Winchester, 25 January 2006
Some years ago Natalie Cole, daughter of Nat King Cole, was asked for her vision of heaven. “Heaven”, she said, “was where everyone was busy doing things for everybody else and everything got done.” Not quite an orthodox vision: no God no Lamb on the throne, no angels or harps. But in terms of community cohesion, it was about as close as we will get to heaven on earth.
In every generation community life has been sustained by a vision of an alternative society. From Plato’s Republic to More’s Utopia and Huxley’s Brave New world, we have scanned the horizon for a better world. The journey from Eden to Heaven is a universal human endeavour. Historically, it has always been the nature of philosophy and religious thought to provide us with signposts along the way. Indeed a phenomenon of our culture is our unwillingness to trust the value of such signposts. Instead we have transferred our trust to the more tangible material world of the commercial markets and political pragmatism. But such resources are inadequate to help us with the complexities of what it means to live as people together in a vastly more complicated age.
In this lecture I want to argue three things. First: a Christian contribution to community cohesion based on a biblical understanding of respect begins with recognition that the image of God we each carry has become scarred by what Christians still call ‘sin’. Secondly, that this idea of Fallen-ness is consistent with any political process committed to community cohesion. And thirdly, that this sense of corporate identity from Fall to redemption is a sound basis on which to build respectful relationships in community. Indeed, to lose it is to fragment community.
In Dan Brown’s novel, Angels and Demons, the Vatican priest, Carlo Ventresca addressed the world with a powerful question:
“Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibilities than in a power greater than us?”[1] A pity the novel later dismissed him as a fraudster – but a great question! But as Dr Jonathan Sacks has argued so powerfully, neither market forces or political power can build communities in the absence of communities of faith. With its covenant formulae, faith gives ‘equal access to hope’[2]
In our journey for a better world we must renounce the lie that the market maketh mankind! If this were the case then there should be a very clear relationship between economic growth, social stability and community cohesion. The G8 nations should be virtually crime free. The converse is true and increasingly we have become aware that one of the striking differences between rich and poor countries, is the incredulity with which poor countries view the moral values of the West. Respect is never likely to be engendered by better financial conditions. In the absence of higher morals money becomes ‘pearls before swines’ [3]
Christian faith has a very powerful Eden to Heaven narrative. And the Story warns us against false expectations of a perfect society created by imperfect people. The realism of a Christian view of Respect is that it has abandoned any notion that Fallen human beings can create heaven on earth. Its redemptive view of community is that God has fully implicated himself in matters of justice and equity: for God loves mercy and commands justice. [4] In the Judeo Christian heritage which has shaped our cultural values over two millennia, the appeal of the prophets as well as the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles can still be summarised in the greatest of all the Commands: to love God with our entire being and our neighbour as ourselves.[5] When in 2005 Channel 4 television presented its two hour survey of the most important commandment, ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you’ emerged from a popular list of twenty as the most popular rule. A commissioned plaque of this commandment was displayed in Trafalgar Square. No one mentioned it was in the Bible.
In the moral interim between Eden and Heaven the Church has been commissioned as a working model of community cohesion based on a Christian view of personhood. The Church has not been a perfect model and so those of us who appeal to society from within it have struggled to be taken seriously. But it is not an invalid model. Except for irregular moments in its long history, the Christian Church has never stood aloof from its surroundings. Cynics would do well to remember that education, health, reform and abolition are all legacies of its dogged commitment to its community.
The Church has a right to be heard, not because the people in it are perfect, but simply because in the quest for a better world it has been more enduring and self-sacrificing than any political philosophy, or corporate personality. Its sign posts may be dusty but broadly speaking, they still point in the right direction.
And they tell us firstly that no community cohesion is possible without recognition of our corporate Fallen-ness. This is not a negative view of personhood. To say that people in community bare the scarred image of God is honest politics. It is a humble recognition that in spite of our diminished deity, there is something fundamentally wrong with us. It admits that our intolerance and unimaginable evil which spills into our neighbourhoods and floods our courtrooms cannot be changed by legislation. Social policy curbs our inclinations and monitors them when we lose control; but they cannot change our nature. Faith’s great gift to our community is to point to this elephant in the room and to discuss its relocation.
This I fear is the weakness of modern political pragmatism. The new politics of our day – supremely demonstrated by New Labour – dismisses this framework. I fear for the future of political discourse and its ability to help us beyond the intractable questions and issues of our day. Not because politicians are any less genuine than the rest of us, but because the politics of the post-War years have become unhinged from the ideological signposts which wrestle with the deeper questions about personhood and the essential nature of Respect.
Its one thing to debate the need for more policemen on our streets but it’s quite another thing to ask why it is that a more affluent and Enlightened Britain needs more policemen on the streets. And what kind of policemen do we want on our streets? Police officers caught in the cross-fire of political warfare, overworked, demoralised and morally confused are of little use to us. We need officers who enforce with an uncompromising understanding of what it means to be a person. All of us - Government media and the public – have a responsibility to insist on a police service in which the dichotomy between policing people and loving people is reduced.
Some time ago a Christian policeman told me of an incident worth reflecting on. Even as a senior officer he made it his business to ‘hang out’ with a group of young men who regularly occupied the street corner in the absence of any youth facilities. They established a very good rapport. One evening he was driving past the area and saw the group ‘hanging out’ on the corner. As he pulled up the car, they quickly dispersed. It was only when he called out to them and they recognised him that they came running back for a chat.
Politicians are happy to embrace the pragmatic benefits of Britain’s faith communities who now have a seat at every conceivable table of policy making in Britain. But this is happening precisely at a time when the volume of legislation is going against the values of religious communities on a whole range of moral issues from abortion and human sexuality to family life and education. Public servants want our goods but not necessarily our gods.
If we are to build better communities based on Respect, the idea that we are congenitally and corporately Fallen is a politically astute starting point. It means that mass murders, child abuse, racial intolerance or company fraud may disappoint us deeply but they will never shock us as we legislate against them. Politicians don’t have to preach about ‘sin’ and ‘Fallen-ness’ but these spiritual signposts should not be defaced in the name of progress or professionalism.
Consequently, Christian faith suggests that a recovery of a ‘culture of respect’ begins with a renewal of our Fallen-ness or at least recognition of our need for it. Great transitions in British culture have taken place as a result of changed values which have been internalised. This was true of the Reformation, Wesley’s revival and Wilberforce’s mission to abolish slavery and see a ‘reformation of manners’ As the French philosopher Tocqueville affirmed in his 18th century studies of American life it was the ‘habits of the heart’ which shaped the culture of the people.[6] The point was made powerfully by T S Elliot.
‘What I mean by a political philosophy is …..not merely even the conscious formulation of the ideal aims of a people but the substratum of collective temperament, ways of behaviour and unconscious values which provides the material for the formulation. What we are seeking is not a programme for a party but a way of life for a people’[7]
And it’s important to remember here that Elliot’s view of a Christian Britain was not limited to having more Christians in Parliament but more people thinking christianly – of whom some could be people of other faiths.
Community cohesion which rests on this foundation of Fallen-ness is admitting to something else quite powerful. It’s the idea that our individual responsibility as members of communities only makes sense within the corporate consciousness of what it means to be person. The relationship between individual freedom, identity and our corporate obligation stands or Falls on this idea. For Peter Vardy Aristotle’s ideas about essence remains an important framework for personhood. In Aristotle, the ‘soul’ defines our essential peopleness and this ‘soul’ which we share with every person holds us in one unbroken and universal identity as a human person. As Vardy argues, this idea is inalienable from any international law. It set the template for global justice or Human Rights, for their can be no such thing as Human Rights in the absence of some agreed notion of what it means to be a person. [8]
Frankly this idea of communal identification is not as far fetched or ethereal as we prefer to think. Phrases like “ethnic cleansing” and names like Hiroshima, Rwanda or Kosovo reminds of this. As I have argued elsewhere, “No one can tell anyone else what to do unless we all belong to one another.”[9]
So in arguing the case for our created likeness, medical scientist, Gareth Jones is quite convinced that our solidarity must be a given. “Whenever confronted by another human being” he says, “we are in the presence of images of God, who make claims on us. We are dependent upon them, and they upon us, because of our likeness to each other and our mutual likeness to God. It is this interdependence that should constitute the basis of our response to other human, rather than any ‘rights’ they (or we) may possess.”[10]
As we bring the microscope of faith to these matters, we see that Respect has nothing to do with our strident and conflicting religious dogmas. As we have seen in Northern Ireland, Kashmir and Iraq, dogmatic tribalism divides and tears communities apart. As far as God is concerned, our commitment to Respect and peace has nothing to do with our faiths: it has everything to do with the fact that when God looks at us he sees His diminished degrees of his image marred within us. Or as Bonhoeffer put it, “Man as spirit is necessarily created in a community, and … his general spirituality is woven into the net of sociality…”[11]
The current debates about Respect seem ill-equipped to examine these issues. They are ill at ease with our culture of sound bites. But we simply cannot overlook them. For when we do, our ipod culture atomises society into a billion fragments of personal experiences; we doubt the very notion of society: we shout ‘choice’ above responsibility. Respect becomes a political battle-ground and a new subject for social commentary rather a value which changes our culture.
Choice based on our intrinsic value as human being will always be worthwhile – even where it fails. But this is not the impulse behind our current legislative programme. The egalitarian choice of the commercial market which panders to our self-interests is proving an assault on our corporate morality, commodifying our children in the classroom whilst poorly educating them and reshaping public services to manhandle anonymous consumers. This human tragedy Gareth Jones notes, results in ever present ‘namelessness’ running amok in family life hospitals and work situations.[12]
It was a concern articulated very powerfully by the late Pope John Paul II.
“This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail.”[13]
Inevitably the individualisation of choice yields a harvest of personal moralities. Quiet simply it’s hard to know what’s right from wrong. Our society had a long run-up to our dysfunctional society. Asbo’s were a long time coming. A 1940 survey amongst teachers showed that the seven most serious matters for them included chewing gum, running in corridors and dropping litter. By comparison in 1990 teachers were complaining of problems such as guns, alcohol, suicide and assault.[14] In 1996, Gallup produced a survey for the Telegraph in which 72% of adults said that morality had become far too privatised: 93% said that schools should teach respect for authority.[15] And in the same vein the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s research into the causes and responses to anti-social behaviour has shown huge ambivalence about precisely what anti-social behaviour means and what we do about it.[16]
One thing is clear: in the absence of a moral consensus and apart from a willingness to share a common ancestry in God, legislation will fail to arrest our growing culture of disrespect. Philip Johnson’s is right to point out that since 1997 we have had over two dozen criminal justice acts introducing a catalogue of offences. “If the first wave of initiatives failed,” he asks, “why should the new measures succeed; and if they are working, why do we need even more?”[17] It is a reasonable question. In pursuing a new culture of respect the Government would do better to put more resources on informing attitudes rather than added to the maze of legislation.
I am very conscious of the cynicism which this subject has drawn and my own potential contribution to it. So let me end with a note of optimism. Every survey I have seen reflects the fact that for the vast majority of us our values of right and wrong are learned in the home. Government has been very clear that its commitment is to support families rather than marriages per se. Given that marriage remains the most effective context for the well-being of children this comes as a disappointment to many of us. As the Black journalist, Shaun Bailey wrote “It should not be offensive to single mums, liberal commentators, or anyone else if the Government openly supports the family. It should be common sense. “[18] That aside, the combination of parental and school-based nurturing of values such as Respect and Trust –already enshrined in the school curriculum would be a giant leap in the right direction. It would fan the flames of hope in families the place where our spiritual sameness is most easily nurtured and sustained.
And perhaps more energy might be spent in finding and promoting the goodwill and models of Respect already at large in quiet corners of our community. Last November the Evangelical Alliance’s fifth annual Temple Address included a Champions of Respect Awards. It featured three young people whose outstanding contribution to community cohesion modelled the kind of respect the Government is so eager to see replicated in British life.
As we will explore in more details in our next lecture, a biblical perspective on Respect will inevitably touch on our ability to handle diversity in our increasingly multi-choice society. Race, faith and gender are just some of the touchstones of our ability to make better sense of our corporate identity as people made in God’s image.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah had a vision of Community cohesion. It is unashamedly and deliberately idealistic.[19] And it’s hard to imagine a more diverse society, for in it lambs, cows and yearlings live next to lions, wolves, vipers and cobras. But that diversity is sustained by righteousness, faithfulness and justice and gripped by agreed values written on people’s hearts: the knowledge of God.
And you knew it was based on Respect for it was led by a little child.
Rev Joel Edwards
[1] Dan Brown Angels and Demons Corgi p. 423
[2] Dr Jonathan Sacks The Politics of Hope Vintage p. xviii
[3] Matthew
[4] Micah 6:8
[5] Matthew
[6] Tocqueville
[7] T S Elliot Christianity and Culture p.14
[8] Peter Vardy Being Human Darton Longman Todd
[9] Joel Edwards Cradle Cross & the Empty Tomb. Hodder p.96/7
[10] Gareth Jones, Valuing People Paternoster p.48
[11] Bonhoeffer cited Elliot Dynamics of Human Life p.171
[12] Gareth Jones Valuing People Paternoster p.51
[13] John Paul Gospel p.35
[14] James Q Wilson The Moral Sense p.251
[15] Telegraph 5th July 1996
[16] Rowntree, Anti-social behaviour strategies finding a balance
[17] Philip Johnson ’RESPECT’ Daily Telegraph, January 11 2006
[18] Shaun Bailey, Reason our streets are violent, Telegraph 19th January 2006
[19] Isaiah 11:1-9
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