As we make our act of remembrance today we do so in a society and a world which needs good leaders. People who will not shrink from difficult decisions in government and economics, and conflict, who will embrace the realities, grapple with the complexities, act on conviction – people of all generations who can help and influence others along the way. Leaders like you and me.
Especially we need leaders (parents, grandparents, friends, neighbours) who can teach deep values to others, especially the young, who may be in the dark about such things: in a recently-published book on just war, the former defence advisor and leading public Christian David Fisher argues (along with General Lord Dannatt) that many modern soldiers have had little prior education in religion or morality: he says that "It was striking how Lynndie England, one of the participants in the Abu Ghraib abuses, claimed in her defence that she had assumed the abusive practices were acceptable because no one had told her otherwise."
In search of leadership in a time of darkness – my offering for Remembrance Sunday's services, with the Parable of the Talents as a conversation-starter on the subject of leadership. The quote comes from a book review in the Church Times this week, of David Fisher, Morality and War: Can war be just in the twenty-first century?.
