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Strictly
21 November 2008
Should John have gone or should he have stayed? In case you're not sure what I'm talking about, I'm referring to John Sergeant, who this week quit the hugely popular BBC1 show, Strictly Come Dancing. What made John's resignation unusual was that it wasn't due to injury, ill-health or a personal crisis. It was because of the storm that has erupted over his less than impressive dancing prowess.
Viewers of the show will be familiar with the fact that week after week, John and his partner Kristina have received the lowest scores from the Strictly judges. Indeed, one week, one of the toughest judges, Craig Revel Horwood, said the only reason he gave John a 1 (out of 10) was because he didn't have a zero to show.
Yet, despite his three left feet, John has remained in the show because the public just keep on voting for him. And the public vote makes up half of the final tally which decides who stays and who goes. When quitting, John said that there was a serious risk that he and Kristina might actually winwhich would be a "joke too far". So, in recognition of the fact that he just can't dance, and that many contestants who can have already been voted off the show, John decided to leave.
The question, then, is why the public have stuck with this 64 year old political journalist. It is not because he is amazingly good looking, or because he's a soap or sports star to whom people were already committed. He does have a wry sense of humour, but I'm not sure that it's his gags that are keeping him on Strictly. Some think it's all to do with that great British tradition of supporting the underdog - we know he's the worst, that's why we'll vote for him. Others suggest it's because he has a certain charm that is entertaining, even if he hasn't got the feet of Fred Astaire. And still others think that the public are doing it simply to spite the official judges. And I have to say, for me, this last idea has the most plausibility.
The reality is that in our individualistic, consumer-driven age, the reigning Zeitgeist loves individual autonomy over public authority. We can't bear the notion that there exists some external, objective standard against which things should be measured - whether in respect of dancing or morality or anything really. Rather, we want to be King, and all authority must rest with us. So, we get to be the arbiters of what's true or false, good or bad. The idea of being held to account by some absolute standard is one that rails deeply against our current mode of thinking. Hence, we reject it whenever we can. It's not necessarily that we think the standard is a bad one, we just hate the idea of there being one at all.
Given this, it's no wonder that the Christian gospel has a hard time being heard. For whatever else it is, it involves humbling ourselves before the creator of the universe and acknowledging that he is Lord, not us, that he is the only Rightful Judge. The problem for us, though, is that on that day when we stand before him there won't be any public popularity vote to rescue us. Simply the Judge and us.
Justin Thacker, Head of Theology
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(The views below are the authors', and not necessarily those of the Evangelical Alliance.)
| Written by David Young on 28 November 2008 at 12.51 |
| Before the next FNT (PBUH) appears, the challenge still stands Justin T. An answer, your resignation from the EA or the announcement that you have abandoned your fairy-tale religion would be the three honourable replies. |
| Written by John Dyke on 27 November 2008 at 00.49 |
| Justin T, I suspect that, for some reason I cannot fathom, you were also left either fuming or in despair when the Greenpeace whale-naming exercise went slightly awry and "Mr Splashy Pants" won the day. Yes, there is a sense of anarchy here, as there is in the John Sargeant episode, but I really don't think it's a sign of fundamental problems in society. I challenge anyone to argue that the outcome of either Strictly Come Dancing or a whale-naming exercise actually *matters*. This is surely reflected by the fact that the Monster Raving Loony Party has never - as far as I know - managed to retain its deposit in an election. The concept of an objective morality prescribed by a god is troubling in three importantly different ways: first, let us suppose that there is no god. Then a huge number of people are appealing to the objective moral authority of a figment of their imagination. If on the other hand there *is* a god, then secondly , there are *many* gods, or at least many different renderings of a god, with different things allowed and disallowed in each system; which is the objectively correct one now? Why is one system right while others - which lay equal claim to objectivity - are wrong? And thirdly, let's assume that one god exists, and it's the God that you refer to. He's not big on writing stuff down these days - there's no handy web page at www.god.com/moralcode - so things tend to be determined by either what people believe God is telling them to do, or by what others say that God is telling them to do, or by (selective) interpretation of parts of the bible, or a combination of these. Either way, a massive amount of subjectivity has just slipped in to the process. Actually, I think a system where people develop a moral framework together, without reference to some higher authority which might be imaginary, or might disagree with someone else's higher authority, is much less scary. |
| Written by Richard on 26 November 2008 at 17.39 |
| Individualism versus society focus - interesting question. The limit of society is something like socialism where we have to trust the rulers, or in a religious context it is something like the caste system where each has his or her allotted place in the scheme of things. Caste apparently worked well at one point, yet we don't condone it now because of the problems of discrimination based on birth. It is easy to see how extreme socialism can go wrong because it depends so much on the rulers being perfect. The Kingdom of Christ would be an example, as would the Raja Ram (Kingdom of Rama) for those thinking of things like caste, but these perfect rulers would seem to be ideals rather than physical meat and bones people we can look to. The very religions that define them also talk about why it is so hard for us mere mortals to reach this. I'm not so sure about the argument concerning extreme individualism. Selfishness is a problem yes, as is greed, but people with autonomy and freedom especially over things like whether or not to believe, can work well together. Even as individuals we can have shared goals and can know that society works best when certain rules are followed. The Christian argument seems to be that we must submit to Jesus, but our only access to Jesus is via the proxies that are our religious leaders. If we were to all submit then we'd be in the position of extreme socialism again and will have to trust those leaders. The best place to be is probably somewhere between the two extremes. |
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Subject: Culture and society | Evangelism
Author: Thacker, Justin
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