A man of God

And so it will be in the resurrection of the dead, we were sown in weakness, we shall be raised immortal.

PLC came into my life something over fifty years ago. Though he was a Welshman among Welshmen, emotional beyond degree, and a true ‘bachgen bach o Ferthyr erioed, erioed’, the serious side in his character would have made the dourness of the Scot look like the elation of a Zulu.

A sermon preached by Stephen Jarvis at Hebron Dowlais Evangelical Church on the 26 February could easily have been preached by him, indeed it crossed my mind,  had he asked Stephen to preach on this matter? The text was Ecclesiastes 7:1  A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth. It was the second half of that verse that he took as his text. The prospect of death is for many uncomfortable, but as, inter alia, the life insurance companies will confirm it is inevitable.

Philip lived a tidy (I think that is the correct Welsh adjective) life in South Wales travelling up and down the valley each working day. He had a canny (as understood in Yorkshire) job in the University which afforded him much opportunity for friendship, frivolity and fun, whilst conducting the serious side of the business with the utmost attention to detail for the sake of the safety and security of those whom he served.

It was service that typified his life, at work, in the home and in the church with whom he worshipped. The words that Paul had spoken to Timothy weighed heavily upon him: Study! Apply yourself! Shew yourself approved as a teacher rightly explaining the word of truth.  He could not abide those who only took the word of God in order to support what they wanted to say. He understood that the minister’s job is to let the word of God take him to say what God wants to say.

In the early years that we knew each other when we came across a difficulty in the Word, and it is unnecessary perhaps to say that there are not a few, we would look at many different explanations, but all too often found that even the ‘experts’ often did not address the question that we had asked. We were driven to the original languages, or else, then, before we had internet searches, we would scan through, say, the City of God looking for something that Augustine had, or might have, said, asking ourselves and each other: What did he really say?

Needless to say to those who knew him, Philip soon far outstripped me in his understanding and his ability to articulate the different understandings of many of our great thinkers. Whilst some struggle to even hold the names of two contrary positions in their head, he not only held the names, but a compete description of both sides of the arguments in his head at the same time.  

He cannot now mind something being said about his personal devotion. He was a man who had heard Paul say to Timothy: You, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. He was always the first up at college, a good two hours before me however late the previous night had been. He would read, pray, then begin his study working meticulously almost word by word through the text. He had decided he would start at the beginning, the genesis of Genesis. It would take many years. But that part of his study did not prevent him from reading extensively. The daily train journeys when he started work were never wasted time, but an opportunity to read, and read he did. His son-in-law, running a bookshop, must surely delight in the library that Philip acquired.

Mention must be made of his memory, which had not only capacity for outstanding feats in theology, but also in the realm of humour. Often you would only know that the long story (examples are available) which he was relating was to pull your leg when you reached the final sentence, such was his ability to control his facial muscles. How did he remember the detail which made these stories so plausible?

When the lock-down came upon us just after the commencement of the recent viral outbreak and of a sudden we could not meet together to worship but only on-line, there was no panic at Hebron, Dowlais. For twenty five years Philip had recorded the services, extracting the hymn singing, meticulously cataloguing it and making collections of hymns available on tape and later more modern media for the housebound and sick. There was an almost complete set from the hymn book that they used available for use in the then on-line services.

Philip had become an elder in the church thirty-five years ago. He served the people well, and took the work of being one of the shepherds of the people seriously. They needed to be taught well. The teachers needed to be good, even exemplary, examples to them. He could not tolerate in himself any shortfall in what was expected of him. In his final months, which were characterised by much pain and suffering caused both by the treatment of and by the disease that had afflicted him, as the weakness of his body took over, he was greatly troubled. Paul speaks of this to the Corinthian church as his burden for the churches. The Lord had earlier spoken with Peter and asked, or was it told, him to feed the Lord’s flock. That is the work today of those who are recognised as elders in the church. Feed them with the word of God. But how could he then do it? The pain and the weakness that had taken hold of him prevented him from doing anything. It grieved his heart, though he knew that he was being asked then to learn the lessons that he knew were taught in the word of God.

For Philip whilst death was an enemy which separates us from those whom we love in this world, it was his death day on which the Lord would come and take him to the next. He would then be able to sing with cleaner hands and a purer heart than ever he knew in this world: My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou are mine…if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.

For fifty five years, after his conversion, he lived in the first two verses of Featherston’s hymn. For a brief time in the third, but now he has gone home, and lives in the fourth.

My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine; for thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;
my gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art thou; if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

2 I love thee because thou hast first loved me, and purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow; if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

3 I’ll love thee in life, I will love thee in death, and praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath,
and say when the deathdew lies cold on my brow: If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

4 In mansions of glory and endless delight, I’ll ever adore thee in heaven so bright;
I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow: If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

He would want to ask you, dear reader, this question, will you follow, not him, but rather:
Will you follow the Lord Jesus Christ to the place that he gone?

For examples of Philip’s humour with a gloss from Coco, who apologises for not being able to tell the stories as well as Philip could:
1 Steel works 2 The curious incident

Sermons from Hebron Dowlais pulpit:

AudioVideoTitle
Philip:
Utube
8 August 2021 pm
Love From a Pure Heart
1 Timothy 1:5
Utube
8 August 2021 am
Test Yourselves
2 Corinthians 13:5

5 November 2017 pm
Trusting God
Psalm 40:4a

5 November 2017 am
Making Known the Grace of God
2 Corinthians 8:1-7

25 December 2015
The Impossibilities of Christmas
Luke 1:26-33

16 October 2011
Our Every Affliction
2Corinthians 1:5-10

28 February 2010
All for some
1Corinthians 9:22b

17 December 2006
The mind of Christ
Philippians 2:5-11

18 December 2005
God sent his Son
Galatians 4:4-5

19 December 2004
The mother of my Lord
Luke 1:43

20 July 2003
The Pharisee and the Publican
Luke 18:9-14

15 September 2002
Firstborn Among Many Brethren
Romans 8:29

28 July 2002
It is Time to Seek the Lord
Hosea 10:12b

6 January 2002
A New Year’s Resolution
Psalm 27:4

27 August 2000
Can God Deliver You?
Psalm 143:1-2

25 April 1999
Waiting
John 5:8

28 December 1997
Change and no change
Jude 3

14 September 1997
Jude the obscure
Jude 1-2

20 July 1997
Touch him!
Mark 8:22-26

3 November 1996
Gaius the beloved
3 John 1

23 July 1995
Peace for all
Ephesians 2:17-18

25 December 1994
An old man’s testimony
1 John 1:1-3

17 April 1994
Are you one of God’s elect?
John 6:37

26 December 1993
Fear not
Isaiah 41:10

30 May 1993
A fire alarm
Genesis 19:17

15 February 1992
The Prince of Preachers
But not The Last of the Puritans

5 January 1992
The goal of corporate maturity
Ephesians 4:13

29 July 1990
Kiss the Son
Psalm 2:12

1 January 1989
Show me thy glory
Exodus 34:67
Stephen Jarvis:
Utube
26 February 2023
The day of death
Ecclesiastes 7:1
Philip’s funeral service shall take place on 22 March at 1030 in Merthyr

Charitable Incorporated Organisations

An opportunity or a threat?

A critique from the perspective of religious organisations through the lense of public benefit

It was quite an innocent question really, a local charity had been thinking about trustees’ liabilities. There was a management group which looked after all of the day to day affairs of the charity, whilst the trustees held the assets, which consisted some land and buildings from which the charity conducted its affairs, and bank accounts, which were actually operated by the management team. The trustees had little to do, as trustees, with the day to day affairs and conduct of the charity. They had however woken up to the fact that should anything go wrong at the charity, they would be held responsible for it, and had in mind that the financial penalties may not be trivial.

For many years that had not been the case. There was no or little possibility of damage arising out of the activities of the charity, but things were changing. People did not have the same trust in each other as before, and there were some who, in order to indulge or facilitate illegal activity looked for easy targets, gaining confidence of the local people and acquiring places of responsibility, which could be used to cover up their lawless deeds. Others outside the charity began to look for ways in which they could criticise the charity for no other reason than they wanted to shut it down, or obtain some pecuniary advantage for themselves by claiming damages for a personal injury which they had suffered. Often the difficulty with defending such claims is that the ‘injured’ had no connection with the actual event, occasion or individual whose words or actions gave rise to the ‘injury’, the injurious action may simply have been reported to them by a third party.

In the past such claims would have been dismissed as, as they might say in law, nefarious, illegitimate or capricious, but changing views and attitudes in society, as well as the increasing propensity of those who are looking for opportunities to take offence at views with which they simply disagree, to take matters to law, has started to mean that the courts are taking seriously the claims and awarding in some case substantial damages for offence taken, when no offence was intended. It had become so bad that even comedians were disinclined to commence their stories with ‘Did you hear about the Englishman, Welshman and Scotsman?’ it having become far too dangerous to use Irishman as the second guy even many years ago.

Now before you read on, you may care to note that I might here say, and perhaps already have said, things which some would want to consider offensive, or at least suggest have an element of conspiracy theoretics about it, so let me say that I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories and anything in here that may suggest otherwise is a misconstruction or misconstrual of my meaning or alternatively the consequence of an extrapolation from what has been said to an insupportable conclusion. And for those who would want to consider something as offensive, let me add that if what I say is read correctly, and as I intended it to be read, there will be found to be no offence in it, but if it is deliberately misunderstood because I have used an ambiguous grammatical construction, placed a gerund where an adjective should sit, used a preposition to leave it dangling at the end of a sentence or caused an infinitive to be split into its inseparable parts, then let it be known that such may or may not have been deliberate upon my part, or may have been quite accidental, and where clarification of the particular grammatical device is required, then I shall be happy to receive due corrections explaining the error into which I have fallen providing it clearly explains fully all the possible misconstructions of meaning that may arise, or have arisen, as a result of the alleged gaffe, together with a reworking of the text such that its correct inoffensive meaning may be fully, perfectly and completely be understood by the newly proposed text. With that in mind, let on the reader read.

The question involved the possible conversion to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). Now CIO is a type of corporation which is regulated by the Charity Commission. This document is not the place to discuss the types of CIO available nor the manner of their incorporation. Information may be found on the Charity Commission website to address these issues and to help you to understand which type of CIO is most suitable for the purpose that you have in mind. CIO Practice Guide 14a is a good place to start if you have questions about this. The writer will also be happy to take questions from you.

A significant advantage of a CIO over a company incorporated under the Companies Acts, is that it is not regulated by Companies House. As a consequence there is a reduced administrative burden for charities which operate through a corporate structure to be a CIO than for example a company limited in any other way, eg as is often the case, by guarantee. A company limited by guarantee is registered under the Companies Acts, and if a charity also, is required to make annual returns etc to both Companies House and the Charity Commission. For many larger charities this is not a significant burden, as they will have professional staff to deal with these matters, but for many smaller or local charities, we may have amateur trustees who may not have ready access, or only expensive access, to the necessary professional skills. Incorporation as a CIO is an advantage to them.

A CIO has advantages also for charities that do not operate through corporate structures, but as unincorporated associations or as trusts. Most of these charities are, and in due time, all of them shall be, registered with the Charity Commission and must make annual returns etc to them.  None of the objects of such organisations must change, apart from one particular group of organisations recognised as charitable to which I shall revert later, nor, in general terms at least, their governance. The chief advantage for the unincorporated charity is that incorporation as a CIO gives the trustees, governors, managers, or whatever else the charity trustees might call themselves, the financial protection of limited liability.  

Whilst unincorporated trustees can protect themselves from financial liability to some extent by insurance, this may not be such good protection as that afforded by a limited liability company (a CIO or a company limited by guarantee), additionally trustee insurance may be more expensive for the unincorporated charity than the incorporated, which puts a greater pressure on the limited resources of the charity which are used to support its work.

The introduction of the new incorporated organisation, the CIO, was welcomed by the charity sector for providing the possibility of both a simplification of their regulatory obligations and financial protection to trustees in an increasingly litigious environment. However, it is not a suitable vehicle for all charities.

Some sub-sectors of the charity sector had objects, some of them very long standing – the writer is aware of charities whose objects and structures have remained unchanged for upwards of 100 years – which are incompatible with the requirements of the CIO. How can this be? you may well ask.

Well to understand that we have to look briefly at the history of charitable causes. Whilst the list in the preamble to the Statues of Elizabeth I did not form part of the law, the contents of that list have for four hundred years informed the law so that by the twentieth century it could be said that a charity is a organisation set up for one or more of the following purposes:

The relief of poverty

The advancement of education

The advancement of religion or

Any other purpose beneficial to the community.

These categories did not however provide a definition of what a charity is, they merely provided guidance to those who needed to assess whether a particular organisation was a charity or not. It was not until early in the twenty-first century that a definition was brought into law. In the Charities Act 2006 the original list of ten specific things, which had become a short list of four characteristics at least one of which should be found in a charity, became a new list of thirteen:

•             the prevention or relief of poverty;

•             the advancement of education;

•             the advancement of religion;

•             the advancement of health or the saving of lives;

•             the advancement of citizenship or community development;

•             the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science;

•             the advancement of amateur sport;

•             the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity;

•             the advancement of environmental protection or improvement;

•             the relief of those in need because of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage;

•             the advancement of animal welfare;

•             the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services;

•             any other purpose already recognised in law as charitable, along with other purposes analogous to, or within the spirit of, other purposes that are recognised as charitable.

It is a new age, calling for new things. One could argue that the nine new items inserted into the 19th century list between the third and the fourth are all included in the fourth item of the 19th century list. What then was the point? Well, one could point to the greater and greater specificity introduced into the law in during the twentieth century. Perhaps one only need ask: in law how many different ways can you kill a man? Do we really need more than two, murder and manslaughter? But we do not like the law to tell us what we can and cannot do, so we multiply laws as people invent ways around the ones that are already there. Is this propensity in our natures the cause of the rapid expansion of Elizabeth’s list? Or is it much simpler than that? The nineteenth century short list of guidance gave far too much leeway to the courts to interpret matters, so a statutory definition was introduced to provide certainty.

As the same time however the idea of public benefit was given a much greater role in assessing whether an organisation set up for any of these purposes was a charity. There would no longer be a presumption that organisations set up for the first three, and the fourth, elements, of the nineteenth century guidance conferred public benefit, though there was no suggestion that those who had already been recognised as charitable under those heads would lose their status, it would become necessary to demonstrate a continuing public benefit in the activities of the organisation. This is why organisations in their report will in describing their activities say something to the effect that ‘the trustees … believe the charity satisfies the public benefit test’. 

Public benefit has always been at the heart of what is charitable, but there had been a presumption that particular types of activity would always have a public benefit. It was of the essence of the activity, so the maintenance of the walls of a city would be a charitable activity. Nobody would have any doubt about that. Certain other activities would also be seen as essentially providing public benefit. So, religious activities notwithstanding the often hard opposition of the establishment, were seen as providing public benefit. Not all religious activities were recognised as charitable however, but not because they did not provide public benefit, but that the benefit they did provide was not susceptible of legal proof.

The new position today really is not ‘does the organisation qualify under any of the heads of the new list?’, but firstly ‘does it confer public benefit?’. If it does confer public benefit, then it may qualify under one of the specific items in the list, but if not under the final catch all, any other purpose. So why have a list at all? It helps us to think about the particular aspect of public benefit that may be provided by, and therefore what to look for in, any particular type of organisation.

Now we have to be careful when we talk about public benefit. It is a concept as slippery as quicksilver. It is not benefit to the public. You may hear some presenters turn the words around in this way, perhaps thinking it will make the idea easier to understand, but instead that clouds and misrepresents the meaning. The maintenance of the city walls is of no immediate benefit to the public. The charity whose object is for the relief of poverty in the parish of Nevernewthem in a well-to-do area of the Home Counties, may struggle to actually find any thing it can do in any particular year. Perhaps for many years in a row it provides no benefit to anyone let alone to the public. It is nevertheless established for public benefit. Things can be done for public benefit, which provide no benefit to the public. So, a statue may be placed on the harbour wall in Bristol for public benefit, but parts of the populous, perhaps even a significantly large part consider that it confers no benefit on the public at all. It is a hideous statue, much like a carbuncle on the nose of an old friend. The public do not have to agree that there is a public benefit for there to be public benefit. That there is public benefit is a matter of law not of fact. And, perhaps in the context of this article two things to note about public benefit (see  Public benefit: an overview) in relation to the organisations that we are about to consider are: it has not been considered by the courts in relation to every charitable purpose and it keeps changing. We are back to where I started on this matter: the law of public benefit is like quicksilver.

We may now return to our questions about the CIO. Why would it, being a charitable company, not be suitable for all charities? The answer lies hidden in the depths of what is public benefit. As we have seen it is a legal concept, and furthermore it is an unstable concept. The Charity Commission acknowledge that it has not been tested for all charitable activities, perhaps because there has not been any need to test it as before the 2006 Act there was a presumption that it existed in certain types of activity that were considered to be charitable.

Before the 2006 Act it was the objects of an organisation that determined whether it would be charitable, whatever those objects were. If the objects determined under the then current understanding of the four headings public benefit would be presumed and the organisation would be charitable. Unless it fell under a limited number of exemptions it would have to register with the Charity Commission. So an organisation with a trust deed which sets out a number of specific objects, without calling them charitable but fell under the general heading of religious, concluding with a final statement that ‘the remainder of such moneys funds and property shall be applied for such purpose of a religious or benevolent nature as the Trustees or Trustee shall in their or his absolute and uncontrolled discretion think proper’ was considered to be a charity. But note here, that the Trustees had power to apply funds firstly to purposes of any religious nature. The deed does not require that the religious nature be charitable, and it is known that not all religious activities provide a public benefit which is susceptible to legal proof and thus they fail to qualify as charitable.

This particular organisation was established as a religious organisation not a charity. It was an accident of the understanding of what constituted public benefit at that time, and the presumption of public benefit that religious organisations provided, that it was considered to be a charity. It was not envisaged at the time, not indeed later, that any of the funds of the organisation would ever be applied for the purposes of a religious organisation that was not considered to be charitable, but the trustees had unfettered power to do so, and if the only religious organisation that could benefit because of restrictions elsewhere in the trust deed the trustees would be obliged to apply the funds that they held for that non-charitable organisation with all of the consequences, eg income tax may become due on its income, that might follow.

If such an organisation became a CIO there is the very great risk that its original purpose would be defeated. It could be prevented from applying the funds which had been provided by the benefactors for the very purpose for which they had been provided. In this particular case, presently there would be many religious organisations which would still qualify as charities to which the trustees could apply their funds, but as we have seen the law on public benefit is unstable and has not been tested in all cases. There is no certainty that what is today understood to be religious activities that provide public benefit will still be understood to provide public benefit tomorrow.

Even today there is talk of fundamental and religious extremism which gives rise to activities that clearly do not provide public benefit. The law is a blunt instrument, and it does not take much when parliamentary time is limited for law which is intended to deal with the harmful aspects of extremism to include within it provisions that harm the beneficial aspects of extremism. There are also other pressures within society for organisations to conform to a particular moral ethic, just as in authoritarian or totalitarian systems there are pressures to conform to a particular political view. These pressures place those who hold a different moral ethic at risk. These pressures also change the perception of what public benefit is, and are likely to influence the understanding of what public benefit means in relation to religious activity.

Any change in understanding of public benefit in relation to religious activity should not however require a change in the religious activity of an organisation that has been established for that purpose. The organisation should, unless its activity is overtly harmful and immoral, be allowed to continue to operate in accordance with its objects as a non-charitable organisation. The organisation does not change, but its standing in society changes.

It is this that makes the CIO such a dangerous vehicle for a religious organisation. The CIO can only engage in charitable activities. A religious organisation may become a CIO today because its activities are considered by reason of precedent to be charitable. Tomorrow the law of public benefit may be tested in relation to the activities such as that organisation undertakes and it be discovered that our understanding was incorrect. The precedent was wrong. That organisation’s activities were not charitable and have never been charitable, but it is too late to undo the past; the new understanding applies only from tomorrow. But for that organisation it is too late. It is a CIO, and must now conduct religious activities that comply with the new understanding of the law. It was never established for those new activities. It had been established for a different set of activities which are no longer considered to be charitable. It is known that the original benefactors were agnostic to the charitable status of those activities, and did not provide the endowment for a charitable purpose but for a specific religious purpose. The CIO cannot comply. The objects of the organisation have been defeated.

It is this aspect of a CIO which makes it so dangerous for churches, that is the body of people, the organisation, not the building which that organisation or body uses. Similar considerations apply to the congregations that meet in synagogues and mosques, but I am not speaking to their specific affairs or manner of organising and conducting themselves. I can make no comments at all in respect of the congregations of temples of Hindu or Buddhist leaning.  Different consideration apply to the building, which I submit, do not require that it be on anything other than a simple trust for the use, not the ownership, of a religious organisation (narrowly defined of course). Churches are religious organisations first and foremost. They are not established as charitable organisations, though most of them are recognised as charities. I understand that a few congregations because of their peculiar structure are not presently recognised as charitable.  That they are recognised as charities is an accident of our present understanding of the law of public benefit.

If they become CIO these churches are first and foremost charities which conduct religious activities. In today’s world the understanding of what constitutes public benefit permits churches to do what they have done for two thousand years. In tomorrow’s world there is no guarantee that those activities will be recognised as providing public benefit. The CIO will not be permitted to continue to engage in those activities. If it does there is the very real possibility that the Commissioners will dismiss the trustees and replace them with trustees who will be compliant with the public benefit requirement.

I had almost suggested earlier that the CIO represents State control of a particular type of charity, but thought it better to leave that suggestion for a later point in our discussion. It is no problem for organisations that engage in other types of activity such as the relief of poverty, or the advancement of amateur sport, for these activities are firstly charitable. But for religious organisations, as CIO they are at the mercy of the current understanding of public benefit. Whether the Commissioners step in to change the trustees or not, the possibility that they can if the religious organisation continues to engage in non-charitable activities, place the CIO under the control of the Commissioners who are an arm of the State.  

Religious organisations, whether they are protestant evangelical, Roman Catholic, Jewish or Islamic should not become CIO. There are other forms of incorporation, eg a company limited by guarantee, which provide financial protection to the trustees. I grant that the other approaches do not simplify your routine administration, but they do simplify what happens when what you do ceases to be recognised as charitable. As long as what you do is recognised as charitable, you will be supervised by the Charity Commission. That supervision is good for you and for the communities that you serve. If the law changes and what you have always done ceases to be charity, as a CIO you have to change what you do, but as say a company limited by guarantee you do not have to change what you do, but rather the Charity Commission, after giving you fair warning must remove your registration as a charity and cease to supervise you. The lack of registration as a charity changes your status in society. It may mean that you lose certain exemptions from taxes, but it is the taxing authorities which make those decisions not the Charity Commission.

In summary then, religious organisations are charities only because the law recognises that the activities undertaken by them are charitable. It is not the other way round. Religious organisation do not undertake religious activities because those activities are charitable. The recently introduced Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) turns this on its head. It is a charity first. It can only do charitable things however broadly its objects may have been written.  A religious CIO can only undertake religious activities that are charitable.

A day may come when such religious activities, and those of many other eg evangelical groups (using evangelical in the broad sense of seeking converts to a cause) may not be seen as satisfying the public benefit test. Evangelism causes conflict. Religious moral views also are often contrary to the views of the secular society. Those differences cause conflict. In the Christian tradition we know that the apostle Paul knew that well enough. If religious organisations continue to do those things that are no longer understood to satisfy the public benefit test, then they are free to continue to do them, but they lose their status as charities, and the Charity Commission ceases to have authority to regulate them (unless they continue to do other things which would satisfy the public benefit test, but then only in regard to those matters). A CIO does not have this option. It is a charity, and it cannot conduct activities that are not understood to be charitable. It never ceases to be supervised by the Charity Commission, who can step in to take control if it continues to do ‘bad’ things.

You will hear advice which is contrary to what I have written here in many quarters. Indeed there are some, who promote CIO as if they are exactly what this charity sector needs. I suggest that those who speak in this way have either not understood the risk or have underestimated the magnitude of it.

Churches, and some other groups, are religious organisations. CIO are charities which may undertake approved religious activity. Religious organisations should not become Charitable Incorporate Organisations.

The following documents which are referred to either in the article above or the comments below are included here in case they should cease to be available or their form and content be changed to reflect changes in the law after the date of publication of this article. There is no intention to infringe copyright by the copies available here, nor is there any commercial benefit in doing so. The use of the documents is for academic and educational purposes only :

8 Whilst I have included a pdf copy of these documents here, as the Stewardship document referred to is behind a registration wall it is not included. Should it cease to be available from the Stewardship website, in the first instance please ask Stewardship for a copy, but otherwise I may be able to make my copy available for inspection.

The lack of an English government

It is over three hundred years since Royal Assent has been denied in the UK, and that as it happens was a Scottish issue. It has been denied since then, though not in the UK, the consequences of which these three nations and the rest of the world live to this day. This is the story of knowing when to pick a fight that you cannot lose in order to win a fight that you cannot win. It will not amuse everyone, and if you are offended, please accept my apologies. No offence is intended, but it can easily be taken, but you are free not to read on, so remember, if you have been offended it is merely because your own eyes have drawn you on in this most charming of encounters.

It happened in private of course but the conversation was along these lines, being translated for yours faithfully for the most part into English from the original Scots, except where English English simply fails to have any equivalent expression:

FM: We are all perfectly aware that England is going to object to our decolonisation proposals so we shall have to be bold. We have had one referendum, but as they have moved the goal posts against the wishes of the Scottish people we can and must propose to hold another.

MSP1: They won’t let us do that.

FM: We shall have one nevertheless.

MsP2: They shall send the matter to the courts which will not go well for us.

FM: Let them try.

Months later

MSP1: It is just as we warned FM. The Supreme Court has ruled that to legislate for a further referendum be outwith our powers; if only we still had the Lords. Now Lord Denning, he would have been cavalier enough to have supported us.

FM: We have other options. Our resources are not exhausted.

MSP2: Are you suggesting a general election? We’ll be out as quick as a dram in the bishop’s tulip.

MSP1: No, she means we’ll pick a fight with Westminster that we cannot lose.

MSP3: Precisely, the gender reform bill: just look at the opposition to it, but we know who wants it and what big mouths they have. Even though we all know that it goes too far, we can push it through here.

MSP2: Westminster won’t like that, it runs roughshod over too much of their equality legislation. It will not get Royal Assent. They’ll block it.

FM: Precisely! Then we can accuse them of using gender as a political weapon insinuating that this is the first of many ways in which they will emasculate the sovereignty of our Parliament.

MSP2: That way public opinion will be on our side. We won’t need to say much, the big mouths will not need our help to show that the English cannot overrule the Scots Parliament.

MSP1: So they will back down on gender reform?

MSP2: No, don’t you see? She’s a cannier lass than that.

FM: We compromise on equality and get a referendum.

MSP (from the backbench): but eerhm, gender, political weapons, if I may ask, isn’t that what you have just….[garbled noises emanating as from one recently subject to an uninvited attack on his person. ]

Ah, the perils of these so-called modern (post-modern) days. Do the right thing and you shall be pilloried. Do the wrong thing and what happens? You shall be pilloried. Well, if pilloried either way…

Finally, at last you say, I do wonder how we could ever be post-modern, for if modern is à la mode, today, the post-modern must be tomorrow, and we are never in tomorrow it is always just around the corner waiting for us, but I guess that in this modern post-modern world where words mean whatever Tweedeldee and Tweedeldum want them to mean we just have to accept it for what it is not. Which reminds me, a friend today remarked on an email into which I had copied him, to say that the recipient and the sender appeared to be one and the same. Oh no, I clarified for him, they were two entirely different legal persons, who simply happened to occupy the same body. The correct pronouns, articles etc are they and its derivatives. Forget ye not.

Abyssal

I came across a new word today and thought to look it up. Well, it is not exactly a new word, but it was used in quite an unexpected context. The abyss is what we expect it to be, a deep, unfathomable hole, pit, mine labyrinth or whatever else may have the physical quality of depth, such as the sea. We speak of the abyss for depths beyond the fathoms we can count on two hands. So what is abyssal?

We also speak of the unfathomable wisdom of God. Paul declared: ‘O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable are his ways.’ His thinking is unfathomable, and therefore we could say abyssal. We speak of quiet rivers that run deep, in the context of men of few words but who think deeply, and when they speak, speak wisely. We could say of them that they are abyssal thinkers. They have abyssal thoughts. Just in case it needs to be said, but I hope the next few words are wasted, abyssal (deep) is not abysmal (out of the deep). Abysmal has a similar meaning, but it is, perhaps we could say, the negative form of the word. Abysmal thinking does not bear the fruit of wisdom but rather of folly.

So, when I heard the word used of thinking in a sociological context my understanding was quite straightforward. We need abyssal thinking in order to evaluate, analyse and understand the particular set of data that was being presented to us. I could hardly disagree. Deep thinking is indeed required to understand a complex data-set. Sometimes I wonder why we use jargon like that – data-set – a list of facts. We have to marshal our facts, place some on the right, and some on the left, and between them, the abyss. Woe to you who place the facts on the wrong side, your conclusions will be as defective as your placements.

But no, so it seems, we do not need abyssal thinking. We have to abandon it. At that point I understood that perhaps there is a meaning hidden somewhere in the abyssal depths of language to the word which I had failed to grasp. A quick read of a Wikipedia article might be a good place to start before reading the academic paper, so I looked up ‘abyssal – sociology’. Yes, Wikipedia has an article. What happened next may have been an artefact of the bug within my browser, but this is the article as you may see (or otherwise) in the picture below.

Abyssal – sociology

Yes, I have edited the screen shot. I have removed the endless (following an example and to use the word incorrectly) list of other open tabs, cut out my favourite icons, and removed some of the white space at the bottom of the screen, nevertheless what you see in this picture is what I see in the browser. I took it to be a message about the true meaning of abyssal. Just as it means unfathomable, it is itself unfathomable, as I was about to discover.

The article does exist. Refreshing the page brought it back out of the albanic abyss. Now recently I found myself in agreement with a sociologist, but today perhaps not. The opening words of the paper seem innocuous enough: Modern Western thinking is an abyssal thinking. I think (sic!) that that statement would even be true firstly without the first word and then also without the second. When we think we do it in order to reach a conclusion. We have to work something out, and that working out requires that we separate one side of the arguments from the other. There is an abyss between the arguments for (pros) and the arguments against (cons). Our thinking must identify that abyss and correctly position the evidence around it. (My quantumly minded friends may leave aside any notion they may have of the possibility of tunnelling through the abyss, and fans of Star Trek should for the time being refrain from using their warp drives). This is the way that logic works.

The paper then goes on however to present quite a different understanding of abyssal thinking. The abstract gives the game away by telling us that in the context of a particular struggle that a new kind of thinking is required, a post-abyssal thinking. I have misunderstood the use of the word abyssal. Indeed, if I have any kind of correct understanding at all of what is being said, it would not matter what word was used, as it is simply being used as a peg on to which to hang his argument that the ‘West’ (whatever that may mean) has a lot for which to answer if it is going to redeem its ‘colonial’ past, suggesting indeed that what is actually required is the overthrow of ‘Western’ thought.

We could have easily as said ‘Modern Western thinking is Tweedledeedum thinking‘. The paper does identify some parts of some Western thinking that is flawed, and clearly where thinking is flawed (Tweedledeedum) then it should be abandoned. A little careful abyssal thinking will help us find out those flaws.

Secondly, the paper does not appear to be about active thinking, that is what we do when we work with our minds to solve a problem, but rather about passive established opinions, which may be held thoughtlessly, and which may drive our actions and our views of other people.

I expect to be told that an overthrow is not what is meant. I disagree. The modern solution to many problems has involved an overthrow. The French revolution fell into the trap. Marx clearly propounded it, and we see the consequences in the countless deaths both in the Soviet Union and China as a consequence of the ruthless application of his doctrine. It is not true to say if we destroy everything we shall have a better world, but it suits those who want power in their own hands and not the hands of somebody else.

Thirdly, the paper appears only to be destructive in its intent. It characterises all modern Western thinking as abyssal (actually, I think it really intends to say abysmal), but there is much in Western thinking that is quite different to the straw man that it sets out.

Where is honour, respect, personality and individuality given to women if not in Western thought? Where is equal honour given to all men and women before the law without distinction as to class, caste, or religion if not in Western thought? Where is the rule of law respected above the rule of the despot if not in Western thought? And what is the invisible hand beneath this, if not the hand of God in his Word, which shows what he in his providence has established for the good of mankind? Without the influence of the Word of God in our society, we would be as bleak as those that are characterised here as on the other side of the line. I am not suggesting that all is as it should be, but certainly it is the case that not all is not as it should be.

I would like to take some words from the paper and apply them in a different context.

To give an example based on [events in the past twenty years, Cathay’s] modernity may be characterised as a socio−political paradigm founded on the tension between social regulation and social emancipation. This is the visible distinction that founds all [eastern] conflicts, both in terms of substantive issues and in terms of procedures. But underneath this distinction there is another, invisible one, upon which the visible one is founded. This invisible one is the distinction between metropolitan societies (Peking) and colonial territories (Hong Kong). Indeed, the regulation/emancipation dichotomy only applies to metropolitan societies. It would be unthinkable to apply it to colonial territories. The regulation/emancipation dichotomy has no conceivable place in such territories. There, another dichotomy would apply, the dichotomy between appropriation/violence, which, in turn, would be inconceivable if applied on this side of the line. Because the colonial territories were unthinkable as sites for the unfolding of the paradigm of regulation/emancipation, the fact that the latter did not apply to them did not compromise the paradigm’s universality.

Perhaps a Marxist would disagree with the suggested emendations.

As for abyssal thinking, I suggested at the start that this word does indeed characterise our thinking, whether we are Western, Eastern or Southern, but let us be careful that it does not also characterise the outcome of our thinking. Our words to others should not be abyssal, lest they be unfathomable, incomprehensible and abysmal.

It is only God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is unfathomable, unsearchable, inscrutable, abyssal, which we may sum up in but one word, ineffable, but revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Glory to his Name!

The paper by the way may be found here: https://www.eurozine.com/beyond-abyssal-thinking/

And a refutation of abyssal thinking in the context of racialised bilinguality here: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10134372/1/Rejecting%20abyssal%20thinking%20in%20the%20language%20and%20education%20of%20racialized%20bilinguals%20A%20manifesto.pdf

Exposing the truth

Three rather interesting short articles on the BBC, the first clearly shows how seriously we should take Critical Race Theory.

Lack of ethnic diversity among egg and sperm donors
Richard Drax: Jamaica eyes slavery reparations from Tory MP
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Author warns about ‘epidemic of self-censorship’

The fault, and cause, of a shortage of resources in a minority culture is clearly to be attributed to the dominant culture for whom the greatest of opprobrium is to be reserved. The particular shortage is of the shortage of the two essential elements in the making of a human being, and though the answer is of course a mother and a father that is not what they mean, they focus purely on the biological elements, eggs and sperm derived from a minority culture in the UK. It is described as a lack of ethnic diversity by the HFEA. In this instance the minority culture highlighted was West Indian, and by inference Afro-Caribbean. Common sense may find a different and more plausible cause and dismiss the suggestion of fault and blame altogether.

The second also takes us to the Caribbean, and in particular to the island of Jamaica, whose government joining arms with Barbados is considering seeking reparations from the current British owner of a plantation for the treatment of slaves before 1833. The grounds of the case may rest in Critical Race Theory or Identity Politics – as these are mercurial concepts I leave it as an exercise for you, dear Reader, to make the correct assessment. The article does not say whether reparations will also be sought from those who made their fortunes and built their kingdoms in West Africa from the enslavement of those who were taken by sea to the Caribbean or overland to the Middle East. I dare say any law firm which takes up the case will be kept busy for many a day, whether or not their solicitors benefited from the education they received at the institutions which were established or funded out of wealth derived from estates established long before 1833.

The third article reports on an author who, seeing through all of this nonsense, speaks of an epidemic of self-censorship and the inability to ask questions because of a fear of asking the wrong sort of questions. This author speaks of a place for valid criticism, which is essential if there is to be meaningful debate, but of no place for an ugly, violent backlash against those who speak a view which is contrary to your own. The aim of debate is not to silence but to convince. Where would we be without the progressive Hypothesis-Antithesis cycle which leads to greater understanding and better hypotheses? But in Cancel Culture the Antithesis must not be spoken. What progress can be made? The proponents of Darwinian evolution have successfully cancelled academic examination of their stories, despite Darwin’s own warnings to them that his hypothesis would fail in the absence of certain conditions, one of which remains absent, a second of which has been strongly overturned. This cancellation has turned biological science into a blind alley seeking to prove that which cannot be proven and failing to pursue enquiries which will yield beneficial results.

It is good to see their willingness to expose, albeit perhaps unwittingly, the short falls, indeed perils, of that which has taken deep root in a society which, in its post-modernist thinking (if thinking is a post-modernist activity), has lost its moorings, Critical Race Theory, Identity Politics, Cancel Culture and a host of other ‘critical’ theories which are no more nor less critical than the sledgehammer used of the builder to demolish* a wall. How we need to return to the law of the Lord which makes men wise.

Look at how King David spoke of it: Restoration – pursuing the right paths. Making wise – enabling us to understand the vast universe in which we live. Rejoicing – do we not when we look at all of the marvels of nature: the stars, the galaxies, the cosmos, the depths of complexity in the living cells, the molecular machines that keep us alive. Enlightening – revealing the secrets of the universe to us. Enduring – they are not fickle, they are unchanging, we can rely on them. Righteous – they provide the grounds on which human society can flourish.

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover by them Your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward.
Psalm 19

*The oxymoron is deliberate. Builders do not demolish, they build. In true Critical Language Theory style as set out by Lewis Carroll so long ago: builder “means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less”.

Editors

There is increasing evidence that the editor no longer reads the articles placed in the newspaper critically. Sometimes the most obvious mistakes are made, up with which the later Sir Winston would not have put but which featured often in the Grauniad. Take this as a recent example:

Up to half of people died when the Black Death swept through Europe in the mid-1300s.

I wondered whether the editor had read the title, saw who wrote it and concluded that having obtained his own degree at the LSE he would not have a hope of understanding what the gentleman scientist had said so simply signed it off. Perhaps the words following ‘A pioneering study analysing the DNA…’ confirmed him in his misconception.

However, such mistakes are evident even to the man on the Clapham omnibus to whom the learned judge appealed, and are just as likely to appear in the work of this uneditored writer as in that which has passed the mis-scrutiny of the most eagle-eyed editor when presented with academic superiority. ‘Trust the science’ we have often been told of what was heralded as a new Black Death, but as the ASA has noted recently in relation to the green-washing of a bank without borders, it is possible to present the science without disclosing all of the relevant and material facts.

Now I am sure you have seen the obvious mistake that the editor missed, but did you see the second? The context of the article is Europe, so we do not need to consider death rates outside Europe, which may have been more or, it is thought perhaps, less than that among Europeans. There is a missing article in the sentence; possibly also a qualifier, and adjective or adjectival phrase, for the word people which would be helpful towards the understanding of what is said.

But the second mistake is perhaps even more clear: that there are no survivors today of the Black Death that swept through Europe in the 14th century, tells us quite clearly that all of the people of Europe have died who lived in the time of the Black Death. It was not simply half of them, and in the manner of counting deaths from the recent plague, all of them having had contact with the Black Death and were therefore Black Death deaths.

Science is useful, but when you hear the words ‘Trust the science’, ask: Which science? The science of yesterday, of today or of tomorrow? Let the scientist remember that the science of today is often overturned by that of tomorrow. Is the certainty of what science says 5%, 70% or 95% ? But as every man who goes into a betting shop knows, even a cert (100%) does not win every race.

But there is one who is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines). He may be trusted when he speaks, so when you hear his voice do not harden your hearts against him. Jesus cries out: Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden, and I shall give you rest. We of today must all die as those of the 14th century did, but he has overcome death by giving his own life on a cross, and as he rose from the dead, he shall raise us from the dead when he comes again.

Trust the science, but know its limits, and do not be carried about with various and strange ideas that are like shifting sands. But better trust Jesus who said: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away.

SARS

I normally think that when a thing is referred to by the initial letters of its proper name there is no need to add an S to pluralise it. The plural S is hidden behind the initial capital letter. So we have, for example, OS. You would not ask how many different OSes are there? You would ask how many different O(perating) S(ystems) are there. The plural s is hidden. There are exceptions of course but these prove the rule for the combination of the initial letters has become a noun in itself which does not describe the same thing as the string of words describes, so though we refer to LASER, if we have two sources we shall speak of having two lasers.

I should also like to make a further exception in response to a suggestion by a Western oligarch that one country become an special administrative region of another country. I shall refer later to this as the Type B proposal. That other country is well known for its SARS which were first identified there about twenty years ago. Much effort is put into the elimination of these SARS for they are quite dangerous things. The effects that they have on the people of that country are quite severe and if left uncontrolled would have serious adverse social and economic consequences, so the (dis)benefits of these SARS must, so we are led to believe, be curtailed at all costs.

The truth of these remarks would of course be clearly seen if the doctrine behind this suggestion were pressed to its logical conclusion, and it was proposed that the other country should become a special administrative region of the one. The objective of the underlying doctrine would be equally achieved. I shall refer to this as the Type A proposal.

Both proposals are the logical outcome of the foundational doctrine held by the other country, so why would not a Type A solution be acceptable to it? Is it a fear that it, as a SAR, would go the way of all other SARS?

History

It had escaped Coco’s notice, but in 2011 EIIR said:

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person, neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a saviour, with the power to forgive.

On the other hand Georg Hegel said:

The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

There is somewhat a contradiction here, until we look at the paradigm which drives these two assertions concerning history. Whilst one is derived from a paradigm, which whilst it sought to go beyond the scepticism and nothingness of Platonism with its vast empty abyss by the introduction of concepts such as the negation of certain determinations, which may be called determinate negations, and do not result in an empty, abstract nothing, but rather a determinate nothingness which has content, does not take us much beyond the former position, but rather lays a foundation for the ever more meaningless paradigms taken up later in the 19th and 20th centuries as men built upon the ephemeral concepts of eternal matter underpinned by an irrational cleavage to uniformity, which lead to the conclusion that we have no purpose and no responsibility towards any outside authority let alone to each other. Each of the words used to summarise the Hegelian position, you must understand, has a technical meaning into the discussion of which we shall not enter here. You may also disagree with the summary, and Coco shall be pleased to receive alternative concise summaries of Hegel’s paradigm.

The other however stands on a solid foundation, which is forever not having been laid by the hands of men, but rather by the One who made all things. Matter is not eternal; matter has a beginning. But the self-existent God has built this universe, made of matter, on the solid foundation of his own eternal faithfulness and righteousness.

The one paradigm leads to a hopelessness which results in pessimism about ourselves, our past, present and future; the other leads to an optimistic hope that despite ourselves, our past, present and future behaviours, that as a result of God’s past intervention, there is a future intervention that will straighten everything out. This universe is not to remain a vast dangerous wilderness where wild beats roam and men devour each other, but it shall be renewed in a way where the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion and the fatling together… they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Nothing shall hurt or harm, and men shall live in love for one another as they serve, and walk with, and enjoy the living God in the city that he has built.

But note that her Majesty does not say that we shall achieve this ourselves. God’s intervention is required, and so he sent his Son into the world as a saviour with the power to forgive. Yes, he came also teaching, preaching and healing, but primarily as he said when speaking of his death by crucifixion: Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.) The prospect of crucifixion is indeed troubling; later we hear him speak in this way: Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done. But it was for this very purpose that he came into the world, to die to save sinners. In this way he became the Saviour of men.

Concerning his power to forgive, very early in his ministry we find this affirmed when he was presented with a paralysed man by the man’s friends: When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’ This provoked outrage among some. And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, ‘Why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ They were quite right in their reasoning, but wrong in their conclusion. To show them that he had power to forgive, he healed the man who had been brought to him.

On what basis then does he forgive? Justice, as we know, demands a penalty. Forgiveness is not cheap. It is not right, as we know, to justify the wrongdoer. Are we all not revulsed when the guilty escape justice? How then can God let off the sinner? That was his dilemma, but in the infinite wisdom of God he found the way that he could be both just and be able to justify the sinner. The penalty for sin is too great for the sinner to pay, so God himself must pay it. For this reason, we read, and this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

De morte

We were in the Republic when the day came, and even though not on this occasion in a Chambre d’hôtes where Louis XXII had once resided, great consolation was shown towards us, but it was not until subjects of the House of Orange also came for refreshment, rest and repast that in the brotherhood of equality, liberty was granted to cry out:

La Reine est morte; vive le Roi.

If in the day of the death of King Saul, King David could say ‘This a day of mourning and weeping’, how much more we who have lost a Queen who had proven herself more worthy of her name in the keeping of her promises to God and to men than many others who would clothe themselves with the trappings of leadership. What freedom we have that we do not have to fight or contend over and vote for who shall rule over us, but simply lend our support and allegiance to the one who has been chosen not by the hand of man.

Long live the king! May he too be faithful to serve the people over whom the Lord has appointed him. And may the Lord give to him, as he gave to Solomon, an understanding heart to judge the people and to discern between what is good and what is evil.