Friday Night Theology

My Manifesto

30 April 2010

I'm happy the pre-election time is coming to an end. So many words and counterwords. So much fuss about some unfortunate words. Amidst the rhetoric about 'a big society', my interest is drawn towards the big silence. While there is much focus on how the manifestos will affect us, there is little attention for 'the other'. While we brace ourselves for cuts, the relative political quietism concerning our current commitments to the world's poorest worries me. While we may see some reshaping of our political landscape, I still hope to see some imaginative leadership that enables a paradigm shift in the world.

While the political manifestos have been written, we need to exercise our influence to outwork a manifesto given by God - the script that calls us to seek the wellbeing of all. The Judeo-Christian concept of shalom, a wellbeing that is communal and personal, must be rediscovered in the public debate to develop a commitment to political, economic and cultural transformation which benefits poor communities as well as redeeming the rich from their relational and inner poverty.

History testifies to a rich Judeo-Christian heritage of advocacy. The prophets were the social commentators in their time, advocating legislation that would shield the poor. In the third century, the African author Lactantius describes the perfect justice that sustains the human society in which wealth is used "not for present profit but for justice, which alone endures forever" (The Divine Institutes, 6.12). The Church Fathers developed their thinking concerning social consciousness and justice in the light of the Scriptures and applied it to the circumstances of the time, affecting not only the individual but also socio-economic and political dimensions. Advocacy and policy did go hand in hand.

The Robin Hood tax proposed by Archbishop Rowan Williams and Richard Curtis is a creative example of seeking the common good. It works as a kind of double-edged sword. For besides the just redistribution of wealth, the Robin Hood tax proposal is a constructive engagement with our present banking crises. The money raised through the taxation of transactions between financial institutions would be allocated to fund more domestic programmes of poverty reduction as well as to fund the cause of global poverty, thus increasing the chance of delivering the Millennium Development Goals.

It is reminiscent of the moral imagination of those who torched the Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History campaigns. We only need to look upon the ruins of our banking system to see that there is a need for redemptive measures. The picture is enhanced by the findings by the economists Eaton and Eswaran, showing that increased wealth can damage rather than enhance a personal and communal sense of well being. In their view, individual wealth creation is not only divisive in society but also detrimental to personal wellbeing. These economists show that there is poverty among the non-poor.

Whatever political landscape we find ourselves in on 7th May, we can inspire various landslides thereafter. The 'manifesto from heaven' concerns our task of world-making. In a time of narrowing horizons and captured imaginations, we need audacious dreams in which politics, banking, enterprise, education, sports and lifestyle energise alternative economics and enhance wellbeing for all. 'A big society' on a world-wide scale, really.

The history of God's people is filled with inspirational ideas that became a progressive impulse to bring change. So, I have a manifesto. Not because I am a politician but because I am a believer. While we need to make our vote count in a week's time, we have an ongoing mandate to seek the wellbeing of all and to live faithfully in the light of that script. It is, therefore, even more important to make our life count today. Shalom.

Marijke Hoek, Coordinator Forum for Change

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