Nurture, Nature and Personal Responsibility

I haven't posted for a few days, because our five-week-old son has been ill and it's consumed so much of our time. During that time it's been amazing to notice how there are signs of his personality even at this early age. We've noticed this largely by comparison with his big sister. He seems very jumpy in contrast to her. A mere cough and he will be out of his skin. You can creep up on her from behind and surprise her but she won't be fazed. She is like her mum, he is like his dad.

It's made me realise something about the givenness of personality. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator claims that you basically always have the same personality. This stuff points to the 'nature' side of things.

At the same time I've been acutely aware for years that 'nurture' - our environment, our upbringing and so on - has major effects on us. I know it in my own life. I have seen it in others. So I actually believe that nature and nurture are both important in understanding the human condition. It's not either/or, it's both/and.

The one thing I find frequently missing from the debate is personal responsibility. We may not be able to help our nature, or the things around us in our environment that have either a beneficial or a deleterious effect upon us, but some people then use those things to steer the blame for things away from themselves. Have we lost all notion of personal responsibility? I may not be responsible for how I am made and I may not be able to help my environment and my upbringing, but surely I am still responsible for my choices, responses and actions. It's convenient to pass the blame, but if we give away the notion of personal responsibility we might just as well live by the law of the jungle.

How stupid is the Church of England?

A preliminary comment: a church I work with is both Church of England and Methodist. For property matters we follow C of E rules. Any changes to the building you have to get a 'faculty' from Rochester Diocese. Even if you want to paint the walls a different colour.

Now we've wanted to make some changes to a little side chapel. They came back with one criticism. The table is not high enough if we want to have Holy Communion. We need a bigger table or to extend the legs. You can put coffee on it, but not bread and wine. The logic seems to be that the minister must stand when presiding at Communion.

At which point I say, hang on. When Jesus institued the 'Lord's Supper' he was reclining at a typical low Jewish table. He was lying down, resting on his left elbow, while using his right hand to feed. So what was good enough for Jesus isn't good enough for the C of E.

Is it any wonder the world thinks we Christians are barking?

Test message #5

Well, some messing about in the HTML code has led to some of the changes I wanted to make. Now let's see whether this message appears properly.

Yet another test message

Still trying to overcome technical difficulties. Watch this space - hopefully.

Test message

It's been a long time. Sorry about that. Technical problems that I still haven't completely solved. In the meantime I also have another blog that I'm running for the time being. And there's also my main website.

I'll get back here as soon as I can.

Another test message

My last test message didn't appear. Here's another go.

Test Message

Things have been going wrong at my end, blogwise. I also have another Big Circumstance blog on the go, since I've had trouble with Blogger settings. Probably my fault. When I can solve these, I'll get this running again.