With many of us crying out for an answer to that, seemingly, most significant question of our time, “how did we get into this mess?” it seems right to offer some suggestions as to ‘why we have got into this mess’, which will then lead onto ‘how’. This question, although seemingly unanswerable due to complexity, is actually quite straightforward and is answered by acknowledging our discomfort with our lack of willing to agree with each other’s ‘simple’ answers. Lost, as we are, we are not short of people proposing the route out, but which one has the necessary information and map to be trusted?
Let me begin by asking another question, and one aimed primarily at the British context due to my inhabiting it, but can equally be asked of other nations facing the same issues.
What does it mean to be British?
The fact that asking this question already fills me with dread of reactive charges against me of ‘nationalism’, ‘racism’, etc. betrays the very heart of my point but I am jumping the gun…
Identity of any kind requires definition. In order to be something you must, by logic, not be something else. If one chooses to not be defined then they are opting for a life with less identity; in fact they are opting for their lack of definition to be their sole identifying quality. Without definition one cannot then make any demands to be treated in any particular way as the treatment of things/persons rely on a distinction as to what ethical treatment is required for definable things/persons.
We do not treat everything/everyone the same. We do not treat the original manuscript of a Shakespeare play the same as a reprinted copy of the same text. We do not treat victims the same as perpetrators. Ethics is based on definitions between things and to eradicate or confuse definitions is to make the efficacy of ethics problematic. This means that if we are unclear as to what makes something that thing, we are also unclear as to how we are to treat such a thing.
So, in order to make wise and ethical actions on the political level we must begin by defining between things/persons. To begin with let us return to my question, ‘what does it mean to be British?’ This is not to add a quantifiable or qualitative value to being British; it is merely to understand what we, as a nation, understand ourselves to be in distinction to other nations (if at all.) If we are to exist as a distinctive nation, able to demand of others that we are treated in certain way and to act in certain way then we must be clear as to what our qualities are.
Gone are the days when citizenship to most nations is based on inherited bloodlines, or racial genetics; and I am grateful for that. This shift, however, means that cultural history, mythology and belief is at higher risk of disappearing. Our immigration issue is not unique in our new globalised world as people move from one nation to another and seek to reside amongst strangers and make them their new home. What makes someone decide to stay in a strange land? Is it not that there is some appreciation for the cultural narrative of that particular people that they desire to share? Is it not a particularity of practice that means that they can benefit from residing there as opposed to somewhere else?
Democracy is often used as a primary characteristic of our nation. We are democratic. The problem with this aspect is that there a multiple subcategories, e.g. ‘parliamentary democracy’, ‘direct democracy’, ‘presidential democracy’ and so forth. Part of our issues at present is that we are ill informed as to the nature of our democracy and its distinctive qualities compared with different forms of democracy exercised around the world. This ignorance has been to our detriment and has eroded, in part, the social fabric that holds us together.
Tolerance is another definable quality desired by us. How are we tolerant and why? What purpose do we imagine tolerance has to bring peace and stability? Tolerance is the willingness to not impinge on another’s rights to be different. Tolerance rules that one cannot demand another acts in a certain way unless there has been expressed commitment that a shared behaviour has been made. To be a tolerant nation is to allow behaviour and actions that we disagree and dislike to be done. It is true, historically, that Britain, due, in part, being an island nation, have preferred an ‘isolated’ cultural personality; ‘we stick to ourselves.’ We are kings in our own domain and rule our houses like castles. This has been seen by other cultures as tolerance, but this is not the whole story. We do seethe, privately and internally, at others’ behaviours. We do judge injustices when it effects our lives. We do believe in standing up and fighting for ourselves. We are tribal, due to the size of our tiny island, compared to our genetic siblings over in the sprawling Scandinavia. Our silence to certain actions is not a toleration, it is suppressing politeness.
I heard a radio programme about immigration in Britain where two German women were speaking about their experience of moving to Britain. They spoke about how welcomed they felt and how accepting we were as a nation. They used an example of putting rubbish out on Sundays. In Germany this is frowned upon and if people break this cultural rule they are confronted, in person, by an angry neighbour. In Britain, however, anyone can do anything without any sense of judgement. One of the women, however, jokingly suggested that it is possible that British people actually detest that behaviour but wouldn’t come and talk to you about it. That is more the truth, is it not? We want to be tolerant but most of us suppress our natural inclination fight against imposition. We are all Basil Fawlty.
Tolerance connects with a deeper identity, which is ‘liberalism’. This is the strangest of qualities ascribed to us. Historically we are economically liberal, certainly since the Magna Carta, but socially we are quite conservative. That is why in times of pressure, crisis and challenge we tend to vote for the conservative party to govern. We desire stability, strength, endurance. We were the nation who modernised without the revolutions of the rest of Europe. We were the nation that stood firm against the chaotic destruction of the Nazis. We are the nation that is looked at equally with mocking disdain and strange admiration for our archaic traditions and historic consistency. The same questions of social liberalism are to be asked as though about our actual value put on tolerance.
What does it mean to be British, then? If it is not about your family heritage of some Anglo-Saxon hybrid then it means that we must rely on agreed upon quality, characteristics, and values to define us. Interestingly ‘British Values’ has only really been discussed and debated in the latter part of the 20th century. Up until that point there was a general acceptance of what it meant to be British, that is, of course, before the growth of multiculturalism and pluralism in public life including the political rise of secularism that has promoted an individualised understanding of selfhood in order to ensure the progress of market capitalism.
Why are we in this mess?
We are in this mess because none of us has any sense of shared identity. There is no set of values that could be espoused that would be agreed upon by the ‘British people’. We cannot, like our American allies, stand up and accept the explicit values as expressed in founding documents. The historic precedents that hold us together are based on implicitly accepted characteristics which, in the global multiculturalism, no longer are explicitly desired. We are ill-informed of what makes us a nation and what, therefore, keeps us together and gives us direction. We have sold our shared identities in favour of our own short term individual gains and pleasure. When those are challenged or the cost of such choices are charged to us we fight for our right to make our own destiny. We are a nation lost without any agreed upon map.
In this environment, democratic politics is not possible and we descend into tyranny where no one has any training in discipline and we exist in chaos. From this chaos rises, usually, a man who possess potent, charismatic power to control the chaos and those poor and without power, in desperation for protection turn to them for safety and security. Tyranny is seen as a constant battle of power and people wrestle, abuse and manipulate the eroding systems and structures in order to gain that power to shape the world in order to benefit. The map is rewritten by unmerited authorities and untested principles. Truth is hard to discern and trust, therefore, is blind.
This is where we are.
One of the dismissed qualities of the British identity is our religious heritage. Indeed, it was this Christian character that caused the rise of liberalism/tolerance and the secular state that is now undermining the Church. It is ironic that it was because of our Christian faith that the diminishing of that faith in public life has been allowed to occur. It is, of course, perfectly reasonable, to see how living in Christ’s kenotic expression of power will inevitably lead to being abused and sacrificed in favour of human desire to be like gods. It is, however, this very identity which I think must now be fully lived out and articulated publicly if our nation is to sustain itself beyond the chaos we continue to exist within.
What do we do now?
It is the failure of the Church in England, Christians of the Kingdom of God who are invested in our nation as home, to properly understand the divinely ordained use of power and authority. It is to us the blame for the current state of Britain should land. We, who believe that God created human beings to live in a particular way together under the Sovereignty of God, have allowed those who do not submit to that higher authority to be authorities over us. We have encouraged and endorsed powerful people to lead us into a way of life that is not towards the Kingdom of God and its values but rather to adopt the values of this world and human folly as that which God desires. We have allowed the twisting of our Scriptures and the person of Christ to be someone other than Him to whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. To allow ourselves to be shaped by the pluralistic belief that he is but one of many authorities on the way of life has meant that we have lost a sense of his unique voice.
We have removed the limitations of our definitions and have blurred the lines of holiness and particularity on our Christian identity and have sold the right to establish security for our brothers and sisters of this nation. The defining of a nation enables hospitality of the stranger and the alien to happen. One can not welcome in a person to their home if their home has no walls or roof. If we do not want walls then we have no right to welcome in and therefore we must accept the other to come and take possession of our imagined home and direct it as they see fit.
Who, other than we who know the counterintuitive delight in obedience and service, will speak up for the hope of the nations? Who, other than we who are custodians of the authority of Christ the Son, invested in us by the Father of all by means of his Holy Spirit, can hold diversity in unity? Who, other than the Body of Christ, the physical embodiment of the Spirit of God which called forth from chaos, life, can lead and steward this creation into its fulfilment and natural state?
But we have failed. We have allowed temptation of personal gain and vain conceit to riddle the Body of Christ with disobedience, ignorance and cause division after division. We have taken the individualised notions of sin and enabled them to be the defining characteristics of our identity. Sin has, once again, blinded us to will of God and therefore we do not deserve his name or his benefits.
Repent, O Church of Christ. Repent of our weakness and laxity to hold onto our divinely ordained holiness. Repent of our denigration of the vows we made at our baptism to be a holy people. Repent of our abuses of the Apostolic tradition and teaching. Repent, turn back, call back to the Good Shepherd who will lead us out of our lostness and find us in his grace. But beware that when we hear the voice of that Good Shepherd we will have the humility to follow, for it will sound foreign to us so unpracticed as we are to discerning his voice amongst the shouts of the world. So uncomfortable will the freedom be that it will feel like chains of great constriction.
If we are to bring our nation out of confusion and distress, we must turn to the authority under which our nation and all nations will sit; Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, in whose Body we are called to have life and to minister redemption and salvation for this world. It is the authority of God which was given to Jesus and he passed on to us. Are we surprised that in dismissing and distrusting that authority we are now floundering in subjugation to the divisive politics of our day? Are we truly bemused by the lack of interest in the Church who has been shaped by the culture either in a social justice without merciful repentance of sin, or by proclamation of forgiveness without any transformation of life? Why would anyone listen to the Church when say nothing different from any of the competing voices of power?
We have gone beyond party politics now and we must rip all such infection from the Bride of Christ. We must say, ‘A plague on all your houses’ and fall down on our knees in repentance and prayer, to commit again to the obedience to the Gospel which states that it is the sick that need a Saviour, and we are all sick. To deny that we are a nation lost, is to reject the need of being found and taken home; a home defined by the holiness of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier of humanity.
If you watch the Star Wars prequels and witness the development of the relationship between Anakin Skywalker and Padme you will witness how Anakin’s desires and passions seem to be good. He loves Padme, they are meant to be together, it is destiny. The advice of the Jedi Masters is to resist and control those feelings that the love will ultimately destroy them (and the very democracy they are supposedly fighting for). Many challenge the Church’s ‘restrictions’ and ‘rules’ the very way that Anakin questions the Jedis. Obedience to an institution is alien to the humanist ideal and suddenly the Church becomes a place of oppression and control. A duality emerges between the human freedom and the social/political body of which the body must embrace the individual or be destroyed. What was it that led Anakin to the dark side? What are being asked to learn from his journey? How did Obi Wan Kenobi, Yoda and others try to advise and teach young Skywalker?
Again, in Star Wars, the failure of the Jedis to pastor Anakin through his doubts and mistakes was in their lack of transparency and honesty. It was seemingly more important to protect the Jedi Order than to love and invest in Anakin. Anakin became collateral in the bigger, cosmic battle going on. It seemed to Anakin that he was being used, manipulated and ignored and trust was not built enough to hold him and engage him. The admittance of difficulty, confusion and fear is a vulnerable but necessary part of building trust between people. The conservatives have not shown enough awareness of the pain of their own sin and mistakes. Confession and lament over our part in the causes of suffering is sadly lacking in the Church and this does great damage to the message of forgiveness and grace that is so clearly taught, in theory, in conservative circles.
