Former Archbishop: US-Iran war is unjust! Ian Huntley murder in prison; Is it legit for Christians to be Green Party members?

Andy shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

This is your Reverend. Faith in current affairs.

Welcome everyone to a Reverend Faith in current affairs. Two vickers in the Church of England,

but with a twist, it's me, Jamie Franklin and Daniel French. Daniel, how are you today?

Go on, the twist for me is I'm back home in England. Nice.

Taken time off, and it's nice to be here, it's lovely weather.

I hadn't realised that on the horizon system, that's the same horizon system that

most of us used, and when we use this, there's a journal that I have, I have holiday time.

Yeah, I didn't even know how that works, because you know, as vickers, we tend to be one-man bands,

all this stuff. So, deeply nested in this. My line manager was able to say, actually,

you've got about 12 days to take off before Rachel. Wow. You've not taken that came in, you're

starting in September, so I'm rapidly using up my holiday time. Fantastic. Well, it's nice to see

the old background. Yeah, it tends to be not for vickers, you take holidays, just like when you get a

time period where you don't have a load of stuff cramming in on you and causing you a load of

pressure, and you think, oh, maybe I could stop working for a few days, and the church wouldn't fall

apart. That tends to be how vickers take... Well, I mean, it depends on this kind of church,

isn't it, but certainly the kind of churches we've been involved in. You just have to try and carve

out of it at a time. So, it must be nice for you. It must be a new experience to just be able to

down-tools and think, well, things will basically be the same when I get back, and you know, your

chaplaincy isn't going to have fallen apart. You know, the shy won't have been overrun by

Sarah Mann's minions. You'll be fine. You just have time off and then go back, which is amazing,

really. Yeah. So, here I am. Yeah, fantastic. Well, it's been a busy week in the news, as we know.

Is he busy, busy? Yes, for sure. And now, let's begin with the word of God, timeless, as

opposed to the passing ages, passing stories of this world. We're going to begin today with

a reading from John chapter 9, verse 1. And I think we should say to people, this is Sunday's

reading, if you're poem, the common worship, lectionary, and we're going to give an extract.

Yeah. It's also, it's called, it's the revised lectionary, isn't it? Because the Roman Catholic

one is very similar. They're not exactly the same, just to keep you on your toes, just so it's

not too easy. They're just ever so slightly different, revised common lectionary. Yeah, we're going

to do John chapter 9, 1 to 6, 1 to 7, in fact. But first let's pray. We'll say the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth,

as it is in heaven. Give us his day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive

them that trespass against us, and need us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

John chapter 9, verse 1. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples

asked him, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? Jesus answered,

it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things,

he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva, then he anointed the man's eyes with the

mud and said to him, go wash in the pool of siloam, which means scent, so he went and washed and

came back seeing. And those who have looked ahead in the lecture, he will know that the entire

chapter of John chapter 9 will be read on our Sunday, our Sunday Holy Communion services.

Where it is right to say, this is one of the like, catacetical readings, isn't it, in the

ancient church, but like the wedding arcana, the woman at the well, and this reading, these are

poignant moments in the gospel of St John that are quite meeting, but they were given to

prospective Christians for them to sort of digest and take some, well, we've just talked about

mindfulness and contemplation in the, in the uncoloring episode, that they were there to chew over

and to take really seriously as well. Yeah, and as a preacher, as a preacher, you've had far more

experienced than me this Daniel, but when you get a text like this, which is however many

verses long, 41 verses long, there's so, so much here that you really have to be very, very selective

in terms of what you talk about, because you could preach five sevens just on these first verses here,

but there are a couple of interesting things I'd like to pick up on. So firstly, the implication of

the disciples question is that blindness or, you know, misfortune or physical disability may be

based on sin or, you know, sin of the individual or sin of the parents. That may be the case, of course,

but in this, in this case, Jesus says that this is not the reason that the man was born blind,

but that the works of God might be displayed in him. So that, that is like a framing for the whole

of the story that follows. That's the purpose of this whole story that the works of God might be

displayed. However, as we read through this story, we see that even though the works of God are

displayed in this man, people react differently. Some people, some people are open, some people are

cynical, some people are curious, some people are outright hostile, in terms of the religious leaders

of the time. So that's the first thing. And there's much more here, but one of the other things I

think is so interesting about this, and Christ speaks about himself as the light. So there's a theme

of kind of like seeing blindness, light darkness, and so on and so forth, this sort of interesting,

symbolic interplay that runs through this whole chapter. But then, then verse six, I find this so

fascinating. Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with this alive,

which is an amazing thing to kind of imagine. And then anointed the man's eyes with the mud,

and said, go wash in the pool of Siloam. And I had a look at the patristic writers on this,

and many of them talk of Irenaeus, for example, Irenaeus of Leon. Talks about this as like an

act of recreation. So the spit is like redolent of God's breath in the creation of Adam, Adam. And

then the spit in the dirt, sorry, the spit in the dirt coming together making mud is reminiscent of

the fact that God formed Adam out of the dust of the earth. So it's a kind of act of recreation.

And I think it was Ephraim the Syrian, who even said he speculated that the man had no eyeballs,

and that Christ actually that created some eyeballs out of this material, which is.

That's really helpful. Actually, I'd never thought about

the original spiritual analogy. That's really helpful. Is the pool of Siloam? Where is that for?

Yeah, so that was, I think it was like on the outer temple complex. I can't quite remember exactly

where it was. It was, it was some distance away. But what I do know about that is that it was used

for purification rituals during the Feast of Tabernacles. So it would have been a way of people

like ritually purifying themselves. And again, what the patristic commentator say about this is

that the pool is a type of Christ. Hence why it says, which means sense. Like Christ is the one

who's like sent from the father to purify humanity from sin. So the pool of Siloam, as it were,

represents Christ in the incarnation. So in that action, in that dual action of the use of that

material to recreate the man's vision, as it were. And then the washing in the pool of Siloam,

you've got like recreation and you've got purification. So it's like a picture of

it's a picture of salvation, if you like. It's a picture of like Christ's, Christ's

salvific work in recreating us, making us new purifying us from sin. And I think like the other thing,

which I think is really interesting about that, is the use of matter in this man's healing. Of

course, Christ could have healed the man with a word. And sometimes Christ did heal people just

with a word or cast out demons with a word. But he'd often use the material stuff of creation.

And that links us with a kind of sacramental world view, sacramental imagination, where we

recognize that God doesn't just use words and images and concepts, although he does use those

things. But he also uses the material of the world that he's created in order to convey spiritual

goods and spiritual blessings to us. And so you see that here, Christ uses the stuff of the earth

to recreate this man's sight, to give this man's sight, and also to to wash him and to purify him.

And of course, the patristic father seen that in the pool of siloam, a symbol of baptism as well,

a type of baptismal water. So it links us to the God sacramental use of creation to convey

spiritual blessing, which I find I find really fascinating. And I suppose you can see in it,

also that Christian hopefulness, but that all may come into union with Christ.

That nobody is, nobody's heart is change is beyond the approach, you know, one's past

or disabilities or whatever's are not, these are not things that are barriers to a life in Christ.

Yes, but rather in some ways they glorify, you know, we have a out of this, we have a history,

don't we have 2000 years of all sorts of people, whether they are people who are born with impediments,

the orphaned peniments who somehow overcome that and all scounders who become blazing lights for

the gospel. Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. I remember the seeing this, seeing this first

of all as a story in Robert Powell's Jesus of Nazareth, which for my generation was there, you know,

he was Jesus, he was so powerful in this television movie. And there's this wonderful moment,

and Powell actually I think really does this bit well in terms of his, they show the man's,

that they look, they see it from the man's point of view as the, as his eyes,

initially he's like you're hurting to put in this madness. It's quite painful,

and then he's looking at the water in the pool, he starts to actually see, you know, he can't

leave it, and the Pharisees in the next part are indignant, as we see in chapter 9, then there's

this whole dialogue, and it's so, it's really, it's really high octane conversation, there's a shouting

match between you, but the Pharisees are played again, this is a very, sorry, 1970s television thing,

that a couple of the actors are also in Grange Hill.

Yeah, I think one of them's like the PE teacher in Grange Hill, and I'm rightly, you know,

so for me as a kid, this was like, yeah, and in it, and you're pretty awful in Grange Hill as well.

I think with a different accent, I assume. Yeah, his Grange Hill was set in Newcastle,

I think so, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we had PJ and Duncan, and I remember Anson Decker's now that

they're cool, it was a kid dead, it was the Pharisees, we're Grange Hill teachers, so I just

thought that was ours. That was so, I thought that was really clever casting.

The bastards then, the bastards here. Typecasting. I don't know, brilliant, brilliant. Right Daniel,

let's talk about some stories. So obviously last week, Tom and I spoke about the Iran,

while U.S. attacking Iran, the Supreme Leader, Kamini being killed.

Of it, this is ongoing, and I think some new leadership has been put in place for the regimes,

the regime has not fallen. We've got, I mean, we can talk about some of these things in detail,

but we've got a number of church leaders condemning the war, calling for caution. We can, as I

say, we can go into detail about some of that, but what, so Tom and I spoke about it last week,

but we didn't get your take. So what, what's your sort of initial reaction to this whole thing?

Isn't it interesting? Isn't it? How it has a lot of sharp devolid

within the Western world? Yeah, and I suspect, you know, across many a family home or whatever

people have got different views on this that are sharply devolidated, and it tends to go with

how you're going to vote, it tends to be how you're going to see, how you're going to see this.

And so we've had, it's that Glenn Ski from the Green Party give a, an indignant

series of tweets and speeches, yeah, how this is breaking international law and so on and so on.

And yet, you know, what's gluing is that many of those people who are now getting indignant

were strange, required, you know, when hundreds of thousands, they're not millions, went into

the streets across Iran, demanding international help. And I still find the BBC and channel

boards output, somewhat conniving, it seems to dampen down the dissident voice in this discussion.

And it's making comparisons with the Iraq war, which are stretching really, because you know,

in Iraq war, we didn't have a populace that was out on the streets wanting to get rid of Saddam.

Yeah, we're here, we've had, you know, in the last six months, in particular, in the last six

weeks or so, we've had hundreds of thousands, it's not millions, going out to the streets, people,

you know, burning pictures of Khameini, burning the Republican flag, you know, shouting for

the Crown Prince to come and to return as King, you know, that there's, and that's been

a lot of the mainstream media has tended to portray that as the mild, mild skirmish.

Yeah, it's comparable to what I saw in my teens of the Cold War, you know, when people like

Chow Chesky got booed by crowds in the square and had to leave, you know, when the iron curtain

fell down and people pulled down the Berlin Wall and there was this mass popping up rising,

that was not, you know, mostly peaceful. Yeah, and all the time in square, you know, I remember that,

my pocket is a first year undergrad from the horror of that, and this feels like it's in that,

in that kind of historical element, that there is an enormous disquiet and revulsion of citizens,

with this regime that has caused so much hurt and damage, not only globally, and has funded all

sorts of organisations like the IRA, you know, sort of all kind of drug stuff in Venezuela, and,

you know, it's, it's fan the things of radical Islamism, it's funded, Hamas, and Hezbollah,

it's, you know, it's kidnapped people, it's probably been responsible for the deaths of millions,

and the disquiet and upset of the world. And we're sort of now pooing that, you know, they all

will, you know, it's, you know, it's now, oh, it's all for it, they're being bombed, and that breaks

international law, whatever international law is really, I don't really know. Yeah, we were talking

about this last, yeah, last very, very loose concept, really, I mean, yeah, we spoke

with national law last week, it's like, it's, you know, it's, it's basically like a treaty,

I mean, international law is like whatever NATO decides it is basically, so I, I agree with you

about, about that, I think that like invoking international law, like it's some kind of binding,

moral imperative on all nations, I just think is very odd. In fact, can I read you, I want to

just read you something that Ron Williams said this week, because I thought there was good stuff

in this, and I also thought there was questionable stuff. So Lord Williams said, apart from the

obvious issue that any pretenser just war requires a clear and immediate need for self-defense,

and just as importantly, a clear definition of what would count as a successful outcome,

the current military action poses serious threats to any secure short-term future in the region.

So also crucial to remember that real urgency for Iran is a new political order that responds

to what the Iranian people are actually hoping for themselves, not some kind of covert annexation

designed to serve geopolitical maneuvering, not a puppet government nor a military

protectorate. What is the work being done to make this more imaginable? There are substantial

Iranian groups inside and outside the country looking towards a democratic future,

their voices need to be listened to, and then there are a number of other people who talk about

its break, these Christian groups who say it's breaking international law and so on and so forth,

which is all of which is very interesting. I'm skeptical about this international law thing,

as I said, I don't think it really matters to be honest with you this concept of international law,

but I think that the just war thing is important. However, and I also think it's good to hear

Lord Williams saying that, because all the other Christian leaders I've heard haven't been saying

haven't been invoking the concept of just war. But what I would say about this is like him saying,

and you said before we started recording, you said you've been having a look at this, Daniel,

but so you might have a view on it, but when he says just war requires a clear and immediate

need for self-defense, I don't think that's actually true according to the traditional canons of

just war. I think what just war says is that a number of criteria need to be met in order for a war

to be just one of which is to have a just cause to go to war. And that can be self-defense,

but central gust in, for example, notes that the defense of the community can be a cause of

just war, can be a condition for just war. So the protection of allies, for example, or other nations,

or even the redressing of wrongs that are currently being committed or have been committed in

the past. So for example, you know, if say there was a terrible genocide that was going on in a

country, if you attack that country, that might not be, and say the other criteria were met,

that would not be self-defense, but it would be, it would be a just cause because you would be

protecting it. Exactly. You know, you're protecting innocent lives. Yeah. It was one to correct

an injustice. Yes. You know, that is, that is, is scaling and needs. Yeah. Yeah. And

just to demand some kind of response to this, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the more

critical point here is what would a definition, a clear definition of what count as a successful

outcome. That again is a criteria of just war. But I think what the number of these kind of left

lingering Christian leaders are not taking into account is the fact that the outcome is simply

not being made explicit by, you know, EG, the American government and Trump and so on. But that

doesn't mean that there isn't an outcome in mind. It just means that they're not articulating it

100% clearly what it is. I think what's being assumed is that there is no kind of obvious outcome

in the minds of Trump and the US and the US military or that it's just a bad one. And that sort

of plays into like the broader point here, which is that although, you know, I have to be honest

and say like, I am skeptical of like for an interventionism. I'm not completely against it. But

like, I'm skeptical about it just as a principle in general. A lot of this, a lot of this reaction,

this kind of hand wringing reaction to me, I can't separate it from a kind of Trump derangement

syndrome. I think I think a lot of it is because it's Trump doing it. Whereas if it was somebody else,

I think they might be as you say, like saying, oh, you know, good on them, you know, we need regime

change. The people want the people want to be liberated. You know, we need to liberate women and

LGBT, QIA plus people and blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of stuff. But because it's not exactly

exactly. You see what I mean? Yeah. And that sort of colors. Yeah, no, I agree with you in terms

of international intervention. I think it's good to be cautious. But there is a point, you know,

when a population is, you know, is asking when dissidents are saying, we actually mean international

help to be able to overcome the republic and set up something new. Please help.

You know, and that is a volume. And that's for several months.

Yeah. I think that that clearly speaks into some kind of justification.

Yeah. Because I think, you know, it's very easy just to forget how brutal this regime is,

you know, I mean, some of the stories are just so unbelievably horrific. And

yeah, that not only could they have been, could they have executed

30, 40,000 people, maybe even more, some because they had 60,000, you know, that they're warehousing

dissidents. It is in cell blocks with, you know, ready to hang them. Yeah. They'd be

queuing up, ready to be hanged. And these are, you know, many of the, the age demographic means

that we're talking about teenagers here, 16, 17, 18, you know, being hung for, you know,

burning a picture of the leader. Just being out in the streets. I mean, they've been

answering zero tolerance, like they'll just be shot. Yeah. I don't know if you've watched the

the Apple series Terran, which is really powerful, but you know, there's a part in there where

one of the characters who's briefly given, given refuge to her niece, who's actually a

Mossad spy. But she doesn't quite know all the details. You know, she's doing something that

she shouldn't be doing. And so they take the risks and she's arrested and she thinks she's told

her, you know, everything's fine, it's all dealt with. And she's taking a room. There's a,

there's people queuing up in front of new suits. And then you're next to, I thought, you know,

I thought the lawyer had said I was OK. Yeah. And apparently that speaks into quite a

former experience. I've had various Iranian friends and conversations with friends over the years.

And what they dislike is just unimaginable. And we also have, we have the vastest growing Christian

population in the world, you know, vast underground church. I think, can you imagine reprisals

again to be on that community if this doesn't, if there isn't some sort of regime change?

Yeah. So the official sources say that there have been 3,117 deaths as a result of the

uprisings. But the other other estimations range from something like 7,000 to up to 36,500.

So nobody knows, obviously, how many deaths there have been. But there have been many, many deaths,

many executions, many shootings. And as I say, the Iranian regime said last week that anyone

in protest would simply be shot. There would be no more arrests. So like, what we're talking about,

it's like an utterly brutal regime, you know, completely. What did you think of the

email, football team? Like, you know, tell me what happened. I only just saw this in brief.

So they're playing in Australia. And I think it was a couple days ago, they

when it came to their turn and the national anthem, they none of them saw you.

Right. Okay. They just put their heads down. Right. The state TV said that they were,

they were traitors. And there would be severe repercussions for doing this.

As they were put on the bus to move to the airport, some of them started signaling,

making hand gestures for help. And now I believe that a number of them have been given

refugee status, asylum status. I think five have stayed in, and now in Australia and hands,

thank God, but you know, you imagine what's going to happen to the rest.

Well, they're families, you know, all their families, you know, and I just want to say to,

you know, I think to say to people, just imagine if that was, I know this is very emotive,

but imagine if that was your daughter. Yeah. Yeah. I've got an 18-year-old daughter. Can I imagine

that she potentially would be hungry not singing God save the king? You just cannot,

if you can't put your head around it. I know that's very emotive. I know we should be cautious about

international interventions. But just because we've ballsed up in the past doesn't mean that

we should be ungenerous. Yeah. I think, and also just to be reminded, you know, that

historically, Iran, Persia, is actually a very different country, I think, to many of the other

Arab countries. And we can't use the same sort of strategic mathematics on this country,

but that we might do elsewhere. This isn't Iraq. You know, Persians don't think of themselves as

Arabs. Yeah. And we can't just read the past slavishly into the present. I think that will be

unintelligent and important to do so. Yes, we should be careful. I mean, yes, God forbid that there's

a real, one of the dangers, isn't it, is the Russian China that decided to arm the regime.

Because it plays to their proxy war to exhaust. And we end up with, you know, situation far

worse than what's happening in Ukraine, and we end up with a sort of regional proxy war between

NATO, America, Israel, and China and Russia, you know, and God the bit of it in North Korea,

then gets involved as well in the sort of arming and whatnot. So it is, you know, that there are

dangers. Yeah. But to all these sort of noble progressive types, I do ask, well, you know, when a

country asks for help and intervention. Yeah. Yeah. What's the alternative? That's the, that's kind

of what are they actually being, what are they actually offering? Because as much as I'm kind of

skeptical of these kind of actions, I also think that it's not just enough to just wave your hands

and say, oh, yeah, this is bad, like Trump, Trump bad. You know, this shouldn't be happening. You

know, what's, what's the alternative to allowing this kind of thing to proliferate? It's not just

about the citizens in the region who are protesting and being killed. It's about the threat that this

country poses to other nations, you know, like most obviously Israel, but, you know, or other

Western nations as well. What's the alternative? I just, I see a lot of this kind of stuff from

Christian leaders is very idealistic. And it's not, it's not an ideological and it's not actually

wrestling with the, the complexities of the situation. It's a strange, it's a strange

confluence of sympathies. You know, they're against Trump. Naturally, they would be pro, the protesters,

you would have thought. They would definitely be anti-Russia and anti-China,

but the reaction is very different. I think the comparison to Ukraine is really interesting,

because the reaction is very different. They're very, very much in support of military intervention

in Ukraine. No, no, we haven't heard any type of prayers or sentiments,

church leaders in this country, which is, you know, one of extreme caution for the Ukraine war.

I can't think of a single output from anybody in the hierarchy that has said, you know,

it's time to put down arms and to come to negotiate. Yeah. Even though if you look at the

core principles of the Just War theory, I've just got them all up live here, a summary of,

you know, number six, the anticipated benefits of war must outweigh the expected harms, you know,

the harm of a conventional war with Russia. We've never been to war with Russia. France has been

to war with Russia, Germany's been to war with Russia, you know, in centuries past, but

NATO has never been to war with Russia. A conventional war with Russia could potentially

be worse in terms of conflict than the Second World War, which until recently we were still paying

off for an absolutely changed, but the geopolitical landscape ruined us as a country.

Yeah. Well, it could be a nuclear war, couldn't it? Well, you could have a global nuclear war,

but environmentalists is not particularly that good. Yeah. There's part of the problem with the,

I mean, not the problem, but the challenge around the Just War criteria is, okay, like there's

a sort of natural justice, which you can recognize in the Just War criteria that makes perfect sense,

right? When you read through it, you think, well, this makes perfect sense, because war is so

terrible. Of course, you'd need to like meet these criteria before being morally justified in

doing it. But whether you actually meet the criteria, I think particularly that one, like,

is the outcome going to be going to create a situation which is better or worse than the situation

that we have now? It's so difficult to predict such a thing. It's so difficult. To a certain extent,

it's going to be the best guess, isn't it? You look at something like the regime in Iran,

you think, well, it's appalling what's happening. It's extremely dangerous. It's causing all of these

problems. Yeah. It seems reasonably likely that if you remove it, then the situation that will come

about as a result is better than the situation that there is there before. Other people might say,

well, you know, look at what happened in, for example, Afghanistan or Iraq or something like that.

The situation is probably a lot worse now than it was previously. These things are really hard to

Yeah. My stab at this would be to say that Afghanistan was very tribal. Yeah. No one has ever

conquered Afghanistan. Successfully. Until, you know, 1978-79, Iran was, yes, okay, under the,

it was a monarchy, but it was pretty much a modern, almost western society. Yes.

This is, I think, is this the nation that gave us chess? Maybe, yeah, yeah, I think that's right.

This is a country that deep in its soul has given a lot to, you know, Europe. It has been an

ally for 3,000 years of the Holy Land of Israel. And, yeah, I think there's a moment here. There's

there's a moment where you could change the ideological, theological prison, quite, quite

substantial, you know, a, a, a, a de-Islamized Iran, which is the name of the western name secular.

That could really change the region in a very, very positive way. Yeah, so there's a lot gained

as well as the risk involved. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. I mean, obviously,

it's a human situation as well, and it's a great, great danger, and obviously people being killed

and so on, but there's a, it's a very, very interesting conversation. Daniel, we need to move on.

I want to talk about, briefly, about Ian Huntley being killed in prison. And again, this is one of

these perennial conversations that comes up from time to time with something like this happens,

because inevitably, what people do when something like this happens is they raise the, the question

of the death penalty. So, people who don't know, Ian Huntley killed Pottymy, two 10-year-old girls

in 2022. People actually don't know. I actually read a bit about the case, and it's pretty disturbing.

People are... 2002. Yeah, 2002. Sorry, did I say something else?

2012. Sorry, that's no one I meant. 2002, Pottymy, I apologize. But, yeah, so kidnapped these two

girls. I think they were at a barbecue or something like that. Killed them, kidnapped them.

Belize, and everyone involved believed at the time that the motive was sexual, but that was never

actually proved, because he took the girl's body to another location, to another location and burned

them, and then he was subsequently caught in sentence to life in prison. I think he's been

attacked in the past in prison, and this last week he was killed by another prisoner, himself,

a murderer, and a rapist apparently. Louise Perry tweeted about it. Perhaps it would be better to

bring back dessert, capital punishment, rather than celebrate when other prisoners dish out,

defacto capital punishment every now and then, and it is actually in, and she's retweeting somebody

who's saying, you know, good riddance and so on, and it is actually interesting when you read,

you know, for example, I've read some articles on the telegraph this week and you look at the

comments on the articles. You'd say like 80, 90% of them are saying, good, I'm pleased that he was

killed, and that he deserved to die. And a number of people would make points like,

why should we, the taxpayers, pay to keep somebody like this alive, a great expense for many,

many decades, when that money could be spent on preserving and improving the lives of other people,

doing useful things like researching for, you know, cures for cancer and other illnesses and so on

and so forth. So I suppose one of the, obviously I'm looking at things in a certain way, I've got,

you know, there's an algorithm on my Twitter and so on and I'm looking at the telegraph, so it's not

by any means a sort of scientific straw poll, but when things like this do happen, it does seem like

there is a very, very strong public sentiment that this guy should have been killed by the state

as a retribution for what he did to these two girls and that that would have been a manifestation

of natural justice. And I have to say, I've got a lot of sympathy for that viewpoint. Like to me,

I don't, I, you know, I think when something like this does, it happens. I think what it does is it,

it, it, it basically, it reveals to people the moral reality that the death penalty can insert

in circumstances be justified. Now I'm not, you know, saying that it should be dished out left

right and center, but I think when something like this happens, you know, it's just so, firstly,

there's no doubt at all. I mean, you could, you could probably create a kind of criteria like

with just war theory, but like one of the criteria, I think is like there's no doubt, you know,

that this guy did what he did. He took two 10-year-old girls. He probably raped them. He imprisoned them

in his house. He killed them. I don't even know how he killed them, but then he burned their bodies.

And, you know, it was, it was pre-meditated. It was cruel. It was sadistic. It was, it was, you know,

he put them through unimaginable horror and then he ended their lives. To me, that's, you know,

all the criteria for the, for the death penalty I met in that case. And I, I cannot understand

why the state should keep somebody like that alive for the rest of their natural life. I know,

I know people would have different views. Anyway, so I just thought it was, I just thought it was

an interesting thing to see the reaction. But what's, what's your take on all that, Daniel?

Well, I think over the last couple of years, I've, I've moved a bit from being

absolutist in terms of being against it to now being

seeing that there could, well, we justification for certain, certain uses of it.

When I, when I was a prison chaplain in the 90s, prison that I worked in part-time

still had the gallows. Really? Is that right? Because it, it, it, it was still on the statute books

for piracy in a pitreason. Yeah. Though glare indicated that it was part of the millennium,

it would be one of the bits of legislation that would be ejected, you know.

So yeah, they showed it to me as there were some proud of this,

the calm rough facilitates. I, you know, that there were these, that there was,

that the room with the gallows and then the night before the prison slept in this room,

next to it. And there was a second door that opened up. And they used to do that at 6 a.m.

in the morning. So the press were not around. Yeah. And the chaplain would come in and

let's save a lose prayer. And then it would happen. And apparently, you know,

because they knew the person's weight and they were so efficient at this, they,

they, you know, they could kill someone in 30 seconds. It was pretty, it was pretty instant.

But the whole thing was done very, very smoothly and quickly. So yeah, it was, it was, it was

our thing to see. And I suppose because

more, more recently in last few years, there's been a lot more talk of sexual violence,

rape and killing. These things, I think,

seem so horrific. I suppose I see this as a deterrent ultimately. Yeah. Yeah. And that,

you know, we've, many of this is going to be a controversial thing I'm going to say now, but

we've got the boroughs way where we imported four million people into the country.

Sometimes we're in violent patriarchal countries.

And perhaps the message needs to go out again, but actually, they're very, very serious

repercussions for this. Yeah. I mean, I completely, particularly, women cannot be treated

as shadows that, you know, it's disposables that, you know, there was that awful, awful video,

one of the, one of the religious leaders in Iran, spouting on YouTube about how women are,

you know, some human cattle, you know, and giving this round of justification,

rape, and I just think, you know, if we're not careful, we're going to start making excuses

and normalize really, really avoid behavior. And perhaps, you know, even as a temporary measure

that for a few decades, this needs to be put that there are very, very serious repercussions

or, you know, doing stuff like Ian Huntley did, and thinking that that's completely just, just

ifiable. Yeah. I think there's a tearing thing is a really good point, actually. I mean, it's

often sort of perpued in more sort of live broad circles, but I think it's a perfectly legitimate

reason to have something like the death penalty or even a harsh prison sentences. It's,

it's so that people know that the justice system is not a soft touch. And if you do something like

this, you know, you will, you will suffer as a result, you know, there will be retribution.

And I have to say, I believe in retribution, you know, this is another thing that, you know,

the leftists are often against. But it's a biblical principle. It's in Genesis chapter 9 and

Romans 13. It's that if you, if you take the life of another human being, your life itself

is forfeit for the, as a price for the life that you've taken. And it shows, it shows respect.

And for the person you has been murdered, and it constitutes justice as well. So I, and, you know,

a lot of the time when you discuss the death penalty and abstract, it's easy to, as I say, to

dismiss these things as kind of archaic, barbarous notions. But when you actually come face to face

with the reality of murder rape, you know, the murder and rape of children, for example,

the abduction murder and rape of children, it constitutes the principles of natural justice

for the death penalty not to be carried out in certain, in circumstances like this. And I think

that's what people are intuiting when they celebrate this guy being killed, you know, by a,

by an incarcerated vigilante. So like Philippa wrote in, said, next time you discuss the death

penalty, think about the fate of Ian Huntley, whose death there seemed to be rejoicing at whose,

about whose death there seemed to be rejoicing. Is it more humane to execute a murder, a murder

calmly and justly? Or is it better that he had repeated attacks in prison and other

prisoners were driven to destroy him? I know what I think. And that's another good point,

isn't it? If this guy is so, is considered to be so evil and deserving of death that he can't

even be allowed, he can't even be kept alive in a prison. You know, what's the point in not having

capital punishment for something like that? As I say, I know what the arguments are against it, but

you know, in certain cases, I just think it's so, it's so clear that the death penalty should

be enacted. And this, this to me would be one of them. Danny, we should probably move on, talk

about something a bit more, well, a bit less awful, I suppose. We will just, we will do our email

in him at the week in a minute. But just to say, if you enjoy the podcast, please do support us,

patreon.com for such a reverend, you get a bonus podcast on collard, we did a massive like

metaphysical exploration. I can't even, I, I won't even read out the topics, but it was deeply,

deeply philosophical and enlightening this week. And so we do that. We released the episodes early,

and we also do other bonus bits and pieces as well. But it's really, really important you sport

the podcast, cost money to make, I make my living, podcasting and writing, so I need the money,

and you're doing a great thing by supporting us. So patreon.com for it, patreon.com forward slash

irreverent to do that. Go to our website, remport.com, or you can sports on substack as well,

referendpod.substack.com. All of the links are on the show notes. Please, please do support us,

we really appreciate it if you can do that. All right, Daniel, a couple of emails.

Well, one email, and then him of the week, say from Alice, I was listening to your latest podcast,

discussing the Gordon and Denton bi-election. I keep wanting to call it the Gordon Bennett bi-election,

but when this article dropped in my inbox from EN, so this is evangelicals now. I can't,

I can't actually, I have to read this from my email because she's screenshotded it, and I'm not

going to subscribe, but believe it or not. And she writes, it's not just Muslim voters. You don't

know what the party is about. That's the green party. How can Christians defend their membership

without mentioning any of their policies beyond the green agenda? It also frustrates me that evangelicals

now publishes this without pushing back and saying that she needs to go into further depth and detail.

Alice also says, I hate the Jamie Sunn is fully recovered. Sepsis and children is a scary and

humbling experience. Now off to write a grumpy email to EN about their poor editorial choices,

Alice. Thank you very much, Alice. My son actually, he had a pen of citas and the thing that

goes along with it when it burst, so I forget the name of it. He didn't have Sepsis, fortunately,

but he's doing, he's fine. He's recovered a couple of months ago now, and yeah, he is, he is a

lot better, so really appreciate that. Now, I just want to, where is it? Sorry, what was the name,

it was Alice, wasn't it? Here we are. So I just read you what this says in this evangelicals now,

article. So this is a Christian writer, basically writing about why they support the green party.

I'm one of the green council leaders. I'm also a Christian, and there are many people

that faith involved in the party. My entry into green politics imagine actually out of involvement

in my community, according to care for creation, and a concern for social justice. There is now

well-established theological underpinning for environmental action. I look to the writing of Margot

and Martin Hodson, the work of A. Rosha, founder Peter Harris, and a successor Dave Bookless, and it's

not a great name for an academic, because it's Bookless, and many others for inspiration and challenge.

Jesus challenged the Pharisees in Matthew 163 for not being able to read the signs of the times. That

challenge still exists today, but in a different way. Scientists are ringing the alarm bell,

increasingly now be. Through our actions, humans are dismantling and disrupting the natural systems,

put in place to support life on earth, with hugely negative consequences, which are already being

felt. These are the signs of our times, yet we seem unable to read them, and continue as

there everything will be fine. This flies in the face of the command to be stewards of the earth,

and is also a massive injustice. The poor and vulnerable will be far more effective by the

consequences of global heating than those in which developed countries. So for me, the overwhelming

imperative is to put environments and social justice at the heart of political action, and we need

prophetic voices calling out on behalf of nature and those who will suffer more. She says others will

be concerned, who are Christians also, but a particular political party is a good way of

furthering some of these viewpoints. So there we go, Daniel. Alice isn't happy about that. She says

it's not just about the green and gender, but about what the green parties stand for more generally.

Any comments on that? Yeah, I put a note on the sidestack, which has been my biggest note so far,

and every few days it's getting more than a attraction. I did this about a week ago saying,

what happened to the party that was mainly focused on sandals, vegan sandwiches, saving them well.

Yeah, it's now seem to be better showised on Islamism, trans-right and communism.

Yeah, I think it's just become a siphon for all kinds of malcontent. In many ways you could say

Polanski is a very clever operator. If he can sell his services as a hypnotist to expand

women's breasts hypnotically, then he's clearly the right material of the political world.

Is that what he did? Yeah, oh my goodness. I didn't know that. Yeah, I've got to look it up.

Honestly, it's hilarious. I mean, obviously reform will be having a right time of this one.

But aside from his backstory, yes, I think

Green has, what's the expression? Isn't it the delinpole expression? It's had the rule to

cut it open and it's red inside. Yeah, yeah. And then

yeah, you could see that a party that had made, let's say, environmental conservationism

as part of its agenda. Well, you know, the Green Party may be 30, 40 years ago.

Well, you can sell that. So David Cameron used to say vote who get green to me. He tried

to appeal to this time. He was a consultant. Where are the people who are going to

consider it? I had an intern, years ago, who went on an extension rebellion watch.

And Andrew is one of these guys who in the intern house, you know, he grew vegetables in the

garden. He was very much into the living, that kind of france system, simple life.

He's now set up a company, fantastic company making art out of scrap metal. He's absolutely

unbelievable what he makes. But he went on to one of his extinctions and we were like,

like maybe thinking, oh well, you know, it's sort of that same planet. There would be people

like me and he said, if nobody was like him, so it was just full of vitriol hate.

And the planets think it could be the last of their concerns.

I actually think, you know, I have a real passion for art. And if someone throws, you know,

to my seat, over a whole buying, it has, pardon me, it just becomes so indignant, you know,

how filestine. If you think destroying things, because you've got this iconoclastic

fetish, you know, you're going to be turned on by being supposedly same self-righteous,

that we think is the right thing to deal with lying in front of ambulances, because you're going

to make your point about climate change. And that means someone's going to be critically

laid for history. But, you know, who cares for them, you've got this higher goal to paraphrase,

resumes. I find this something actually truly decadent and bourgeois about the whole thing.

Yeah. This is not a parting for the work of class, this is a party for up-and-middle class types,

who have got luxury beliefs that they can throw around, because they've got guilt, because they have

money. And this is a way of transferring that guilt. In fact, that they have lives that many of us

can't imagine. We don't have access to wealth that we don't have. And so the class war becomes

an eco war. Can I just read a couple of things, Daniel? The Green Party strongly supports abortion

rights, including decriminalization up to birth in many contexts and opposition to restrictions

like buffer zones around clinics that could limit silent prayer or visuals. They also back

expanding access to assisted suicide slash euthanasia. They also support self-id fall rights for

trans-slash non-binary people, including access to medical slash surgical transitions and inclusion

under broader LGBTIQA plus umbrellas. Their policies promote gender-affirming care, which means

things like giving breast binders to teenage girls and giving puberty blockers to children. They

oppose restrictions on transitions for young people and criticise gender-critical views as

potentially discriminatory. They support same-sex marriage and adoption and many other things

of the sort. Their manifesto would say they would protect religious expression, but some policies

either on hate speech, policing views, incompatible with public roles or anti-discrimination rules could

limit expression of traditional Christian views. They want to legalize all drugs.

They want to decriminalize drugs, that's right, as well. They're very anti-cigarettes.

Pay against it. So in the morning, you can do a line of cocaine, you can sarny,

but you're not going to be able to have a snake. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And they're going to

ban landlords, aren't they? They're going to make a few. I think if you've got a second home,

or if you have a series of, or you run a company that

provides rent, it's all going to be nationalised. Yeah. They're basically like pink parts.

No, what's that? What's that like pink police Marxist leftist, aren't they? So they're like

socially extremely left-wing and they're economically extremely left-wing as well. So

they're at the extreme end on both of those issues. So when everybody's left the country,

and there's no one to pay the taxes, the poor are going to suffer. They'll be lambasted as

they're decriminalised with the white working class because they'll be bearing the brunt of the

tights burden. Yeah. I mean, so Henrietta has worked out, you know, a very clever way to put

mummy and daddy's shares in a Swiss bank. Yeah. Exactly. So that's the thing is now. I mean,

that's the reason I read out that stuff. It's like, even if you buy all the green stuff,

which I think there's good reason to be skeptical about personally, but even if you buy all of that

stuff, you know, it doesn't mean you should support the green party. I mean, their policies

are absolutely appalling on almost every level, I would think. If they actually got into power,

it would reduce this country to a wasteland essentially. It would be an un-inhabitable,

can you imagine? Everyone would be in poverty. Plunges are all into poverty. The abortion rate,

you know, people would be having, you know, abortions left right side. Everyone would be

absolutely stoned out of their minds because everyone would be addicted to crack and heroin.

Well, there'd be a lot of social housing. There'd be lots and lots of social housing. Everyone

would be undergoing, all the children would be undergoing, gender transition. You'd have to walk

everywhere. You could dry your car. Yeah. About 10 miles. All the Christians would be in prison.

Yeah. You know, we'd be in a cell. We'd be waiting, we'd be waiting for a,

be like, yeah, exactly. So anyway, so it would not be good. And I don't think,

personally, I don't think Christians should support the green party. Well, the other thing in

that bio-election was that the material that went out, many of the non-English flyers

didn't include all of this stuff. The, you know, socially conservative Muslims and Hindus

would be absolutely horrified. And you're getting stories of them actually going off,

you know, the website and saying, well, I didn't realise, you know, it was going to be legalising

prostitution drugs. There'd be prostitutes and drug-addled homeless people everywhere. And yeah,

I mean, it's like an apocalyptic, it'd be quite a good thing, actually. You could imagine what

the world would be like after three years through a green government. And then you could set a

dystopian science fiction novel in that world. I think it would be quite a good idea, actually.

We should finish soon, Daniel. So let's do, we're doing him of the week. And this week, Daniel,

we're doing your him, which is, I've outed him my country. Do you want to tell us about him?

Yeah. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I love the tune. I've got stuff

holsters, the planets. And when I was a kid, it was, I had a tape deck with mostly

classical bits, bits and bombs. And holsters suite of the planets. One of my favourites is the

love reading science fiction books, listening to it. And so I love the tune. There are times when

verse one, it doesn't always sit easy, you know, the love that does not ask any questions. I do

think in all we should ask questions. And there are parts of the world, the first world

war story that I think are unresolved still. It's only in me. And yet,

and yet this sim still does move. I mean, obviously verse two is very theological.

Did you know that the author, because it was originally a poet by Sessor Spring Rice,

he was the ambassador to the United States, and he wrote it before the first world war.

And adapted it later on in 1918, after the war, to reflect more somber sense.

Let's listen to a bit of the second verse.

Kelly, the battle is starting. It's just a little instrumental into the loop.

I love that second verse. I think it's one of the most powerful lines. Versus.

In contemporary himady, isn't it? Yeah, contemporary within the last century or so.

I love that line. Her fortress is a faithful heart. Her pride is suffering. I think that's just

a beautiful line. I mean, the whole, the whole of that verse is, you know, it's an incredible

soul by soul and silently, her shining bounds increase. And her ways, her ways of gentleness,

and all her parts of peace, you know, talking about like the church here on earth, the church in

heaven. Yeah, so it's really, really beautiful. I know what you mean about that first verse.

It is, you know, that lays upon the altar the dearest and the best and all that kind of stuff.

It is, it is a, it's a, you know, realistic view of war, isn't it? And, and very well. I mean, I,

in 2018, we had a service to commemorate the end, the 100 year ending of the first world war.

And I'd been horrified to find out that my predecessor, way back, you know, during the first

world war, had been a very earnest recruiter of, you know, fathers and sons and some more services.

And there, I think there was something in the Christian tradition that says that, you know, even,

even a just war, even in a just war, we must still confess the killing of others, you know,

there is something, there is a, a deep disturbance in God's, in God's order and that we don't

glorify it, we don't relish it, but it is the last resort. And it is an awful thing to kill another human

being. Yes, yeah, it does seem, I mean, I'm not an expert in that period historically, but it does

seem that there was a kind of an idealistic, overly optimistic jingoism that took hold,

prior to the, prior to the, well, at the beginning of the first world war, which, which led a lot

of people to, to sign up and, and for many of them, they sadly met their death in, in horrendous

circumstances. Yeah, so it's, yeah, in that sense, it's, that, that hymn, there's a kind of

ambivalence about it, isn't there? I was saying earlier before we recorded that it was excluded

from the revised English hymnal, which is the new version of the English hymnal came out a

couple of years ago. I think that's a big mistake. I think you should definitely be in there.

It is so part of the fabric of the nations and it's almost a national anthem. Yeah, and certainly,

yeah, but I've had it a lot of weddings and stuff, particularly silk and posh weddings.

Yeah, yeah. You're really slim and I bow to the, my country. It's, the couple that are telling you

this is if it's some great revelation, and you go, oh, she's going to have that well, well.

I'm surprised, isn't it? You have to sort of look, you know, innocent. Oh, well, you've thought

about this deeply. Yeah, but yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's a real rouser and that it's one of those hymns

that I, you know, I pretty much know off by quite, you know, that's, it's a kind of movement.

It's associated, obviously, with the rugby now. And isn't it funny that we, you know, there's

there's a lot of pearl clutching over nationalism, Christianity or Christian nationalism or whatever.

But I think this is an instance where that does touch upon, you know, it's touched on the heart

in a way that is very, very powerful. Yeah, I mean, in general, I think the message of the hymn

is good. It's like the first one is talking about like how important your home is and like how

it's worth fighting and dying for. And then the second, the second part is saying, but there's

something even more important, like there's a country which is even more significant, more important.

So you've got like this jewel, you've got like this jewel kind of identity, if you like, where these

things are, they are balanced in proportion to their relative significance. So I think in that

sense, it's a beautiful, I mean, this is the irony of the times, isn't it, that if there was

conscription suddenly put in, you know, we're at war with Russia, I think you would find that

unlike 1914, yeah, that would be huge, just quiet about doing this.

It's because of what they've done. I speak to young adults all the time because of my job,

you know, and they'll say, well, I'm not going to go to war. Yeah, they'll sort of last off

how horrible Putin is and then he gets smashed, but I don't want to go to war. I don't want to

download some app that is going to conscript me, give me a date to turn up to. Definitely.

To the Sergeant Major and get the kit ready. And if it's quite interesting, how that

that has really shifted, you know, you can compare that to different countries where there still

is a very clear patriotism amongst the young, you know, countries from China to Israel where

defending the nation is a massive thing. But it's because they've systematically undermined any

sense of patriotism in this country by by inculcating us with this, you know, anti-colonialist,

anti-English ideology for decades. So they're saying, you can't fight for that reason,

you can't fight for your country because they're releasing anything. There isn't any such thing

as England or at least an England and English identity worth defending. But you should fight for

whatever this ideology is that's being promoted by the political class of our time, you know,

British values or whatever it might be, which is really apt to be seen as a kind of, you know,

as a sort of as a manifestation of a sort of globalist, hegemonic agenda, you know, this kind of

this sort of dream of multilateralism and things, all of all of this kind of stuff, who wants to fight

and die for that, you know, who wants to set you, who's going to send their children,

what sane person is going to send their children to fight and potentially die for this kind of

globalist vision of the world that's promoted by people like Keir Starmer and Macron and the EU.

It's not something, it's not something that's going to be appealing to people, is it? So that's why

people don't want to be conscripted, you know, to go to the wastelands, the steps of Eastern Europe

to die in a pointless war against Russia. I mean, well, I mean, I recently revisited CS Lewis's

and the abolition of man, you know, hardly essay where he talks about men without chests, which is

you know, it's such a profit of the time, isn't it? Because he's looking at a way that we educate our

children and the infamous green book that he proposes that God's Titus present a sort of hollowed out

vision of humanity and that the subsequent effects of that is that

no one feels any desire or need to die for their country. Yeah, that's the long-term outpaths

out. And that's what we've got, we've ended up and he's completely vulnerable, vulnerable in this

mountain. 100% correct. If you undermine all of that stuff, if you continually undermine it,

even over and over again, there'll, there just be nothing left, you know, so you can't, you can't

have it both ways, you can't be there like, oh yeah, we need to be patriotic and we need to support

the concept of English identity and notions of justice and, you know, and fairness or whatever it

might be, it just doesn't work. Anyway, Daniel, we've run out of time, so we should finish. Could you

offer a prayer or would you prefer me to do it? Yeah, I'm just going to what in uncolored we were

talking about the book of common prayer and the fact that it is, you know, it is a fantastic

bravery. It's a, it is, it is accessible. I know we've got mother and Sunday coming up,

but as we're into the, you'll be at the fourth Sunday of Antwen, of the lunch, sorry. Yeah,

here is some, here's the collect.

Brought me to the Almighty God that we who for our evil deeds do worthy deserve to be punished

by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be believed through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Thanks so much, Daniel, that's great. Look forward to being with you again soon. I hope,

enjoy the rest of your time off. Have a really nice time and until next time to everyone listening,

watching. Thank you very much and give watch. Keep the faith.