What a national anthem!

I've heard lots of people slag off "God Save the Queen" for a variety of reasons.

Some people say it's boring, that no-one knows the words; others that it's too pro-monarchy. But watching the nation's top athletes blasting it out with tears running down their faces would surely move the hardest of hearts.

Having said that, Jamaica's sprinters haven't just wowed me on the track - their national anthem made me really stop and listen; not because the tune is the catchiest I've ever heard (that accolade surely has to go to the Italians), but because the words were so profound.

Jamaica

Eternal father, bless our land

Guide us with thy mighty hand

Keep us free from evil powers

Be our light through countless hours

To our leaders, Great Defender

Grant true wisdom from above

Justice, truth be ours forever

Jamaica, land we love

Teach us true respect for all

Stir response to duty's call

Strengthen us the weak to cherish

Give us vision lest we perish

Knowledge send us, Heavenly Father

Grant true wisdom from above

Justice, truth be ours forever

Jamaica, land we love

An anthem that asks for God's guidance? That teaches respect and care for the poor? A song that calls for wisdom and truth? That's amazing! No wonder they absolutely smashed it!

I wonder whether there's any link between the global impact the two relay runners that sang it out - Bolt and Blake - have had compared with their incredibly successful, but relatively unknown teammates - Carter and Frater. 

You may think this is a completely ridiculous observation, and it definitely helps that they are such great sportsmen and personalities, but I truly believe that God honours those who honour Him (1 Samuel 2:30). 

And as every football fan knows, you only win when you're singing... Or is it the other way round? :)

Big Brother meets the East Africa food crisis

Guest blog with Tearfund's integral mission director and Sorted columnist, David Westlake.

My assistant tends to throw books at my head. Not literally. Once in a while she’ll put a book in front of me - still warm from her speed read, utter the words “just read this”, and swoosh back to her desk.

The Hunger Games was one of those books.

Set in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian future of what was North America, the country of Panem has risen from the ashes. But districts around its Capitol are starving and dying. Children are forced to skip school to find food and become heads of families when their parents are too sick to care for them. To prevent another uprising, the Capitol holds an annual event where they choose a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district and force them to fight to the death for prizes of food as the whole country watches.

These characters are absolutely defined by their hunger; the relationships between characters; the heroine’s motivation for volunteering for the games; and her need to survive in the arena - all defined by food.

So I’m trying to figure out what it is about this book that makes it so engaging, so believable. And then I get it.

The Hunger Games tells a story of a future that doesn’t exist... yet.  But themes of hunger, violence and poverty do exist, right now, in countries all over the world.

One in seven people go to bed hungry every single night. That’s a billion individuals made in the image of God. The rising costs of food, changes in climate, corrupt governments and many other factors mean that we see hunger crises in some of the poorest communities in the world time and time again.

In The Hunger Games, the Capitol is disconnected from this, many unaware of or indifferent to the plight of the districts throughout the rest of the country. For them, everyday life remains untainted by hunger and wanting. It consumes far beyond what is necessary while those outside its walls fight for their lives.

It begs the question: if The Hunger Games was real, who would ‘the Capitol’ represent?

The book reminds us that we cannot be indifferent towards the injustices that cause hunger, and now that it is eating into the cultural zeitgeist for all to see, it cannot be ignored.

So what do we do about it? What does this mean for us as Christians? How can we still care for the last, the least and the lost when the situation seems so overwhelmingly impossible?

We start in prayer to our God of unending possibility; praying that God would provide and asking him to give our governments and leaders the wisdom and power to make the changes that will give a billion people on our planet a future and a hope, released from the shackles of hunger. It’s also important to pray for the work of organisations such as Tearfund that they would be effective in helping people lift themselves out of poverty. And finally, we should pray that God would change us, to help us see the world the way He wants us to, and to seek out justice and change.

The Church needs to lead the way in a social revolution that sees people make lifestyle changes in a world of increasing population and finite resources, ensuring that all who are made in the image of God are treated equally.

Read the book, watch the film (just launched in cinemas), and get engaged in the brilliantly told story. But let’s not dismiss The Hunger Games as a fictional would-be future. Let’s remember how very real this situation is for so many, and let’s pray, reflect and act to end the real hunger ‘games’ in our world.

Click here to find out more about Tearfund's hunger games campaign.

Is rioting ever right?

 The cleanup begins

“A riot is the language of the unheard” (Martin Luther King, Jr)

Unless you’ve been asleep for the last few days, you’ll know there have been some serious riots in London. Violence has been rife, homes have been burnt down and shops have been looted. Judging by the pictures, parts of our glorious capital now look like a war zone.

However, I’m ashamed to say that I felt somewhat removed from the situation until I heard the trouble was spreading to other parts of the UK. Enjoying a quiet cup of tea in bed this morning I was shocked to see that rioting had been happening round the corner from me in Liverpool.

Don’t get me wrong, I was saddened and angered the minute I saw these louts destroying people’s homes, endangering lives and demolishing business owners’ livelihoods.

But it certainly makes you sit up and take note when it’s your own community that’s under attack. When the family business you buy flowers from is broken into, when your friend’s car is set alight, when people are afraid to leave their homes.

“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it” Malcolm X

The trouble started after the controversial shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham. I won’t go into the rights and wrongs of it here as I don’t know all the facts, but friends and family of the young father-of-four felt an injustice had taken place and decided to stage a protest. And that’s when the mayhem started…

So were family members wrong to stand up for what they believed? Should we do nothing when we sense unfairness and discrimination? Absolutely not. Jesus himself took a whip into the temple where corruption was rife. He turned over tables and literally chased moneylenders out of the building (John 2:15).

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well” Mohandas Ghandi

So should we all grab our baseball bats and lighters and join the ‘party’? Again, absolutely not. The rioting has nothing to do with Mr Duggan. It has nothing to do with the grief of his loved ones. It’s not about politics or even racism (which prompted these provocative quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X).

It is purely about destruction and theft. It’s about anarchy and attacking the police. It’s about tearing down everything we as communities have worked hard to build; about stealing a piece of carpet while the flats above the shop light up the skies.

I imagine some of these ‘kids’ have been sitting around waiting for this moment, for any old excuse to make their mark, to move from a futile existence to a wrongly perceived position of power.

It’s easy to feel angry about what they’re doing, and we should. But we should also be asking ourselves why they are behaving like this? What is missing from their lives?

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programmes of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom” Martin Luther King, Jr

Rather than tripping ourselves up on our soap boxes, we need to show these people that enough’s enough. But meeting violence with violence is not the solution. We need to do more than talk about a ‘Big Society’; we need to get out there, clean up the mess and restore people’s hope.

Civil unrest is a symptom of a broken society and as Christians we can – and should – help to fix it. That might mean getting involved in community cleanup or letting a friend sleep on the couch for a few days. 

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” Jesus Christ

We need to meet people in practical ways, right where they are. But we also need to meet their spiritual needs.

The only way people will experience true freedom and fulfilment is by understanding that God has a purpose for their lives (Jeremiah 29:11) and that he loves them enough to sacrifice his only son (John 3:16) so that they can not only live, but live life to the absolute full (John 10:10).

Stealing a mobile phone might give the looters a day or two of pleasure, but hearing this good news has the power to change their lives forever.

Read more about this 'good news' in the next issue of Sorted magazine.

(On a slightly lighter note, this made me chuckle. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse: the niftiest looter in town.)