God and the Gangs

Went to see Bishop Joe Aldred launch a report into the church and disorder last night. It is a fine report bringing up many issues of relevance, questioning the church and our attitudes to young people, challenging the police and challenging the government. But it didn't go far enough by far.

It didn't look at policies that have resulted in huge increases in youth homelessness, the severe lack of social housing. It didn't look at poor education or poor work opportunities. It didn't link the attitudes of young men to violence to the attitude of our government that bombs countries we want to take resources from. It didn't tackle the biggest knife crime problem in Bradford - domestic violence against women.

Yes, the church can play an active part in mentoring young people, yes we can work collaboratively with local police and youth services. None of this means we shouldn't prophetically lift our voices against the policies of a government that leads to youth criminality.

Pray against crime, but more crucially about the real causes of crime.

The two highlights of the night were 1)the spotlighting that Jesus was a gang leader, and 2)my lift home from a lovely police officer. A young Asian man was gesticulating to us, and the police officer wound down his window to ask him what was his problem. We were driving the wrong way down a one way street.