Thursday, September 18, 2003
Following on from last night, what appears to be The Eden Project homepage. The group that were in the program last night are mentioned, somewhat briefly, here.
If I were writing for the Daily Telegraph I could probably fill out the requisite number of words complaining about perceived bias in that film, but it's hard to say what the truth of the matter is. The two girls who joined the project early on and who's video diaries we saw through the show didn't appear to be getting any kind of pastoral support at all. We didn't see them going to any church or church-kind of meeting, neither did they seem to have any contact with the people running the group except when, as I mentioned, the woman running it gave one of them a lift home after they'd been suspended from school. As they drove to her house she asked God to help the girl sort her problems out and when she got a text message later to say that the girl's mother hadn't grounded her for being suspended she seemed to think that was God's grace in action and that the job was done.
So where is the support? I'm not particularly keen on church meetings, especially the more radical wings, as they tend to reinforce what might be unhealthy norms on vulnerable people but the way the two girls acted they seemed to think that they were alone and not receiving any help at all. If the Eden Project is just to spread the word of GodandHisSonJesusChristwhodiedonthecrossforalloursinsHallelujah! where do they point them on for the rest of their lives, or do they leave that to them to work out for themselves.
I don't doubt the woman running this branch of the Project truly believes that she is doing God's work and doing good work but I don't recall anything mentioned in the program about any training she received prior to taking part in this and am concerned, as the vicar they spoke to was, whether they might end up doing more harm than good. Which is not to say don't try, but she seemed to be locked into a viewpoint of 'you're either for us or against us'. It wasn't expressed, but when the woman who was renting the shopspace and the vicar didn't welcome them with open arms she seemed to get rather suspicious.
If I were writing for the Daily Telegraph I could probably fill out the requisite number of words complaining about perceived bias in that film, but it's hard to say what the truth of the matter is. The two girls who joined the project early on and who's video diaries we saw through the show didn't appear to be getting any kind of pastoral support at all. We didn't see them going to any church or church-kind of meeting, neither did they seem to have any contact with the people running the group except when, as I mentioned, the woman running it gave one of them a lift home after they'd been suspended from school. As they drove to her house she asked God to help the girl sort her problems out and when she got a text message later to say that the girl's mother hadn't grounded her for being suspended she seemed to think that was God's grace in action and that the job was done.
So where is the support? I'm not particularly keen on church meetings, especially the more radical wings, as they tend to reinforce what might be unhealthy norms on vulnerable people but the way the two girls acted they seemed to think that they were alone and not receiving any help at all. If the Eden Project is just to spread the word of GodandHisSonJesusChristwhodiedonthecrossforalloursinsHallelujah! where do they point them on for the rest of their lives, or do they leave that to them to work out for themselves.
I don't doubt the woman running this branch of the Project truly believes that she is doing God's work and doing good work but I don't recall anything mentioned in the program about any training she received prior to taking part in this and am concerned, as the vicar they spoke to was, whether they might end up doing more harm than good. Which is not to say don't try, but she seemed to be locked into a viewpoint of 'you're either for us or against us'. It wasn't expressed, but when the woman who was renting the shopspace and the vicar didn't welcome them with open arms she seemed to get rather suspicious.
