That's partly true of the BNP voters, not of the clique that runs the party. They are not just "right wing" , many of them are Nazis. Genuine jew-hating leather-fetishist occultist Nazis. Not the case for most of the dupes who vote for them of course.
One BIG difference between these folk and US white supremacism is that they don't pose as being a specifically Christian movement. Lots of them have, in the past (they tend to keep quite about it) been involved in various sorts of synthetic neo-paganism, Odinism, and so on. Most of them are probably rather embarrasdly agnostic, just like most English people. The few - and it is very few - who make a show of being Christains tend to come over as rather traditional matins-and-evensong Anglican types, not specifically Evangelical at all.
They have occasionally tried to push Christianity as part of traditional English or British culture, as somethnin that the different nationalities in Britain have in common, with all their WISE and IONA nonsense, but it really is just shared culture and history they are talking about not any particular Christian doctrine (same is true of lots of Tories who burble on about the church as well of course) From their point of view everyine ought to practice the religion of their own culture - so Arabs ought to be Muslims, Indians Hindu, Japaneses Shinto, and so on. Nothing to do with whether any of it is true or not.
Also of course it allows them to use a celtic cross symbol as a sort of dogwhistle to American white supremacists while pretending that that's nto what they mean when anyone challenges them on it.
quote:
As a result they flourish in traditionally Labour/left-voting areas.
Sort of. They tend to get their strongest support in what you might call rather lower-middle-class boring suburbs, not in the big inner-city council estates.
quote:
Definitely no relation to conservatism in the UK - that's the role of UKIP.
The BNP aren't Tories but they are certainly a kind of conservative!
quote:
The EDL as far as I can tell are pretty much a single-issue party based on Islamophobia.
Yes, the glue that joins them together is hatred of Muslims coupled with a sort of football-supporter-chic. The few times I've come across anyone with anything to do with them its always been "I'm not a racist. but..." followed by stuff about Muslims and paedophiles - their two pet hates that they for some reason link in their minds.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
Your middle-class (upper-class?) British society may indeed look down on single mothers. So did the middle-class American society I used to live in.
The rural Southern culture I am now living in does not. Not at all. I was stunned to find that out when I moved here. Single motherhood is extremely common and entirely accepted.
That is exactly the same as where I come from and where I live now. It didn't use to be like that, but it was already getting like that when I was young and is completely now. Thngs have changed, and I think most of the change was over by the mid-1980s. The grandparents of the current generation of parents are the last age cohort to have thought that being a single parent was worse than being married to someone you don't love or aren't sexually attracted to. Or maybe the last age cohort to say that in public. I suspect that what people say about sex has changed more than what they do about it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
The demographics of who supports the BNP these days is quite well-researched. YouGov (the polling organization) have a numerical study (here) which touches on it, and there is a study by Robert Ford of Manchester Uni. (here), and there is a summary page for the latter (here). But the original is very readable and worth the time. There's also a summary page for the former but I temporarily can't find it - I'll post a link if it comes to hand.
I'm not sure they bear out Ken's characterizations entirely, though I think the religious comments look right enough. Both reports seem to agree that a typical BNP voter is male, older, working class, and lives in an urban area not just of high immigration, but specifically immigration from Pakistan or Africa. And they tend to be more in the north of England. Indeed, the BNP rallying cry was changed to something like "We are the Labour Party your grandfather voted for" (quoting from memory, but it's in one of those two reports).
I looked this stuff up some while back on a whim, and got access to the BNP membership records when they were leaked for a time to Wikileaks. Out of interest I could only find one person anywhere near here, between the south coast towns and the M3 corridor. It's just not an issue around here. UKIP does have some support though.
[ 13. August 2012, 21:47: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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sebby
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And on the subject of fringe political parties or groups, the British Communist Party demographics are even more thinly spread I imagine.
And the Socialist Workers' Party, as a sort of left-wing UKIP I suppose, having slightly more support, but in similarly concentrated areas like the EDL, but similarly crackpot.
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sebhyatt
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ken
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I looked this stuff up some while back on a whim, and got access to the BNP membership records when they were leaked for a time to Wikileaks. Out of interest I could only find one person anywhere near here, between the south coast towns and the M3 corridor.
I found two or three people I actually know One a very close friend. Though it was no surprise, I knew their politics already. At least it proved that the list was the genuine thing.
My take on them as a little bit upmarket of the stereotype might have somethign to do with being in the south-east rather than the north-west. For whatever reason British Nazis have a long history in Brighton, which is my home town. And they have also sometimes been active in south-east London, where I live now - but most active just a little bit out of town, in some of the low-rise and mostly white areas in places like Eltham and Welling. Not so prominent at all a bit further in to town in Lewisham or Deptford or Bermondsey. "Middle Class" in the American sense, certainly, and perhaps more middle-class in the British sense than is often made out.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
And on the subject of fringe political parties or groups, the British Communist Party demographics are even more thinly spread I imagine.
Pretty thinly, as it disbanded twenty years ago! (Though at least one of its many spin-offs claims its political legacy Mostly live in Hampstead Garden Village I guess)
quote:
And the Socialist Workers' Party, as a sort of left-wing UKIP I suppose, having slightly more support, but in similarly concentrated areas like the EDL, but similarly crackpot.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) If only! The chances are you could fit everyone who was in the SWP five years ago and is still active in it now in to one largish living-room.
SWP is a handful of superannuated Trots who hate each other, a few dozen American tourists who feel thrilled to have come across some Real Socialists at last, and successive groups of well-meaning but innocent students who get involved in their late teens but mostly soon get disillusioned and drop out - probably more often because of the dysfunctional personal relationships within that party than because of the politics. Most of them seem to leave politics altogether (or else join the Greens, much the same thing), the few that stay on the Left are likely to grow a bit of a backbone and become Anarchists. Though I've seen a few join the Labour Party. And at least one carriy on rightwards and exit in the general direction of UKIP.
We could do with a decent far left party in Britain, but the SWP is not it. Some nice people in it - but some really nasty ones as well - and an obsession with refighting internal squabbles of the 1950s. If not the 1930s. At least they saw through Gearge Galloway and jumped ship from "Respect". Though it took them long enough - I doubt if Galloway was ever under the slightest illusion about them.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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sebby
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# 15147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
And on the subject of fringe political parties or groups, the British Communist Party demographics are even more thinly spread I imagine.
Pretty thinly, as it disbanded twenty years ago! (Though at least one of its many spin-offs claims its political legacy Mostly live in Hampstead Garden Village I guess)
quote:
And the Socialist Workers' Party, as a sort of left-wing UKIP I suppose, having slightly more support, but in similarly concentrated areas like the EDL, but similarly crackpot.
If only! The chances are you could fit everyone who was in the SWP five years ago and is still active in it now in to one largish living-room.
SWP is a handful of superannuated Trots who hate each other, a few dozen American tourists who feel thrilled to have come across some Real Socialists at last, and successive groups of well-meaning but innocent students who get involved in their late teens but mostly soon get disillusioned and drop out - probably more often because of the dysfunctional personal relationships within that party than because of the politics. Most of them seem to leave politics altogether (or else join the Greens, much the same thing), the few that stay on the Left are likely to grow a bit of a backbone and become Anarchists. Though I've seen a few join the Labour Party. And at least one carriy on rightwards and exit in the general direction of UKIP.
We could do with a decent far left party in Britain, but the SWP is not it. Some nice people in it - but some really nasty ones as well - and an obsession with refighting internal squabbles of the 1950s. If not the 1930s. At least they saw through Gearge Galloway and jumped ship from "Respect". Though it took them long enough - I doubt if Galloway was ever under the slightest illusion about them.
I find myself strangley in agreement, although I did hear of a re-formation of the BCP (British Communist Party rather than the other more obvious meaning on this site) in the last couple of years.
I particuarly like the idea of 'American tourists' in the SWP - complete with fat bellies and stripy shorts. Called Hank and Wilma.
Perhaps also we could do with a decent far right party in Britain. But the ones mentioned in the posts are clearly not the ones.
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sebhyatt
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tomsk
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# 15370
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Posted
SvitlanaV2 said 'Of course, Mrs Thatcher was a Tory who was raised as a Methodist. She seems to have slightly airbrushed Methodism out of her story, and the Methodist Church has never been eager to claim her. It would be interesting to know if and how her Methodism influenced her politics.'
I thought 'more than you think probably'. I googled thatcher and religion and this paper came up link. (bit long but basically saying religion v. important to her)
It's easy to think she was awful, because many of her policies failed to achieve, or harmed, these things, but I think she did have a strong conviction that strong family units, personal responsibility and individuals having a stake in privatised utilities etc.
V. few UK politicians 'do God', even though, proportionately, I suspect more are Christian than the population as a whole. Doing God shows them to be a bit weird and probably not suitable for office. I remember when the oil rig blew up in the USA, the local governor was on the BBC news defending BP. 'The only person who was perfect was our lord and saviour Jesus Christ'. You would never, ever hear a UK politician saying anything like that, at least not unless they were in a church environment with no risk of being broadcast.
[ 14. August 2012, 18:52: Message edited by: tomsk ]
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SvitlanaV2
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Posted
Tomsk
Thanks for that link. It looks interesting, and I'll probably print it out later.
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