The search for justice: Christian involvement in politics

This presentation with notes, is the material I used for a discussion at the Christchurch Think Tank (via the "What's On" link) entitled "The search for justice: Christian involvement in politics". You need to download it to see the notes.

I wasn't happy with the result. That is to say in terms of the quality of the final presentation; I do not know how much of the desired effect it had on the audience. Ideas evolve, but these needed to evolve more than most.

In particular it was long on analysis, but short on action. I think the ideas were there, just not well expressed.

In a nutshell:
- there is a need to put some effort into equipping ourselves to sort reliable information from the swamp of dross in today's media landscape
- then we need to put constant effort into using the equipment we have
- then we need to assert that the public / political is just as much a sphere for Christian action as the private
- then we need to accept that political action is a long term business that itself requires constant and long lasting effort.

It's a tall order, and not everyone is called to it, but those who are can draw legitimate inspiration from the Bible and Christian tradition, and will need to resist gently but firmly the efforts of politicians, media moguls and other Christians (usually the right wing ones) to put us back in our box.

Am I persecuted? Am I heck.

George Carey, ex-archbishop for somewhere in outer space, has been at  it again. He claims that Christians are being and feel persecuted. Speaking as an Anglican, I would like to reassure all of my friends, religious and non-religious, that I do not feel persecuted in any way. Occasionally, I have to mind my manners. Gosh, what a burden that is.

Carey speaks from a position of enormous privilege. He is a member of the House of Lords, and speaks there on behalf of all those Christians who he says feel persecuted - no other religion has that privilege. If he wants to think about persecution, he might reflect on the fact that he, as a man, gets to wear a dress without being insulted or assaulted for it.

He speaks from the delusion that this country is a majority Christian country. The BBC,  reporting David Cameron's Easter message, has a statistic that 72% of the country self-identify as Christian. The BBC, as well as the ex-archbishop, really need to learn that using Christian as a cultural label is a very different thing from being a Christian. Tomorrow is Easter Day, the biggest feast in the Christian year. That means that around 4% of the population will go to church, instead of the usual 3%. For the rest of the 72%, Easter means a roast dinner, time with the family, and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Easter, for the 68 or 69% who aren't in church, is a retail festival, a festival of consumption, precisely the opposite of what the Bible is about. Don't get me wrong, real Christians are not going round with long faces looking for the sackcloth and ashes on Easter Day. We are celebrating good and proper. But we do it without adding to the waistline, and without adding to the mountain of refuse left over after all the eggs have been opened.

Perhaps church going as such is a bad descriptor of real Christianity.many people practise the Christian virtues without going to church regularly or at all. But to be a Christian does mean to have some kind of relationship with Jesus. There are many good people about who do not have that relationship. They are no less good for it. They are probably better than me. But they do not count as Christians. Jesus calls us to do something. I can't help thinking that if Carey were being a proper Christian, he would stop trying to retain privilege for the privileged, and would start doing something about these people, or these people, or  this man, or this man, or these people. Plenty to choose from, as you can see. And I think Jesus might actually approve.

There is a curious issue about Carey's evidence. He cites a Comres poll carried out apparently for the Coalition for Marriage, which purports to show that two thirds of Christians think they are part of a persecuted minority. There is no trace of this poll on either the Comres site, or Coalition for Marriage. If it appears, I shall update. In the meantime, I wonder if he is slightly confused and has mistaken it for a survey, also carried out by Comres, which suggested that two thirds of Christians think the church needs a new image. We could do without Carey's  unique brand of publicising for a start.

Update
As Paul Walter has pointed out, the survey is available on the Comres site. Having had a look through it, it strikes me as one of the less convincing and rigorous surveys I have ever read. The sample of 535 people is heavily weighted towards older people and towards Conservative voters. The questions are also the kind that effectively tell the respondent what to think. Most of them are about Christianity as such, not about religions in general. One of the questions, for instance, is to agree or disagree with the statement "I feel the Government gives sufficient protection to the rights of Christians to exercise their freedom of religious expression". There is an implicit invitation to compare the position of Christians with other religions, rather than asking the question "I feel the Government gives sufficient protection to the rights of religious people to exercise their freedom of religious expression".

And there is a question about feeling like a persecuted minority. It is this - to agree or disagree with the statement "I sometimes or often feel a member of a persecuted minority because of the constraints on religious expression in this country". It is inviting the answer yes. if this was a level one student's attempt at writing a survey, it would fail. I have no doubt that there are 359 people who feel like that. I doubt that you can safely extrapolate that figure to the entire country. I also pray to God to open their eyes to the real truth of their power vis a vis other religions.

Do right wing Christians actually need to lie?

A question I've been pondering for a day or two. I heard Nadine Dorries on Any Questions. She's really bad for my blood pressure. Among other gems was the statement that skunk cannabis as sold on the streets today is 50 times more powerful than traditional cannabis. I know of no scientific basis for that statement. I'm not an expert - there might be one, but I doubt very much if I'll ever get the reference from Nadine. If anybody does have a reference to a scientifically valid demonstration, please let me know. That of itself is just a minor issue, a fantasist trying to portray the world how she wants it to be rather than how it is. But what struck me most about it is the ease and facility with which she lies. I've no idea whether she actually believes what she's saying, but she admits to lying quite readily - her blog, she said, is 70% fiction, designed to paint a picture for her constituents, presumably with the aim of getting them to vote for her again. But why, as a Christian, does she feel that that is appropriate behaviour? A trawl through the pages of the bible would rapidly suggest that lying is not seen as a Christian activity.

And then today I was reminded by a tweet from Andrew Page of the existence of Conservapedia. It was about their page on atheism. I'm not going to link to it, because it's down there with the Daily Mail in terms of gutter, vitriol, and sheer blatant untruth. It would be hilarious if they didn't mean it. If you want to, google it and go and read. Marvel at the section on the three way link between atheism, lesbianism and obesity. I am staggered again at the volume of complete falsehood. And presumably they know what they are doing. So what is it about these Christians that lubricates such consistent telling of untruths.

Please note I'm not being "anti-Christian" here. I am a Christian. I'm trying to figure out how someone who in name shares the same principles that I do can feel that such wholesale lying is justified.

Stroud vs Stroud

Philippa Stroud has hit some headlines, though notably not those of the Murdochracy, or of the BBC, which is apparently too frightened of the Murdochracy to run it. The nub of the issue is her practice of praying for homosexual people to be released from the demons which so obviously infect them.

The response so far has been fourfold:

a) a denial from Ms Stroud that she believes homosexuality is an illness. Which is an accusation nobody has put to her.

b) silence from her on the issue of whether homosexual people are possessed by demons.

c) a rapid disappearance of Philippa from Twitter and Facebook, presumably in case people press her on these issues. Wonder what she's got to hide then.

d) a concerted defence from various Tories, including, bless him, Iain Dale, that this is old news, something she did ten years ago. With the carefully not spelt out implication that things might be different now.

There has been little coverage of whether she is still a member of the church she founded, which holds among other relics of tub thumping patriarchy, that the man is the head of the woman and she must submit to his authority.

Now we find that Mr Stroud, said authoritative husband of the above mentioned, has signed a declaration intended to put the views of socially conservative Christians, the Westminster Declaration, so he's still around and still very right wing. (Update: it's been fisked by Ekklesia, thank goodness.) So this is a live story, not a ten year old one. Given that she's standing for Parliament, and given that this is still a democracy, her potential constituents have a right to know:

a) does she still hold to the tenets of the church that she founded?

b) in which case does she still believe that homosexuals are possessed by demons?

c) does she hold that she is subject to the authority of her husband?

d) in which case whose conscience will decide her votes if she gets into Parliament and exercises that vote on behalf of her constituents - hers or her husband's?

PS as a Christian I resent the presentation of the Westminster Declaration "Declaration of Christian conscience" as if it speaks for all Christians. They speak only for those who very selectively quote bits of both Old and New testaments to assert that dinosaurs never existed, except for those who still believe that they have a right to control everything their womenfolk say and do. They most certainly do not speak for me, but they try to claim that theirs is the only truth. They should meet the Pope when he comes over; they'll find they have a lot in common.