Our first response was anger when we saw the front-page report last week in the Church of England Newspaper. Your survey of General Synod members finds that 57 per cent believe that the Government is ‘currently unsuccessful in upholding the place of Christianity in the UK today’ – and another 23 per cent that it is ‘not particularly successful’. Your report concludes that this will ‘come as another blow to Gordon Brown’s Government’.
But then we realised that you have done the Church and Politics a great favour. “Better out than in”, as my mother always used to say. And if such odd views are common amongst Synod members, where better than the columns of your newspaper to engage with vigorous and grown-up debate ?
First, who says that it is the job of Government to “uphold the place of religion in public life” ? Surely that is the job of the Church. And surely it is a job that has to be done through setting a good example, not by demanding attention.
Second, “Thought for the Day” this week celebrated the fact that, in the UK (unlike the USA), we don’t make “a straight line from the pages of the Bible to political decisions of Government”. But faith is massively relevant to political decision-making. As representatives of the Christian Socialist Movement (CSM) we want church members to be positively engaged with the processes of politics – or democracy to use its true name.
Within the Labour Movement in particular we challenge and encourage MPs to look to their faith for the values and inspiration that drives their political judgments – and many do so. Indeed, your survey’s results are particularly staggering when we have never heard a Prime Minister setting out his values and their basis in the Christian Faith so clearly as Gordon Brown.
CSM’s view is that values should drive politics – so last year we reassessed our own values, making a fresh commitment to the connection between faith and social justice. Our statement of values affirms the equal worth of all as created in the image of God, our responsibility to abolish the institutional causes of poverty, our common stewardship of the earth and personal freedom exercised in community.
In his personal manifesto when seeking the leadership of the Labour Party, Gordon Brown spelt out the deep Christian roots of his political values. This was not a prime minister making an easy reference to some sort of mythical golden age when people cycled to church across a village green: it was a powerful statement about how his own very strong political values were formed through the influence of his parents. He affirmed particularly the formative influence of the manse. He was quite explicit in identifying the message that he heard week after week from the pulpit as his ‘moral compass’.
Sometimes politicians wear their faith in their sleeves: Gordon Brown and many other leading Labour politicians do something far more significant – they allow their faith to drive their values and then seek to put their values into practice. We don’t do so perfectly – we are humans, like all others, and political action is no substitute for faith or the work of the Church. It’s simply that we believe our faith leads to a calling to change the world for the better and that involves a call to social justice.
‘By their fruits shall you know them’ applies to all of us as church members, and political engagement is just one of the fields in which we are called to bear as Christians. But it’s an important one and it’s important that action is based on the right values.
The present government has done more than any previous one to engage with churches and other faith communities. Many churches are deeply involved in regenerating their communities and now have greater opportunities to be partners in the delivery of welfare services. The appointment of Stephen Timms MP as a Party Vice-Chair to work with faith groups shows the Government’s desire to engage people of faith in dialogue.
Even more important is the Government’s record on issues at the core of the gospels – poverty, injustice, the rights of children. In his speech to Party Conference in September Gordon Brown used a saying of Jesus to underline this point. Since 1997 child poverty rates have fallen faster in the UK than in any other European country. Gordon also affirmed his goal for this generation to finally abolish child poverty in the UK.
Look too at Gordon’s enduring commitment to ending international poverty – the issue most frequently raised with Labour MPs by church members in their constituencies. Since 1997 aid has doubled to £5 billion and will rise to £9 billion by 2010. His aim is that we should be the first generation to ensure that every child in the world has the right to attend school.
Frankly Church representatives – like CSM - have to earn respect both within the Labour movement and within the population as a whole. Our mission is to make the link between politics, faith and social justice a natural and vibrant one. We see in many church leaders exactly the same sense of purpose – in the leadership provided by Archbishop Rowan Williams, for example.
At a recent meeting CSM hosted in Parliament we heard from the Rev Nick Holtham about the process of change and renewal at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, where traditional architecture and our finest church music sit well with campaigning for inter-racial understanding and a mission to the homeless. The last two issues of CSM’s magazine engaged with ‘co-operation’ – something at the heart of the gospel and the labour movement – and the struggle to overcome global poverty.
Live churches do not need a government to defend them. Having a Prime Minister who promotes the values of the Christian faith in terms of political engagement is far healthier than having politicians who pay lip-service to the Church or to Christianity while failing to make the connection between faith and political action.
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