'SPARE RIB' LADY DENOUNCES SEXUAL REVOLUTION

This first appeared on the US-based orthodox Anglican news service, VirtueOnline:

In 1971, the feminist campaigner Rosie Boycott co-founded Spare Rib, the first magazine in Britain devoted to women's liberation. Its name was a deliberate play on the account in Genesis 2 of Eve’s creation from the rib that the Lord God took out of Adam’s side. The message was clear: Christian Britain demeaned women.

This week Ms Boycott, who edited two national newspapers in the 1990s here in the UK, wrote a hard-hitting article in the Daily Mail denouncing the sexual revolution. In her own words, she had a 'ringside seat' at the start of it as a 17-year-old in 1968:

As a feminist, people are often surprised when I say that casual sex can be damaging, but as the years have gone by, I know that life is much more fulfilling when it is shared with someone, with respect and trust at its heart. Besides, as I have said, promiscuity certainly isn't what feminism set out to achieve.

Her conclusion is startling:

Now, nearly 40 years on, it would seem that although so much has changed, attitudes to sex are subjugating women every bit as much as the old-fashioned misogyny of the past.

She argues that sexual promiscuity among young women ‘is largely the result of peer pressure and what they perceive as society's expectations’:

Take, as one example, the daughter of a friend of mine. Alice told me that although only 22 years old she has already had 17 lovers.

Alice explains: 'I went to private day school in London and lost my virginity at 15 - one of the oldest girls in my class to do so. My friends would compare notes on Monday mornings and I started to feel as though I was a throwback.

'Being a virgin implied no one wanted me and I felt anxious and unattractive. So much so that I decided to sleep with a boy who'd been pursuing me for ages. Then, one wasn't enough and I began sleeping around.

'It didn't make me feel good and I would find myself in tears after yet another night with someone I didn't know well. It was years before I realised that real love begins with friendship, with shared values and respect.'

The Christian Church in the West faces the task of demonstrating that real love is to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ and that relationships of shared values and respect are rooted in His saving truth.

RICHARD ASHCROFT'S 'BORN AGAIN' BEYOND UK CULTURE

Cancelled my subscription to the resurrection, love is the law, pure perfection, I’m born again, yeah.

So sings Richard Ashcroft in his latest record, Born Again, backed by his new band The United Nations of Sound.

Mr Ashcroft’s point, if Cranmer's Curate understands it correctly, is a subtle one. The former lead singer of 1990s' rock group The Verve understands but rejects the clear New Testament link between the resurrection of Christ and spiritual new birth, as expressed for example by the Apostle Peter:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1v3 - ESV).

Mr Ashcroft seems to be saying that he no longer requires that New Testament nexus between the bodily resurrection of Christ and the new birth, because the pure and perfect law of love is the power that enables him to be ‘born again’. Clearly, orthodox Christians, who believe in the centrality of the bodily resurrection of Christ to the spiritual regeneration of the believer, are profoundly at variance with Mr Ashcroft’s spirituality here.

In the United States, with its far higher rates of church-going and Sunday school attendance compared with the UK, the record-buying public would surely be more likely to understand Mr Ashcroft’s meaning and many would be able to express disagreement with it. But how on earth can people in the UK be expected to get it, let alone agree or disagree with it?

An interesting question for a vox pop outside the local HMV would be: what do you think Richard Ashcroft is on about?

With the irrelevance of the Church to most of the UK population and the expulsion of the Bible from UK schools since the 1960s, surely 'sorry I haven't a clue' would be the likely answer from the overwhelming majority of respondents under the age of, at least, 65.

SIDELINING PAUL LEADS TO DISASTER

The Church cannot afford to dispense with the Apostle Paul whatever the cultural climate. At a time when the cultures of the 1st century Roman Empire and 21st century Western civilisation, in its late-middle-aged decadence, are converging, it is astonishing that the older Protestant denominations in the English-speaking world feel free to sit loose to Paul.

This struck Cranmer’s Curate forcibly in the course of his daily Bible reading, currently journeying through Isaiah in the Old Testament and Romans in the New. Paul’s words in Romans 13 brought home the indispensability of his apostolic authority to the Church in every cultural climate in the last days:

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (Romans 13v11-14 – ESV).

Because the author of these words is an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ writing Holy Spirit-inspired Scripture, they should be obeyed without disputation by any professing Christian. Unless a deliberate decision to obey them is taken in dependence upon God's Holy Spirit, any fallen human being is capable of taking part in the 'nots in' Paul specifically mentions in v13.

So what is likely to happen when a professing Christian makes a deliberate decision to dismiss Paul’s commands as purely culturally conditioned and not authoritative for the Church in every century? The Protestant Churches in the West have already done that in relation to Paul’s teaching on male headship and are increasingly doing so on sexual ethics.

When a professing Christian deliberately sidelines Paul to the 1st century he or she becomes vulnerable to the very activities Paul warns against in Romans 13v13 and the list does not make pretty reading. That vulnerability is exacerbated when these activities become commonplace in a particular culture.

It surely will not be long before a prominent church leader in one of the liberal denominations finds compromising photographs of him or herself in a tabloid newspaper. Furthermore, churches in which Paul is being sidelined are likely to be places where there are serious abuses of power because the human tendency to quarrelling and jealousy is not being resisted in the power of the Holy Spirit.

There are lurid and shameful consequences of refusing to listen to Paul.

NEED TO MOVE FAST ON REFORM SOCIETY

The news that Reform wants actively to explore the possibility of creating a 'Society’ within the Church of England with its own bishops is hugely welcome. But the respected orthodox opinion former who rang Cranmer's Curate in the light of the news is absolutely right: there is the need to move on this now.

This gentleman believes it is romantic to think that the women bishops measure will get thrown out by the General Synod in 2012 on the ground that it is without adequate provision for orthodox opponents. He is surely right. Whilst there is a generous desire to accommodate opponents in the General Synod, the majority is not going to sacrifice a measure it earnestly wants on the altar of comprehensiveness.

Certainly, there are political complications surrounding the establishment of a new Society. Since the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), held in Jerusalem in 2008 as an orthodox alternative to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Conference, Reform has been working more closely with Anglo-Catholics and Charismatics within the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA UK). So, inevitably the perceived need to move together with co-belligerents makes decisive action more difficult.

But there is no practical reason why the Society, made up initially of a group of around 20 GAFCON-supporting churches, should not be set up before 2012. There are existing bishops in the UK who could already provide episcopal oversight for clergy and churches in the network, but it would be advisable to arrange for the consecration of some new conservative missionary bishops to serve alongside them. That would be a clear demonstration that the new Society means business.

The situation is patchy in the Church of England. If the new bishops consecrated are licence holders, their diocesans may move against them; some may turn a blind eye; others may invite them to join the senior staff for a civilised luncheon at the bishop's favourite hostelry.

But whether the likely reception is nasty or nice, an Oxbridge college old alumni mentality must not paralyse action. Christ's mission in and through local churches is at stake. We cannot afford to play games with the local church. There is a real danger that good local churches could be dragged down by an institution fast spiralling into TEC-scale wickedness.

A Reform/FCA mission society could feasibly be set up in the UK by Christmas with at least two new conservative evangelical bishops consecrated to provide support.

Cranmer's Curate urges the youth group to pray that conservative evangelical local churches in the Church of England that are seeing positive spiritual growth would be both safeguarded and strengthened to be pillars and bulwarks for Christ's saving truth in their communities.

REASONS NOT TO BE BIG ON BISHOPS

Conservative evangelical objections to women bishops centre around the biblical principle of male headship in the family and the church and also on the perceived inappropriateness of having a ministry review with a female bishop. But the reality is that our constituency is not big on bishops of either sex.

The 2007 Pilling report to the General Synod on senior appointments pointed out that conservative evangelicals are significantly under-represented in the episcopate, but it also very perceptively expressed the problems for conservative evangelicals themselves in holding senior appointments. Here are six reasons why this conservative evangelical does not want to be a bishop, even if he had the necessary leadership ability, which he does not:

• The expectation of collegiality with those who in New Testament terms are preaching another gospel. That problem presents itself for a conservative evangelical bishop both within the hierarchy of the Church of England centrally and within the senior staff team of his diocese. In such a context, how practically could an honest evangelical conscience go about distancing itself from false teachers?

• Not being part of a local church. Conservative evangelicals are passionately committed to the local church, which biblically is the local manifestation of the body of Christ. To have to exercise an itinerant ministry from go as a diocesan bishop, detached from the support of a local church family in which he is known and loved, would be spiritually impoverishing.

• The deeply entrenched fact of unbiblical patterns of women’s ministry in the Church of England. In the unlikely event that a conservative evangelical opponent of women presbyters were appointed a diocesan bishop, the fact of women as incumbents of local churches is now widespread in the Church of England. Soon the majority of parochial clergy will be women. How could a conservative evangelical bishop who believes that male headship is commanded by God for the good of the local church work round that reality?

• The expectation that theological diversity is a thing to be celebrated in a diocese. How could a genuine conservative evangelical who believes in the 39 Articles cope with some of the things that are being done in local churches under the Anglican label? He is even expected to collude with these practices when he takes confirmations and other services in local churches.

• The expectation that he will join the establishment club and hob-knob with the great and the good. The great and the good these days are politically correct. How could an honest evangelical conscience collude with such a profoundly anti-Christian ideology?

• The expectation that he will participate in inter-faith events. Public occasions at which a Church of England bishop is expected to be involved, including his own consecration, these days often if not usually have a multi-faith flavour. A gospel-hearted evangelical could not refrain from calling upon the representatives of other faith groups, including any Sea of Faith adherents in the Cathedral, to repent of their idolatry and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Name given under heaven among men by whom we must be saved, as Article 18 affirms. Arguably, being a bishop gives him a platform to do that. But the pressure to fit into an existing framework of inter-faith relationships based on philosophical pluralism militates against that.

REDEMPTION IS CHRIST'S BUSINESS NOT CAESAR'S

Underlying the sense that prison is not working is the question whether Caesar's job is to punish criminals or rehabilitate them. He could find the Church of England's historic liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), enlightening if challenging to his liberal presuppositions.

The BCP is crystal clear as to the State’s job in relation to criminals. Reflecting the teaching of the New Testament that the State is 'the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil' (Romans 13v4 - AV), it includes the following intercession at Holy Communion: 'And grant unto her (the Queen’s) whole council, and to all that are put in authority under her, that they may truly and indifferently (impartially) minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness of vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue'.

The theology of the Church of England's 39 Articles of Religion, which underpins the BCP, is clear that the ‘true religion’ being referred to there is the evangelical Christian one.

Caesar cannot rehabilitate people. He should leave redemption to Christ. His job is properly to punish those who offend against the life and property of members of the public. Only the grace of God can change individuals’ moral inclinations, whether the special grace of God in spiritual regeneration through faith in Jesus Christ or the common grace of God, active when criminals come to realise that they are better off being law-abiding.

The State, when it fulfils its God-given function, can assist the operation of the special and the common grace of God by magnifying the spectre of the consequences if any of us is tempted to commit crime.

In a nutsell, Caesar needs to regain the moral confidence to put the fear of God into potential criminals and to execute His justice upon those who do commit crime. Essential to that is the restoration of capital punishment for murderers.

But for other offenders prison could work if the experience was unpleasant – not brutal but grim. The Victorians criticised by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke may have erred towards brutality, though that was the century in which Christian-inspired penal reform made considerable progress.

The Victorians, instructed by the BCP when on their knees, got the grim bit right and that is one of the reasons why in the first six decades of the 20th century Britain was a low-crime society.

ANDROGYNY IS DISTRESSING SOCIETY

The women bishops' debate at the General Synod sparked a discussion on this morning's Toby Foster Bigger at Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Sheffield about whether religion has a place in 2010. Cranmer's Curate, who was invited to take part, tried to make the point that the Church best serves society when it is being faithful to its counter-cultural convictions.

It is worth reflecting on the damage feminism, and the behavioural androgyny to which it has given birth, has inflicted on British society since the 1960s:

• House prices have become unaffordable for many because of the impact of double incomes. The pre-1960s practice of women being required to give up their jobs when they got married certainly helped to keep house prices lower in relation to average incomes.

• Social and financial pressure on young mothers to return to work causes distress to themselves and denies babies and toddlers proper emotional engagement with their mothers at a crucial developmental stage. Institutional supervision is no substitute for a mother's love.

• Young women growing up are increasingly without positive female role models resulting in an upsurge of teenage pregnancy, binge drinking and the laddette culture. In pre-1960s' Britain mothers were substantial figures with significant moral authority.

• Marriage has been destabilised because men are being discouraged from giving a lead and women are being discouraged from taking one.

• British society is less capable of producing outstanding women such as Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse, who were products of Christian Britain.

• The education system has been skewed against boys in favour of girls. This is going to cause huge social problems in the disenfranchisement of young men in employment, in family life and in wider society in the future.

With such obvious social problems caused to a significant extent by 1960s' feminist ideology, Christ's servants should surely be more, not less, confident to stand up for the God-created complementarity of the sexes in the teeth of fashionable androgyny.

FEMINIST CAREERISM SINKS CIVILISED SYNOD COMPROMISE

The House of Clergy in the General Synod is now dominated by politically-correct activists who are thoroughly sold to the careerist feminist agenda. That is clear from their decision to sink the attempt by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to prevent traditionalist clergy and parishes from being driven out of the Church of England by the women bishops' legislation.

The two Archbishops in bringing forward their amendment showed themselves to be generous and civilised men. A Conservative Evangelical such as Cranmer's Curate must acknowledge that.

In rejecting their amendment, the House of Clergy showed themselves to be neither.

The prevailing zeitgeist was summarised neatly by the Venerable Christine Allsopp, Archdeacon of Northampton. She told the synod she was 'dismayed' by the compromise being put:

We recognise their good intentions in trying to help us all to hold together but I do not believe that this is good news, I do not believe that this will deliver and it is certainly not good news for women clergy.

Not only is that comment profoundly condescending but it also reveals that a vested interest was being pursued in the drive to sink the Archbishops' amendment: it is not good for women clergy.

Clergy are supposed to be servants of Christ and of His people. We are not meant to be thinking about what is good for us from a career point of view.

That comment shows that the drive for women bishops is basically about careerism rather than about self-sacrificial Christian service that walks in the way of the cross of Christ.

TIME FOR A SABBATICAL FROM SABBATICALS?

‘I’m on sabbatical’, announces a clergyman or woman six or seven years into their first incumbency. An internet search of diocesan guidelines on sabbaticals for stipendiary clergy reveals some variations, but it is certainly the case that many clergy are taking a three-month break from their normal duties on full pay every seven to ten years of ordained ministry.

Even without the current swingeing spending cuts leading to widespread job losses for quota-payers in the parishes, there are questions over breaks of this length in addition to annual holiday entitlement. Try telling your secular employer that you would like a three-month paid break to putter about in a library and then go off on an overseas tour for a month.

A clerical practice pertaining to the university teaching profession is somewhat mystifying. Front-line clergy are not university lecturers. The sabbatical does seem to be a throwback to the time when Anglican clergy controlled Oxbridge before the Liberal reforms to university education in the 19th century.

There is also a question mark over the precise relationship of the sabbatical to annual holiday entitlement and whether a holiday being tagged on leads to an even longer absence.

Cranmer's Curate is very far from being even moderately a clerical William Gladstone but he would like to suggest a reform. Across the Church of England, all clergy would be entitled to three weeks’ paid study leave every seven years of ordained ministry (with the first three years of the curacy out of the reckoning). Normally, clergy would be expected not to take their leave in the first five years of their current post, though there does need to be some flexibility on this because of the growth of shorter-term licences due to fresh expressions.

There is a case to be made that the senior staff of dioceses and the incumbents of larger churches, who have staff teams to manage and other complexities, should be allowed longer, say four or even six weeks every seven years. But for those of us ministering in churches with fewer than 100 adults on a normal Sunday (the bulk of the Church of England), a 21-day break in addition to 36 days' holiday entitlement is hardly a cause for complaint.

It would not take away from bishops' discretion in certain hard cases of clergy stress, which can hit clergy in churches of all shapes and sizes. That problem can be alleviated by a more robust early response by bishops to vexatious complainants and mission-blockers in the parishes rather than necessarily by suggesting a break.

But the abolition of the rather fluid sabbatical and its replacement with a fixed period of study leave, taken separately from annual holiday entitlement, would introduce much more consistency and transparency into the business of clergy rightly filling up their petrol tanks for the long haul.

At the moment, it does seem to be left to the whim of the individual bishop to whom the clergyperson presents a sabbatical programme. In one notorious case, a vicar went off sailing for several weeks.

Is the time now right for a sabbatical from sabbaticals? The challenges of ministry in post-Christian Britain are such that the cause of Christ is arguably ill-served by his servants appearing to disport themselves like 19th century clerical gentlemen.

WORLD OF 'REV' LIKES EMPTY CHURCHES

Embarrassing though last night's 'Rev' was to watch, the BBC 2 sitcom about an urban Anglican vicar was instructive.

Trendy Evangelical vicar Darren, who uses Rev's church for his thriving congregation of smoothie-drinking, rapping yuppies whilst his building is being renovated, was portrayed as a monster - arrogant, theologically superficial and of course homophobic.

Rev manages to get rid of him after a bottom-pinching incident by the host church's resident tramp. Evangelical Darren demands exclusion of tramp; liberal Rev, who can't stand the Evangelical's 'certainty', stands by the bottom-pincher, backed by the slimy archdeacon.

Evangelical Darren storms out with a nasty comment about money.

Rev's church reverts to a tiny congregation warbling hymns.

The whole episode shows that the world likes empty churches. Yes, they may be ridiculous, but at least they're not confident about Christian faith and morals.

Of course, we Evangelicals should not be big-headed and crass. But equally we should not apologise for wanting to see churches full of people absorbing the Word of God and praising the Lord Jesus Christ.

JEFFREY JOHN IN SOUTHWARK SPELLS 'LET'S ROLL'

If Dr Jeffrey John is appointed bishop of Southwark, confessing Anglicans in south London would be justified in appealing to an orthodox overseas Archbishop to provide them with alternative episcopal oversight.

Orthodox intervention against the revisionist agenda in other Provinces may be perceived as procedurally equivalent to the appointment by those Provinces of bishops who oppose the teaching of the New Testament. But spiritually and morally there is no equivalence whatsoever.

Resisting the Philistine rule of the revisionist agenda in the form of providing alternative episcopal oversight is surely the godly course of action. As Roman Catholic journalist and blogger Damian Thompson has pointed out, Dr John 'strongly opposes Catholic moral teaching'.

Dr John, if appointed, would not be the only Anglican bishop to oppose that which underpins the moral teaching of the Catholic Church, namely the plain teaching of Holy Scripture. But that only serves to reinforce the point that alternative episcopal oversight may be needed in other dioceses with revisionist bishops.

The fact that Dr John is in a civil partnership is highly significant. That his relationship is said to be 'celibate' does not negate the fact that civil partnerships were introduced by New Labour to institutionalise in UK law that which the Bible forbids.

Our brothers and sisters in Southwark need our prayers in these very difficult days. Dr John has the support of the politically-correct establishment running the UK. The 'beast' of secular power would thus be with him in Southwark and against Christ's servants.

The Clergy Discipline Measure would very likely be deployed against orthodox parochial clergy who refused to have anything to do with a false teacher such as Dr John. Those front-line clergy who are determined to protect Christ's sheep against the wolves deserve the support, and especially the financial backing, of those of us ministering in more comfortable situations.

There may well be the need to purchase housing for clergy serving confessing Anglican congregations in south London.

This could well be the time for the confessing Anglican enactment of 9/11 hero Todd Beamer's famous exhortation: 'Let's roll.'

CHUCK COLSON IS RIGHT: THE STATE IS PLAYING GOD

Chuck Colson is right: the politically-correct establishment in the once Christian West thinks the right to worship and serve the living God is conferred by them.

In an urgent alert to Christian journalists and bloggers, Mr Colson warns:

You need to know about what may be one of the gravest, most insidious threats to religious freedom I've seen in my lifetime: What may be an attempt, at the very highest levels of government, to RE-DEFINE the very meaning of religious freedom, from "free exercise" to merely private worship.

If what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech at Georgetown University reflects a new direction in government policy, then mark my words, our religious liberties are in peril.

That distinction between freedom of religion and freedom of worship, highlighted by Mr Colson, is a vitally important one. Mr Colson hits the nail bang on the head when he says that an Islamic dictatorship such as Saudi Arabia allows freedom of worship – Christians meeting in private – but it will not allow Bibles and church buildings. It will not allow the truth of God out in the public square.

The politically-correct activists running the US and increasingly the UK think government is god and that government action is free of the original sin that taints the actions of private individuals without state supervision. Graciously, the PC state may confer on believers the right of worship, provided we keep our counter-cultural opinions to ourselves.

Political correctness is thus a Westernised version of Islam. It wants to control everything because it thinks it has a monopoly of the truth.

President Nixon’s former enforcer understands how power works. We need to listen to him, but more importantly we need to listen to the New Testament.

The book of Revelation describes the ministry of the two witnesses in chapter 11. There are two of them because biblically two witnesses are required to verify the truth of a matter (cf Deuteronomy 19v15). These witnesses in Revelation symbolise the Church of Jesus Christ in its prophetic calling.

Here is how the beast, symbolising deified secular power, treats them:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overwhelm them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified (Revelation 11v7-8 – Authorised Version).

Our calling to speak the truth of God does not derive from the state; it derives from the living God. So the Church must speak out publicly and openly for freedom of religion in the street of the great city, not merely plead for freedom of worship behind closed doors. The result of so doing is that we get treated as God Incarnate was when He came to the city and told the truth.

COMBAT FITNESS IN THEOLOGICAL TRAINING

Cranmer's Curate recently did a ‘ministry focus’ morning at one of the evangelical theological colleges in the south of England. The brief was a little unclear and he believes the first- and second-year students present may have been expecting him to debate with them the merits and demerits of large church evangelicalism at a theoretical level.

Instead, your curate got practical and spoke about the opportunities and challenges of gospel ministry in the smaller parish church. As a denomination the Church of England has quite a lot – in fact a growing number - of churches with fewer than 60 adults on a normal Sunday, such as the one cc is privileged to serve.

He tried to make the point that a good proportion of the ordinands in the room could well find themselves incumbents of such churches in five or six years’ time, assuming a four-year curacy.

Whilst cc was describing some of the ministry situations he has experienced in a small turnaround church, including some unfortunate manifestations of fallen human nature, he got a distinct sense that this was not landing very well with some in the room. Some were engaging with the realities, but there seemed to be a firewall in the minds of others.

Their expectations of ministry did not seem able to accommodate the realities cc was trying to describe. Two were manifestly not listening and appeared to be playing on a computer at the back of the room; there was a look of incredulity on one female ordinand's face during the entire session, as if a dinosaur had walked into the room; and, though cc may be mistaken in this impression, the numbers did look thinner after the coffee break.

‘What are you in such a situation?’ cc asked, to a bewildered silence. ‘Vulnerable - that’s what you are.’

Your curate mentioned the reaction to the Principal, who is an outstanding Christian leader and is doing a tremendous job at the theological college concerned. He said that his students needed to learn the realities.

Residential theological training should be safeguarded and ordinands need to make the most of the time to do some serious study and book learning. But the challenges of ministry in post-Christian Britain are such that the gap between the academy and the parish could do with being narrowed.

The Apostle Paul urged Timothy, whom he had put in pastoral charge of the turbulent church at Ephesus, to ‘share in suffering as good soldier of Christ Jesus’ (2 Timothy 2v3 – RSV). A theological college experience that is more like a Rotary Club residential for sixth formers than a military training camp is surely not adequately preparing the ministers of the future.