Election 2010
Writing Connecting with Culture always has its challenges, but writing it on the day of the closest, least predictable General Election for 18 years somewhat adds to that challenge.
The risk of making a fool of oneself by predicting the result is vast. But avoiding that risk presents another danger, the danger of writing something so spectacularly anodyne that you press the delete button before you get to the end of the third paragraph, which reads something like...
We should be so grateful that we live in a democracy. People died so that we could vote in elections. Some people in the world still don't have the vote. So, it is our duty as responsible citizens, not to mention faithful Christians, to make our cross count.
None of this is actually wrong, but nor is it particularly original or inspiring. Is there anything original to say on General Election day? Perhaps it is this: we need to remember that we are only talking about politics.
Now, we need to read that word 'only' in the right way. 'Only' does not mean that politics is not important, that voting is not a serious responsibility, or that the outcome of this election is immaterial. Nor does 'only' mean one must endorse the vision of 'the big society'. Connecting with Culture has no party line to push.
Rather, it is to reconnect Christians with a tradition of political theology that is sadly much neglected today. Christian theologians used to term what we call government, 'civil government'. This was to distinguish it from government of other spheres of life, such as individual, family, church, or business. Civil government is an indispensable part of our common life, and Christians do, and will, legitimately disagree about what role it should play. But they should agree that it plays a role, not the role.
Political rhetoric naturally inflates around election time and we need to puncture it. The country will not be saved on May 6, any more than the economy will be ruined or politics itself conclusively cleaned up. Different parties will do things better or worse - depending on what you consider better and what you consider worse - and we would do well to engage with them in that process.
But we make a profound mistake if we believe that it is politics that saves.
Nick Spencer
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Nick Spencer is Director of Studies at Theos, the public theology think tank
You write that "Civil government is an indispensable part of our common life, and Christians do, and will, legitimately disagree about what role it should play. But they should agree that it plays a role, not the role" While this is true, it is also the case that an increasing amount of legislation (and indeed legal rulings) has prescribed more controls on how we should live aspects of our lives and the extent to which Christians are able to outwork our faith into daily life. So it is possible to see a process whereby civil goverment has been increasingly intruding on these other forms of government. We should bear that in mind when we decide how to vote today.
Date:
2010-05-06 06:22:23
Author:
John Austin