Article

Creed

General Election 24

Politics

3 July 2024

5 min read

Cross-check what matters when voting

Three perspectives to inform how we vote wisely.

Sam Rylands

Sam recently completed a doctorate in political theology and is the Vicar of St Andrew's, Fulham Fields.

A pen draws a cross in a box on a ballot form.

What principles will shape your vote this Thursday? What or who will primarily guide your decision in the ballot booth? Podcaster and former political advisor Alastair Campbell’s old adage “we don’t do God” suggests that religion and politics don’t mix. Yet some of the most important movements for social and political justice in modern history had Christians at their heart. Think Wilberforce, Fry, Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, or the lesser-known but worth-a-google, Melanesian Brotherhood.

What wisdom might the Christian faith have to offer when thinking, not just about this election, but how to approach politics in general? Like lions on the England football shirt, all good things come in threes– so, here are three Christian perspectives that can inform political engagement.

First, earthly kingdoms are penultimate. God’s kingdom is ultimate.

Perhaps the moment that Jesus is drawn most explicitly to comment on the politics of his day, was when he was asked about paying taxes. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Given how frustrating it can be watching politicians avoid responding directly to any question posed, we might sympathise with those who wanted a direct answer here. But for Jesus, to say yes would position him as a traitor to the Jewish people who wanted to resist and subvert the authority of the Roman Empire. To say no, however, would be to signal revolutionary intentions to lead a rebellion against the occupying Roman force.

Set within this political trap, Jesus responds by asking for a coin and turns the tables by asking, “whose face is on this coin?” “Caesar’s,” comes the reply. “Then give to the emperor what belongs to him,” says Jesus. Yet, before we allow this response to justify opting out of political practice or hallow every existing ruling power, Jesus continues: “But give to God what belongs to God.” And what belongs to God, we ask? Well, as the writer of the ancient Psalms poetry put it, “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Nothing short of the whole universe and beyond belongs to God, the creator of heaven and earth. So, in taking the coin, Jesus is not giving a blanket affirmation of Caesar’s rule, but challenges each and every earthly kingdom by relativising it in the light of God’s eternal kingdom. What has sustained so many Christians in challenging and renewing the political context of their day is the trust that before, behind, and beyond the rising and falling of each earthly authority stands God’s eternal kingdom. This kingdom is not in competition with the kingdoms of earth, vying to secure its own territory, but is a kingdom inaugurated by a king who wears a crown of thorns, forgives his executioners, and is raised from the dead to proclaim, “peace be with you!” The call to follow Christ within the political is to retain the perspective of this eternal life.

Second, politics needs a perspective beyond personal interest.

Holding an eternal perspective, however, is not to say this world or politics does not matter. In contrast, justice, compassion, and seeking a world as God intends it to be matters precisely because of eternity. How we live here and now has eternal significance. How we treat one another and care for all of creation has eternal significance. What belongs to God? We all do. Each person is made in God’s image. As a coin bears the image of its ruler, so we are marked by the image of God. When we consider our political responsibility, therefore, we must do so not with our own cares or concerns alone, or even primarily. Rather, we should ask what political responsibility we have towards others? How do my political decisions or actions impact my neighbour, both local and global– particularly those on the underside of the political power of the day? As the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cotterill, recently shared, “as a Christian, I’m hoping and I’m praying, that when I vote, when you vote, we won’t be placing our vote according to what’s best for us, but for what’s going to be best for God’s world.” If God’s power is displayed most fully in Christ who came, not to be served, but to serve, giving his life for the sake of the world, then political power cannot be a means for securing our own advantage over and against others. A Christian approach to politics recognises that my flourishing is bound up and inseparable from the flourishing of all others.

Third, let’s disagree well.

However, even if we could agree on the importance of politics beyond personal interest, we won’t all agree on what this looks like in practice. For instance, whilst two people might agree on the need to ensure a welfare safety net for the most deprived in society, their perspectives on how best to achieve this might differ greatly. Christians are not immune from such disagreements and (not that you would know it from the promises of each political party) no political system can deliver heaven on earth. How then are we to reconcile our political differences?

Returning to the theme of belonging and image bearing, the church bears the image of Christ. The church is the Body of Christ, comprised of many different members yet united, as one body. One of Jesus’ final acts on earth was to pray that the church would be one in the same way that God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one. Unity in difference. This image offers a counterweight to how political differences are played out across the news and social media platforms. Here, to vote or think differently is often to become an enemy, or even to forfeit one’s belonging as a bearer of God’s image, another person worthy of inestimable dignity and value.

Belonging to Christ, however, is to know that belonging together runs deeper than divisions of race, gender, societal status, and political tribalism. It is to trust that my sister or brother in Christ, with whom I might strongly disagree politically, is a gift to me, a showing of Christ, that I would otherwise fail to see on my own. If Christ really is the way, the truth, and the life, then the truth is beyond my final possession of it. This does not mean indifference or relativism. As the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes, “unity is Christ-shaped, or it is empty.” But if we can recognise one another placing our penultimate political judgements under the same scrutiny of Christ’s coming kingdom, then even in our disagreements, the church, bearing together in costly communion, reveals a belonging together that anticipates the ultimate: a world where things can only get better.

Article

Comment

Grenfell disaster

Justice

Death & life

Politics

4 September 2024

7 min read

Grenfell: a tale of two towers

The Inquiry offers an opportunity to change the way we treat each other

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A wrapping around the Grenfell Tower bears a giant green heart.

The Blowup on Unsplash.

Graham Tomlin was Bishop of Kensington at the time of the Grenfell Tower fire. This is the first of a short series of articles reflecting on this milestone in our national life.

The Grenfell Inquiry report is brutal. None of the companies involved in the renovation of Grenfell Tower escape. Arconic, Kingspan, Rydon, Celotex, Exova and many others – all have a lot to answer for. Listening to the statement by Sir Martin Moore-Bick and reading the report, words such as ‘failure’, ‘dishonesty’, ‘misleading’, and ‘defective’ sounded like a tolling bell throughout his account.

This was a tragedy that was decades in the making. Reports came out, warnings were issued and routinely ignored. A government which led a campaign of de-regulation without looking at the consequences for safety, a local council that failed to plan ahead for such an event, a tenant management organisation that treated the tenants they were supposed to serve with disdain, all played their part. The construction industry fared even worse. A culture of unholy competition, ‘value engineering’ (another term for deception), cost-cutting, a scramble for market share all took precedence over the safety of the people who were going to live in the newly clad flats of Grenfell Tower.

In the past, initial reports such as those on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland and on the Hillsborough disaster, were weak affairs, failing to listen to the voices of victims, too careful to preserve the status quo, only leading to further anger, and further reports which finally began to address the key issues. This report has not pulled its punches – perhaps because they kept the human side of the tragedy in mind throughout.

In the early stages, in an inspired move, the Inquiry decided to offer an opportunity for bereaved family members to simply describe the people who died in the fire. It was intensely moving as the richness and colour of each person was described, celebrated and mourned. As a result, this Inquiry has never quite lost the human nature of this tragedy and I suspect that is why its results have been so hard-hitting.

No blame for the victims - instead he demands a radical national repentance, a re-examination of deeper social and spiritual trends, and for a radical turnaround of attitude.

Jesus and another tower

Remembering the human scale of the disaster is vital, yet in itself, it does not lead to change. At one point in his public teaching, Jesus was asked about another disaster involving a tower which led to the tragic death of a large number of people. At some point during Jesus’ time in Jerusalem, it seems a tower collapsed in a part of the city called Siloam, killing 18 people. This tragedy clearly had a significant impact across the nation, and people started asking what it meant, and what it said about the society in which they lived.

Jesus' words were harsh:

“Those who died when the tower in Siloam fell – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’”

No blame for the victims - instead he demands a radical national repentance, a re-examination of deeper social and spiritual trends, and a profound change of mindset. If they don’t, such disasters will continue to happen. When disaster strikes, it doesn’t say anything much about those caught up in it, but it does give us an opportunity to take a good look at ourselves.

Jesus said that the two most basic commandments, the things we should set out to do every day of our lives, were to love God and to love our neighbour - who is deserving of love because they are first made and loved by God. The Grenfell story is an object lesson in what happens when those commandments get ignored. This is what happens when these commandments are superseded by other imperatives, such as to increase market share, to beat the competition or to safeguard the reputation of our own organisation.

Grenfell was the result of a culture that has become so individualistic that we have lost sight of the fact that we are our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers, that we have a responsibility for each other, and that we find purpose and meaning in loving our neighbours as we love ourselves, whoever they happen to be. I am sure that the employees of Arconic, Rydon, Kingspan and the Tenant Management Organisation of RBKC, would have done anything they could to ensure that they and their families enjoyed a safe and secure home. They simply failed to do that for those they were meant to serve through their work. They took care of themselves and their own. They lost sight of the people their work affected. They did not take care of their neighbour.

It is the individuals and institutions that have the resilience and flexibility to face up to failure, learn the lessons and to be open to change which ultimately excel.

What happens now?

Matthew Syed’s 2015 book Black Box Thinking looked at responses to catastrophic failure. He contrasted the approach of the medical profession with the aviation industry. Too often, he argued, when an error is made in the world of healthcare, the instinct is to cover up failure for fear of litigation or in order to protect reputations. As a result, he suggested, the same mistakes are often repeated, which means that thousands of people continue to die in hospitals every year due to preventable error. When a plane crashes, however, the ‘black box’ is recovered, data painstakingly analysed, and no stone is left unturned in order to determine the exact causes of the disaster to make sure that it never happens again. As a result, plane travel has become one of the safest means of transport we have.

The companies and organisations that were meant to protect the residents of Grenfell failed in that duty. Yet the moral of Syed’s story is that failure is not something to be feared — but an opportunity to change. It is the individuals and institutions that have the resilience and flexibility to face up to failure, learn the lessons and to be open to change which ultimately excel. It is what the Christian church calls confession and repentance – the willingness to admit when we have got something wrong, bear the consequences, ask for forgiveness, resolve to learn from the error of our ways and to become a better person through it. Repentance is not wallowing in self-pity or hiding in a corner from the wagging finger of guilt; it is an invitation to honesty, to growth and to transformation.

Those responsible will need to face justice. Yet if we allocate blame, punish the guilty, and then carry on as before, then there is no guarantee that something like this will not happen again. We might issue new types of building regulations, or safety measures in construction, but even that would not be enough. The kind of repentance that Jesus, and indeed the Grenfell Tower fire calls for is deeper - a radical look at the way we live together in our society.

This involves all of us. As Andrew O’Hagan put it in a long article soon after the fire in the London Review of Books:

“In all the loosening of cares and controls and emergency services, it’s not just the current government but a succession of them that lie behind those deaths, and who, if not all of us, voted such vulnerability into existence? No one did well. If civic life is dead, with a 24-storey tombstone beside the Westway, it died in the times in which we too lived, and by the values we lived by. The point of a society, if we have one, is that when bad things happen, it’s everybody’s concern.”

Grenfell is such an opportunity that we dare not let pass. If we carry on as normal, with our atomised individualism, our addiction to comfort, our spiritual poverty, our disregard for our neighbours, we would miss a huge opportunity to address some of the deeper issues in our life together, not to speak of refusing to heed the call of Jesus for true repentance.

In his statement in the House of Commons, Keir Starmer pledged a “profound shift in culture and behaviour.” I hope - and pray - this is what happens. Yet it will take more than changes to building regulation and for safety. It needs spiritual and not just political change, as I’ve argued here before. It would mean each of us looking at ourselves, and the cultures of the organisations of which we are a part (yes - including the church), and responding to the call to love God – to re-orient our lives around something, someone bigger and better than us – and to love our neighbours as much as we love ourselves. What if Grenfell sparked a fundamental change back to that more connected vision of who we are and what we are here for? Grenfell - and this report - is a shock to our system. Let us not waste it.

Listen to Graham discuss Grenfell on BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

Listen from 50:56.