Should the Church of England be saying anything about the Europe debate and the June referendum and if so how should it address the issue?
Maybe it’s not for the Church to come down on one side but it is important that it should help to clarify our approach to the issue, and point to the questions that should be asked, and examine the way in which both sides seek to use apparent facts.
Of course the difficulty of such a debate is the sheer complexity of the facts, covering as they do trade and finance, defence and security, employment and social law, farming and fishing, health and safety, justice and human rights. And then there is our knowledge of and attitudes towards the Europe of which we are so little used to feeling a part. Unlike the Germans and the Americans (for example) we are unused to experiencing layers of identity and loyalty. We do not for the most part have a sense of ourselves as local, national and European at different levels of experience without each being able to demote or cancel out the others. Nor are we equipped to understand the possibility of democracy working beyond the level of our national parliament. What is the future of democracy on a European level where so much negotiation has to go on to achieve even the smallest advance or change? There may be significant ways in which being a part of Europe benefits our lives but we are rarely made aware of them at ground level.
How can voters possibly hope to be well informed on all such matters in order to make a decision which could affect all our lives for better or worse at a more serious level than any recent election? How then do we decide? Do we leave it to others, do we go with the view of the Newspaper we always read, do we listen to politicians on radio and television to determine which one sounds most convincing, honest, best informed? Or do we perhaps decide that there are good arguments on both sides, that no-one can accurately predict what will happen and that therefore our decision should try to be a moral one, which attempts to squeeze out of our thinking as much fear, prejudice, and self interest as possible?
So at a simple level, we might ask to what extent the pro Europe campaign fails to listen to the genuine anxieties and grievances of those who live in often deprived communities who are fearful of foreign strangers and project on to them blame for all the aspects of their lives they seem unable to change? Or again, to what extent does the anti Europe campaign promote an understanding of British nationalism and patriotism which is based on a refusal to face up to radical changes in what it means now to be a nation in the context of a global economy? What kind of values are being promoted by each side, what vision of a future for this country and all its people is being presented? Does the rhetoric of an argument admit difficulty or seek to promote only certainty? Does it try to address counter arguments courteously and fairly? Is there a balance between arguments which warn or threaten and arguments which promise and invite? All of these questions come under the heading of the ethics of public debate and in such a debate the Church may surely have a case to put.
Christianity has a unique position within such public debate because of its origins in conversion. As Rowan Williams has put it, ‘it has always proposed to human beings that what has been taken for granted about their identity, their possibilities or their relationships isn’t necessarily fixed and final. Conversion is choosing to be different; it is to step out of the culture you once belonged in. (Faith in the Public Square p.66) That of course means a good deal of wrestling with circumstances because we are all in various ways dependent on the social, cultural and economic environment in which we live. In the early church such wrestling could lead to martyrdom (as it did also in Nazi Germany), in the Middle Ages to a monastery. Nowadays Church and government still argue about public morality, the church can still be a centre of deep cultural unease, it can still launch campaigns where people are starving, where the environment is at risk, where the poor are vulnerable and neglected. As we approach the European debate therefore, a Christian response might be motivated by the sense that our true ‘citizenship’ is elsewhere but that as Christians we can combine both irony and suspicion with love and commitment in any debate about the future of our country and of Europe.
THANK YOU
I write this still under the emotional effects of the most amazing concert put on for me last Saturday by our choir, organists and friends of the music. Having spent fifteen years listening to choral music here, I feel it has not only provided for me a source of inspiration in worship but also an education in music itself and how to listen to it. I am deeply grateful for that and for all who have provided it, as I am also full of gratitude for the privilege of being able to choose what the members of the choir sang so beautifully on Saturday. I hope all those who attended discovered music which they did not know and now want to hear again. I also want to thank the Friends of the Music and the Music Trustees who made it possible and provided the hospitality (including some perfect cucumber sandwiches) for an evening which will remain in my memory as something gloriously unique to this church and its musicians.
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker