Who's got the Power?
Mark Greene questions our perceptions of people with power, and wonders how Christians can have real influence in our culture.
Jamie Oliver has. And apparently rather more of it than Archbishop George Carey.
Who’s got influence?
Victoria Beckham.
And apparently more of it than Archbishop George Carey.
However you define power – either in terms of economic clout or as The Observer does as “the capacity to influence the quality of people’s lives, lifestyle or values” - there are, according to this year’s Power List, very few people in the top 300 who would call themselves Christians. It’s certainly comforting to have Blair at No 1 and Brown at No 2, but after that you have to go a long way down the list to find many who are prepared to declare allegiance to Christianity.
The List is beset by the inevitable problems of such slightly artificial exercises – it may say more about the upper middle class liberal elite who select the names than the state of power relations in society - but still there is much to learn.
Power and influence comes in various forms so they’ve included those who clearly have enormous executive power to change our lives – Blair and Brown. And there are those whose lives are exemplars for a generation – Michael Owen, Tiger Woods. There are those whose names few people know but whose companies are economically more powerful than most nations on earth – the CEOs of oil companies and high tech companies. There are those whose influence is quasi priestly – the DJs whose playlists change the tastes of millions, the media owners and controllers who manage and seek to control the mass imagination and what information we receive. There are those whose power will be ephemeral but may still be significant – Brynle Williams, the hauliers’ chief, for example. Or Trevor Beattie who will write Labour’s election ad campaign.
At first sight, the absence of any major cleric except the Pope seems extraordinary. It’s not just Carey who is absent so is the new Catholic leader Archbishop Michael Bowen, so is the EA’s Joel Edwards, so is Cliff – an extraordinary omission of a hugely respected exemplar who remains a beacon of decency in a largely decadent industry. Indeed, the only overtly Christian figure I could spot was Stagecoach’s Brian Souter who made such public investment in opposing Section 28. But at least The Observer’s panel is even-handed - you won’t even see Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks whose social commentary is much respected far beyond the orthodox Jewish community he represents.
And then I found myself asking the question: is George Carey a greater influence on my life than Richard Branson? And the answer was ‘no’. Probably not. Branson is hugely influential not primarily because he is a fine entrepreneur but because of the way he is perceived to lead his life. He is a modern icon – the most admired man in Britain two years ago. Branson has companies, Branson has hobbies, Branson has fun and Branson doesn’t seem to have any suits.
What this tells us is this: the church has no single powerful spokesperson in the public square that the world consistently takes notice of. Or indeed any person whose voice is able to significantly influence the actions of enough Christians to create public change. Mary Whitehouse may have been the last one. What our absence from the list does not tell us accurately is the extent of influence of Christian values and lifestyle on contemporary culture. 7.5% of the population still go to church once a month or more which is more than watch Jamie Oliver’s programme or are into Garage music.
But of course The Observer may not be right about who is important. Certainly, Madonna remains influential but there’s no place for the 16 year old virgin queen of pop, Britney Spears. Similarly, they can’t find a slot for Catherine Cookson who has done more for loneliness and depression than Prozac and remains, I believe, the author most read by women and most borrowed from libraries. And what of the script writers of Eastenders that some research cites as more influential on our national values than the education system. Similarly, they fail to mention any major crime boss – when the veins of our young course with cocaine and ecstasy.
And if the Observer’s team have the good sense to include Greenpeace’s Melchett who has tinged us all at least pale green and made us quick to be sceptical of big business and slow to question Greenpeace’s own sometimes bloated claims, they have somehow ignored Jubilee 2000’s Ann Pettifor. Ann is the lobbyist and leader of one of the great populist movements that has made almost everyone in Britain conscious of the burden of third world debt. And millions have signed its petitions. Even this month’s Marie Claire sports the Drop the Debt slogan on its front cover in the hottest of hot pinks.
Such inconsistency abounds in The Observer’s judgements. If, as they say, they have chosen some figures to represent the influence of a particular area of society and so include people like Tracey Emin of ‘unmade bed’ fame to represent the arts, why can’t they find it in their hearts to include a single British religious cleric to represent the 7.5% of the population who choose to go to church once a month or more. Is there any group of people who love more? Similarly, they have ignored almost the entire substructure of voluntary charitable work that is the buttress of the poor, and the homeless, and the addicted, and the too-soon pregnant and the too soon dying. There’s no one to ‘represent’ that area of society whereas there is a proliferation of CEOs. But being the President of a huge company does not necessarily make you someone who influences people’s lifestyles – your industry might but you don’t. Much of what is happening in IT is not driven by innovative and powerful leaders but by innovative and powerful technologies whose logic demands the kind of mega-mergers we are seeing today. The macro economic forces are actually more powerful than the people who control them – the technology is the message not the company.
Certainly, The Observer gets lots of things right.
It is true that influence has shifted from Institutions to corporations. It is true that trans-national corporations are more powerful than most countries in the world. And so therefore are their leaders. And it is true that brands are no longer simply the names of products but the carriers of values and a source of identity and, according to panellist Peter York, even redemption. Overall, the Observer argues, the place of the church has been taken over by brands and, I would add, also by a whole range of enthusiasms from TV to sport to music to malls. The antenna and the cable have replaced the spire as the source of authority and community in our culture. And the brand is what most of the output of the antenna and cable is dedicated to promoting.
It is true that Jamie Oliver may have contributed to a shift in the way we view food. And it is true that Starbucks' Howard Schultz has begun to change the high street in some of our cities, giving us back a place where we can sit on our own or with a friend and pass an easy twenty minutes or so, without spending a fortune or needing to negotiate the particular atmosphere and often more threatening dynamics of a pub or a bar. He is, in theory at least, offering us a kind of community, along with a decent cup of coffee.
And it is true that Germaine Greer has indeed succeeded in speaking to successive generations of women.
But often The Observer’s analytical prowess deserts them. Britain, they claim, is becoming a more fun-loving place. Well, we may be a more fun-seeking place but as national research has shown, we have never been so depressed. Simply because they put a couple of DJs on the Power List proves little more than that music is hugely important. Could anyone have been more fun-looking than the totally cheery Tony Blackburn? In fact, the rise in the importance of entertainers may tell us more about our national need to be distracted from our misery than it does about the appropriate celebration of our achievements or even of life itself.
And should the Power List matter anyway?
Would Paul have made it into the top 300 in Nero’s Empire? We have lost power and we will not regain it by either mourning its loss or even primarily seeking to regain it. Our calling is to be stars in the firmament, channels of grace, to demonstrate the beauty and validity of a different way. If we as Christians seek to do that in our workplaces and schools and retirement communities and neighbourhoods, then our influence will be enormous, whether or not the Observer chooses to acknowledge it. And Christ’s name will be lifted high.
May that day soon come.
This article first appeared in Christianity & Renewal, and is reproduced by kind permission.
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