It’s some time since we faced or – depending on when you read this – have faced a General Election where the result seemed so unpredictable. It is/was also an election in which questions about which way Christians might vote was given more media attention than I remember in the past; some politicians may think it safer to say that they ‘don’t do God’ but the faith of individual politicians does seem to be something that we know more about now in ways which don’t seem to damage their political careers. So it seems appropriate to wonder in what way our Christian faith might/should affect the way we vote? Should the Bishops give some kind of lead to its members about how they should vote, or, less directly, on what grounds they should make up their minds about the different parties?
It is a difficult question because of the very origins of Christianity. The key political question for the Jews in Jesus’ day was the presence of the occupying Roman force running their country. Though tested on this question Jesus provided a deeply ironic answer . ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that our God’s.’ On the surface it sounds like a division between religious and political life – pay your taxes and pray, but the two activities can be kept separate. But the ironic point is that Caesar’s power is not comparable to God’s; everything in the end belongs to God, even Caesar. And the kingdom, the power and the glory, ultimately belong to God and are in his hands. Caesar may have power for the moment, to use for good or ill, but even Caesar cannot build the kingdom or act as God’s viceroy on earth. And in the end of course it was the political power of Caesar with some assistance from the Jewish authorities, which put Jesus to death just as it continued in a sporadic way to persecute his followers.
Jesus’ message consists primarily in preparing people for the kingdom of God and warning them about what might stand in its way. Such preparation involved the building of communities of justice, mercy, inclusiveness, charity and a deep concern for poverty in all its forms; what stands in the Kingdom’s way is primarily the power, self reliance and social blindness that can come from wealth.
The early church took shape in small communities that sought to lead the life Jesus commended but few of their members were wealthy or powerful. To survive they needed to impress an alien environment with their honesty, and their good works, and they needed to avoid the attention of power by submitting to and respecting those in power and even praying for them. Most early Christians were in a sense apolitical but beneath the surface of Christian teaching there was clearly something inimical to the Roman state, which sometimes came to the surface at times of persecution. Christians saw their true citizenship as being elsewhere in heaven – they were in the world but not of it.
Things changed of course when the Empire became Christian under the Emperor Constantine. Christian ethical thinking had for the first time to be applied to the running of the state, to matters of war and peace, the judiciary and civil rights. As Christendom emerged in the west the boundaries between church and state, and the proper powers of Pope and Emperor became very confused.
But as a result of the conflicts of the Middle Ages and the Reformation there emerged several different strands of what we might call political theology, in which we see Christ and culture in synthesis, Christ against culture, and Christ the transformer of culture. First there was the Thomist (from Aquinas) view based on natural theology that the only proper purpose of political authority is the common good; that though all authority derives from God it nevertheless needs at least the implicit consent of the people; and that grossly tyrannical government can be justly overthrown. By contrast there is a second view which holds that all political power is derived from the sinful state of humanity so that the church is to separate itself from the world insofar as it is able. A third view recognises the fallen state of society and yet sees the Church’s role as evangelistic and prophetic, critical of all social ills and yet endeavouring to serve and transform the needs of suffering humanity in whatever way it can .
The problem for Christians in our society concerns the prophetic capacity of the Church and the extent to which we, often unconsciously, conform to a culture about which we are insufficiently sceptical. The extent to which we overestimate the significance of the Christian basis of our laws while accepting the secular premise that religion is a private matter, means that we are often not alert to changes in our culture which move us further away from the essentials of the gospel. In a market dominated, global culture it is hard to stand out against the erosion of familial and communal cohesion, the educational and commercial treatment of children as only potential adults, the diminution of personal space and time by work and acquisitiveness, and the gradual degradation of the environment both natural and urban. Our culture is clearly anxious about these things but the level of public debate about desired cultural change and the values on which it should be based is totally inadequate. We have an Archbishop with a deep concern for this debate but the media is not always the best or most hospitable forum for the expression of his concerns or the concerns of any faith community. And yet our society desperately needs to discuss what we mean by the good life, and what ‘a new politics of the common good’ (Michael Sandel) might look like. We need to rediscover the meaning of civic virtue, to debate the moral limits of markets, and to nurture a moral empathy which enables us to put ourselves in the place of others whose humanity is being diminished by inequalities of wealth, education and opportunity.
It is true perhaps that the results of this election have the potential to bring about significant political change, but what kind of change is most needed? It might be the case that government based on a significant degree of co-operation between parties might open up the debate about values, in which the different faiths might be able to play a larger part while not seeking to impose their views on the whole of society – in some instances it is the questions they ask which are more important than their answers. It might be that in a coalition government ministers would be less concerned to make their mark through more and more poorly formulated legislation, and more inclined to mistrust their own cleverness and short term solutions. The slowly discerning rather than the hastily competitive politician might begin to see more clearly where the work of government should concentrate its efforts. The Christian politician will be properly sceptical of big solutions just as he or she will mistrust their own ability to wield power to any largely beneficial effect. All we can do is prepare the ground for the Kingdom not build it ourselves. All we can do is bring about radical change in our own lives lived in small communities open to radical change. And yet it takes a great deal of courage even to begin to consider such changes – courage which comes only from a deeper conversion to the calling of Christ.
With my love and prayers
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker