Why don’t we trust ‘em any more?
As a nation, we seem to be losing interest in politics. The main parties are bemoaning a decline in membership, voting returns are now at a point where postal voting is being offered to tempt us back to vote, and increasingly I’m hearing people express uncertainty about who, if any, to support. The country is hardly on tenterhooks about who shall be next leader of the Tories! And the scene is not much better in the United States.
Of course there are some obvious reasons for this. Everybody is getting frightened of ‘extremism,’ seeing it as inevitably leading to violence. We mustn’t say anything which might be construed as ‘incitement to hatred’; a councillor is pilloried for one casual remark. Religious faith must be watered down: recently in conversation, my reference to my convictions about Jesus Christ was construed as ‘sounding arrogant.’ So both main parties are tending towards the middle. And the massive cockup over Iraq hasn’t helped - it has heightened the significance of occasional politicians’ scandals that we used to take in our stride.
The problem of leadership adds to all this. As someone remarked in my hearing recently, ‘We don’t seem to have any giants any more.’ Great statesmanship seems rare. I find myself amazed at the last US presidential election. Only two candidates - one, almost a nonentity, lacking either charisma or clear conviction, the other the existing president who scraped in by a rather dodgy vote-count, a failed university student, staggeringly ignorant of the psychology of foreign affairs (invading Iraq was a ‘crusade’?!!!). And these are the only candidates for the most important office of the most powerful nation on earth!
It has been said that a nation gets the government it deserves. Even if this is only partly true, it cries out for us to undergo a national change of heart so radical that it will be about the ultimate values ruling our lives. I can’t see anything to improve on a renewal of those of Christ’s teaching and the socio-political vision it implies. But in that case, either its churches have got to be transformed, or their God will have to effect it without them. I can’t think of anything better to do than keep asking Him...
John Peck