The pictures of Grenfell Tower on fire on the 14th June will sear the memories of all who witnessed it for the rest of their lives, that I am certain. I vividly remember the haunted faces of fire crew resting after attacking the blaze. Also the harrowing stories of people banging on windows, unable to escape the flames, or throwing children into the arms of people several stories beneath before they succumbed to the fires.
Before Grenfell I had thought that stories such as this only occupied disaster movies. Tower blocks did not burn up like some sort of towering inferno in the real world. My first reaction was to think that I was witnessing some sort of terrorist atrocity, but no, and in some ways worse, this was no attack.
As more and more information came to light it became clear that a whole catalogue of events had transpired to cause this disaster. We could look at length at the dangerous cladding, the lack of sprinklers, proper fire doors or escape routes, but whatever the reason we as a society allowed people to live in an unsafe building at risk of fire. And has transpired in the two weeks since Grenfell there are many, many other buildings that are not safe as well, and not just because of the cladding.
Now I am a born again Christian and I believe in a God who created and loved the residents of Grenfell tower. Because of this every last resident had worth. There was no unimportant person in Grenfell that fateful night be they black or white, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, British or not, English speaking or not.
Now I don't know why God allowed the fire to take hold, but clearly He did. It certainly wasn't because He doesn't care or understand. He understands loss as it was his Son Jesus that died on the cross which means He can really empathise with those who lost loved ones at Grenfell.
The God of the bible is not only a God who loves, but is also a God of truth and justice. So He will understand the residents desire to get to the bottom of what caused this tragedy, and I hope and pray that the truth will out. The police are already investigating this tragedy and if some sort of wrongdoing or negligence is proved then the culprit or culprits ought to answer to the courts.
For me though the ultimate answer to what caused the fire in Grenfell is a system that equates worth with money and power. Those who do not have much of either are herded into low cost accommodation where low cost maintenance and low cost protection awaits them.
The bible calls this the sin of materialism. Sin is not a word that is used much today, and in today's parlance appears to either refer to eating too much chocolate, having elicit sex, or a word reserved for the actions of paedophiles, rapists and the like. But for the purposes of this blog it refers to going against God. In the case of Grenfell going against God means not looking after His creation people, not giving them the worth that beings created and loved by God deserves.
We have to ask ourselves some questions. Why was there so much smoke in the corridors and stairwell when fire doors should have been fitted? Why couldn't the residents escape down a fire/smoke proof stairwell or outside stairs? Why did the cladding appear to catch fire? Why wasn't there sprinklers provided? and these are just off the top of my head.
Someone has to answer for what happened at Grenfell, and I hope that the legitimate quest for answers will not get hijacked by outside political forces who wish to stir up trouble for the government and will use Grenfell as a means to an end.
Now the bible does not teach that having money or possessions is wrong per se, but warns against the love of money as it corrupts.
Now I do not know whether there has been any corruption involved with Grenfell, but never the less we as a society should use Grenfell to examine how we do things. For governments and councils this includes the provision of quality and safe social housing.
Someone once wrote (and I paraphrase) that the mark of a civilised nation is how well it treats its weakest members. With each new tower block failing fire tests (over 75 at the time of writing) our civilised nation is looking more and more shame faced.
