Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Manhunt

The manhunt for Raoul Moat has ended in the media spotlight and now the questions are coming thick and fast. At one level the hunt was a success, in that his shooting spree was brought to an end before he could kill or injure again. At another level he seemed to be able to outwit literally an army of police and in spite of his rage and violence, cut a rather tragic figure who had support from elements of the community. The final standoff ended without Moat attempting to shoot his way out, which is a blessing, but without the police being able to stop him taking his own life, which some see as a failure.

Moat faced a lifetime in gaol in any event. If it was an imperative to save his life, a commendable aim in an enlightened country, confronting him with a phalanx of armed officers akin to a firing squad, may not have been the way to go about it. Public safety and his arrest alive might have been secured with more in cover and less on view. Pleas from his nearest relatives to approach him when he sank into a sad recital of his abandonment by his kin should not, perhaps have been ignored.

We shall not know the answers to these questions until after both the outcomes of the IPCC review and the inquest. Meanwhile there is that nagging feeling that the vast, at times frenetic, procedure driven, safety governed response to this case may have delayed its conclusion and may not, in future, be the way to do this.

The Synod

The Church of England Synod has voted to reject the compromise proposal of Canterbury and York, to allow dissenting parishes to be overseen by a man bishop if they refuse to accept the authority of a woman bishop. Quite right too. The two Archbishops were grievously in error to propose it. Those who think God is a man who only deals through men are as far from the Truth as those of past times who believed that Copernicus and Galileo were blasphemers and their science heresy.

Across the spectrum of religious belief there are churches and sects which anchor their faith at a fixed point of the evolution of human understanding and hold fast to it even after enlightenment shows the nostrum, though observed with integrity, to be false, harmful, unfair, nonsense or a combination of  all of these things.

The Church of England is not one of those. It advances its interpretation of God’s Truth as society evolves to enshrine fairer, more equal and more inclusive values through the progression of humankind and wiser understanding. Those who gain comfort from a flat earth view of life and faith can find it in the welcoming arms of Rome. They should go there now. The debate should end.

The Church of England must remember that it is a component of the Constitution of a liberal, progressive and inclusive country in which the practice, outside the church, of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender is against the law. The Church of England believes it is also against the Law of God.