The Bremen Bod Blog

  More than a few of us Scottish Christian Socialists and Scottish Christians on the Left are profoundly influenced by the philosophy of a contemporary political thinker and Labour peer called Maurice Glasman. Maurice is the founder of the political tendency known as Blue Labour, which is in part, inspired by Bundism. The Jewish Labour Bund was a secular Jewish Socialist movement found in Lithuania, Poland and Russia in the 1890's, based on the principles of solidarity, mutualism, autonomy and local democracy. Maurice also often speaks about the politics of his father who was a Labour Zionist and his mother who came from a working class family in Stamford Hill and was a lifelong Labour supporter. Likewise, Christian Socialists with a special interest in civil society cannot think or talk about cooperatives without any reference to the impact of the Jewish Labour Movement. Just as I’ve learned a great deal from Maurice, so too have I been fortunate enough to learn from leade...

Today’s Gospel acclamation (6th Sunday of Easter) is ‘If anyone loves me he will keep my commandments’ John 14:15-24. I cannot help but hear those words from the Gospels, without thinking about the evocative and compelling film ‘Women Talking’ which I watched recently. If you haven’t seen it, ‘Women Talking’ is based on a shocking true story and is adapted from the book by the brilliant Miriam Toews, which tells the story of a group of women in a strict Mennonite colony in Bolivia who have been have been systematically drugged and violently sexually abused by the men of the community for years. The movie mostly takes place in hayloft where the women must decide what to do - Do they leave the colony with their children and start a new life away from the men? Do they stay and fight for justice and change the community? Or do they forgive the perpetrators who left the women waking up every morning feeling drowsy and nauseous, with ripped clothes, covered in blood, bruises and rope m...

  Back in August last year, we learned the sad news that Tom Cornell, the well known veteran Catholic Peace Fellowship founder, had passed away. During his long years of activism,  Tom had been a member of the executive staff of Fellowship of Reconciliation and he was also on the executive committee of  Pax Christi  USA .   Tom was probably best known as a Catholic Worker and the editor of the Catholic Worker newspaper and for me, he leaves us two highly relevant lessons for our contemporary situation today, particularly in relation to what form our solidarity with movements such as BLM should take.   Deacon Tom Cornell once said - “The Civil Rights movement came to a head in 1965 and we had been involved in that consistently, all the way through but never in leadership positions, that would be inappropriate for white people, but when black people asked us and invited us, we go, we go all out!”   For me, this is the template for solidarity...

  ‘In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant He's made his way down to the dark riverside He made his home there by the dark riverside The city sprang from the dark river Thames They made their home there down by the riverside The city sprang up from the dark mud of the Thames ’   The Liberty Of Norton Folgate by Madness   I’ve been spending both long and short periods of time in London for over 40 years, since I was five years old and each time I’m in the city for work or to visit friends and family, the place seems to change, sometimes in small ways and sometimes with seismic shifts. This is especially true of my beloved East End, not least in the stark difference between West Ham’s futuristic London stadium and the club’s old gaff at Upton Park, of blessed memory.   Indeed, since the recent London Olympics, parts of Whitechapel, Silvertown, Limehouse, Poplar, Bethnal Green, Stratford, Canary Wharf and Deptford are almost unrecognisable. A s...

Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis has the prospect of a nuclear war, seemed more likely. Yet, to look at our international peace movement today, you could be forgiven for being unaware of the fact that Putin’s botched invasion of Ukraine has now put us on a terrifying trajectory towards the deployment of nuclear warheads.  Indeed, quite a wee bit of effort is required to find any significant statement of solidarity with the Ukrainian people facing the very real possibility of a nuclear strike or any significant criticism of Russia on the official websites and social media accounts of a few prominent anti-war and anti-nuclear groups.    In fact, a quick scan of some major peace organisations media suggests that we are campaigning on, and talking about, pretty much everything, apart from the prospect of a nuclear strike from Russia. To paraphrase Topol from Fiddler on the Roof: You may ask; where are the mass demonstrations and huge peace marches through our major capital ...

You may have seen the recent statement from a Church spokesperson urging Scottish Catholics to “examine their financial priorities,” noting our financial contributions to the church versus other expenditures, stating “If someone spends more on Netflix subscriptions each month than they donate to their community, then a financial reality check is probably in order”. Personally, I am not a huge fan of Netflix but I do enjoy Disney+ because it contains all the Star Wars movies and every single Star Wars TV series episode. Plus, I’ve always felt Star Wars has something interesting to say about faith and religion.   Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing worse than all those endless lame attempts to make the Star Wars franchise about Catholicism, as a way to make the faith seem cool and appealing to the kids. You know the type of thing; ‘Oh the Jedi knights are just like Franciscans’ or ‘In a way The Force is just like the Holy Spirit’, and so on.   Having said al...

‘So wickedly, so devilishly false  is that common objection: They are only poor because they are that idle’ John Wesley   Way back in 2007 I climbed Ben Nevis with my wife’s cousin Chris and her Uncle Samuel (our youngest son is also named Samuel) from South Shields and a great bunch of lads from Newcastle, who were raising money for a local charity.  It was wonderful day out and we had a brilliant laugh. I still recall some of the banter as we were half way up the mountain, with some other lads wearing Sunderland shirts, who appeared out the mist, on their way back down. It was all quite surreal! If you look at the photographs below, you’ll notice I’m the only person wearing actual hiking gear, the Geordie boys just rocked up in the morning wearing t-shirts, Newcastle shirts, shorts and trainers, to climb Brtian’s highest mountain...which still had snow on the summit at that time of the year. Regardless, they all still made it to the top with ease, despite absolutely can...