Chapter 7

Religion and politics must mix

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?”

Ezekiel 34:2

There are many ways in which it is possible for us to be neighbourly, metaphorically binding up people’s wounds, picking them up and placing them on our donkey to get them to a place where they can access longer-term support or professional help, should they need it.

Alongside these personal acts of charitable compassion, kindness, help, and support that individuals make at their own cost, expecting nothing in return, there is a bigger picture and larger concerns. Many of these seem insurmountable; indeed, they can only be addressed when we work together with other like-minded Christians.

This was true of William Wilberforce and others who formed The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the 18th century. It took time. There were disappointments on the way. Nevertheless, by political campaigning and using the political structures of the day, the British slave trade was made illegal by an Act of Parliament in 1807. Continuing political action resulted in further legislation and eventually the abolition of slavery in the British colonies.

Just like the anti-slavery movement, many charitable and aid organisations established in the 20^th century also have Christian roots. Foremost among these is Christian Aid, founded by British and Irish churches to help refugees following the Second World War. Christian Aid now has 41 sponsoring Christian denominations. It has become a major international provider of humanitarian relief and longer-term development and support for impoverished communities. Just like those in the ant-slavery movement, Christian Aid’s supporters’ love of God and neighbour drives their campaigning for transformative change of socio-economic and political structures that result in ongoing misery for so many.

We live in a time when the world is warming, and we are increasingly concerned about what that will mean for the planet and life on it. Huge populations around the globe suffer the impact of extreme weather (a symptom of ongoing climate change) - fire, flood and drought. In 2020, there were over thirty thousand species at risk of extinction.^[1] These trends have enormous consequences for people around the world. For some, this is an inconvenience; for others, it is life-threatening.

During the twentieth century, sea levels rose by 20-30 centimetres, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected a further rise of up to one metre during the twenty-first century. Rising sea levels are forcing people to relocate as their Pacific island homes become submerged.

Climate change and so-called natural disasters force millions of people from their homes each year. The University of New South Wales’ Kaldor Centre for International Refugees states that “about one person per second”^[2] is displaced from their home due to climate change.

Loving God and neighbour requires our treading lightly on the earth, seeking ways to reduce our carbon footprint and live more sustainably. We are dependent on the planet and all it provides for life. If we fail to care for the planet, the planet will not care for us.

Globally, the years 2016 and 2020 were the hottest on record to that date. We know temperatures are rising and that weather is becoming more extreme. The charitable organisation Water Aid has identified that 90% of natural disasters are water-related and massively impact upon people’s lives. However, perhaps these disasters are not so ‘natural,’ but result from the way human beings use and abuse God’s creation. In many places across the world, people, often children, walk miles each day to collect water since one in ten people do not have access to clean water close to home. A quarter of the human population has no toilet of their own.

To many, human tragedies due to flood or drought are often out of sight and so easily ignored. However, the suffering that people experience can be addressed. Our wholehearted love for the creator needs to be reflected in greater care over his creation, a more neighbourly approach taken with the way we use the world’s resources, and greater care afforded to those for whom each day is a struggle to exist.

Can we honestly say we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength if we live in ways that destroy his creation? Can we honestly say we love our neighbour if we live in ways that destroy the places they live and put their homes and livelihoods at risk? The Refugee Convention protects people fleeing persecution, conflict, or violence. However, those who are forced to flee their homes as a consequence of environmental threats are not regarded as refugees. Indeed, there is no international legal framework to protect them. Is our failure to ensure these people are provided with legal protection and able to re-establish their homes and lives in places of safety and security, where they are welcomed and accepted, tantamount to walking by on the other side of the road?

In the mid-twentieth century, a Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drawn up, which almost every country in the world affirmed. Articles one and two of this declaration, intentionally or not, underline the teachings of the parable of the Good Samaritan - that each person born is a neighbour to every other. The Declaration states:

Article 1.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Article 2.

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”

Nevertheless, abuse and exploitation based on gender, ethnicity, and cultural background continue.

In the UK, the challenges of poverty and disadvantage are a reality for many people of black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. They are treated less fairly at school, by employers, and by the criminal justice system. They have poorer housing and poorer health outcomes.^[3] Institutional racism is significant in many organisations. It should not escape us that Jesus chose a Samaritan, with all of the associated implications and connotations that we have been exploring, as the hero of his parable.

There are neighbours who go hungry. Statista, the German company specialising in market and consumer data, found that “in 2019/20, approximately 1.9 million people used a foodbank in the United Kingdom, around 300,000 more than the previous year. Throughout the provided time period, the number of foodbank users has increased in every year, from just under 26 thousand in 2008/09.”^[4] At the beginning of the 2020s, the aid charity, World Vision, estimated that just under 9% of the world’s population go to bed on empty stomachs each night. They have reported that “Since 2014, the number of people affected by hunger has been slowly on the rise. If it continues at this rate, it’ll exceed 840 million by 2030.”^[5]

There are neighbours who are homeless. In the UK, homeless people are those who either lack a secure place in which they are entitled to live or not reasonably be able to stay. This includes people sleeping rough on the streets and those in hostel or temporary accommodation. The Homelessness Monitor has reported that “Statutory homeless acceptances… remain 42 per cent above their 2009 low point.”^[6] The Monitor also states that “Homelessness temporary accommodation placements, however, have continued to rise, and now stand 71 per cent higher than in 2011, with a disproportionate rise in Bed & Breakfast use also ongoing. By mid-2018, some 85,000 homeless households were living in temporary accommodation, equating to over 200,000 people.”^[7]

In June 2020, the UNHCR Global Trends report stated that 1% of the world’s population are displaced from their homes. This is due largely to climate change or conflict, and many have no homes to return to.^[8]

Addressing these national and global issues is a challenge. Individual actions make little impression on global suffering, but working collectively and influencing the political decision making have a huge impact. Placing a tin of beans in the foodbank basket behind the tills at the supermarket may make us feel good. It will provide immediate help for someone, but it is not a means for dealing with the issues of poverty and hunger. The big question is, if we truly love our neighbour in need, what are we doing to ensure that the foodbank is not a necessity? We may give money to homeless charities, particularly when our hearts are warmed by the Christmas message and we feel moved to help those sleeping rough on the streets during cold winter nights, but what priority does homelessness have on our political agenda?

In Great Britain, the response to homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 saw extraordinary action taken to get homeless people into safe accommodation. Whilst the pandemic exacerbated many of the issues and placed greater strain on services, it was clear that with the right political will, people’s lives can be transformed.

For too long, it has been said that politics and religion do not mix and that religion is a private matter. However, is it possible to separate our life with God, our life of faith, and our understanding of God’s command to love from our political life? Our call to be witnesses to God working in us and through us is not a private matter at all. If religion and politics do not mix, it is because our politics is at odds with how we see the world through the eyes of faith, at odds with how God intended and intends the world to be. Our love of God and our love of neighbour must be demonstrated not only in our private lives but in the common life and political life of our communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 highlighted the interconnectedness and the interdependence of people across the globe. It stressed the need for people to work together and care for one another. Chinese scientists discovered the genetic code of the virus itself. The Pfizer vaccine (the first to be approved and administered in the world) was developed in Germany by a Turkish couple and funded by a US company. It underwent trials conducted in 150 different countries and was manufactured in Belgium. The first approved dose was administered in England to a Northern Irish patient by a Filipino nurse.

Together as a church, we can demonstrate our love of God and his creation, including his human creation, our neighbours, by using national and international political structures. We can use these mechanisms to ensure that where there is prejudice, abuse, and exploitation, it is challenged. It is through our political life we agree on laws and regulations about how our relationships with others at home and across the world are conducted and managed. Influencing the way these laws and regulations are made, and political decision-making more generally, is an important way in which individual lives and the lives of communities can be transformed. In our love of God and neighbour, we have an obligation to influence all levers of power to ensure that God’s creation is treated with respect and care, whether that is the world of nature or people made in God’s image.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul, writing from prison, urges his readers to “live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”^[9] In a world of conflict and violence, abuse, exploitation, enslavement, neglect, corruption, anger, mistrust, anxiety, and fear, it is only love of God and neighbour that is strong enough to empower us to bear with one another.

Of course, there are a host of local, national and international issues which change and evolve over time. The key question for us is, how can we be true to the commands to love God and others in each of these situations?

With love, all kinds of relationships can be transformed for good. It is love that means no child will go hungry; no one need walk miles for water, or for education or health care; no bed need be a cardboard box; no home the tented city of a refugee camp.

When we do these things in the name of and out of love for God, we become ‘sign-producers for God’s Kingdom,’ as Bishop Tom Wright puts it.^[10] Like Jesus’ miracles, our works become signs of the new creation. We indicate that our communities and the individuals within them can be transformed. We show that the Christian community is one that loves and is prepared to give sacrificially for the sake of others.

So, the questions that face us are:

If I am to love God and love my neighbour as myself, am I living in ways that are harmful to the earth, harmful to humanity, and consequently an insult to its creator?

When we hear or see people treated differently, particularly when they are treated badly or unfairly because of their gender, ethnic heritage, social class, or education:

Has a hostile environment towards this person or these people been deliberately or inadvertently created?

Has a process or system been established that favours one specific group more than another?

Has a process or system been established that disadvantages one specific group more than another?

Do I feel differently towards people, are my attitudes and actions different towards people, that are not from the same ethnic group, social class or educational attainment as myself?

Can I empathise and put myself in their situation?

Do I feel for the rejection of people abused, exploited, marginalised or voiceless?

Are my actions and attitudes towards these people neighbourly?

What was at stake in the first century and continues to be at stake today in the twenty-first century is how we use the revelation of God’s love and grace shown to us in his Son, Jesus Christ. Will we use it to boost our own sense of superiority and separation from those not like us and to see the weaknesses and failings of others as not our concern? Will we leave for dead so much of the world as we walk by on the other side? Or will we use the love and grace God had given us to be neighbourly, meeting the needs of all made in his image?

Jesus shows us a radical alternative of seeing the world and living in the world differently.

It is important to remember that the commands to love God and neighbour are inseparable. However, we must not miss the fact that there is a clear priority. If we are not careful, we can easily focus on social action rather than on God.

Writing in the American publication, Townhall, in May 2021, Canon J John makes the point succinctly. He was commenting on the report, “Burning Down the House: How the Church Could Lose Young People Over Climate Inaction,” produced jointly by the Youthscape Centre for Research and Tearfund. He wrote,

“A perennial problem in Christianity has been the misidentification of moral fruit for spiritual roots. Throughout history, people have observed the good deeds undertaken by the church, whether with the poor, the marginalized or the enslaved, and have assumed that social action is the ultimate priority of the church. … Christianity is not about social action; it is about lives changed through encountering Jesus.”[11]

Paul makes it clear in his letter to the Ephesians that Salvation “is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[12] Our salvation is not about simply obeying laws and commands, but rather about a loving relationship with Jesus. Our love in action is offered as a response to God’s love and grace. It is a result of our salvation, not a means of achieving it.

Jesus is clear about who is part of his family. He was once in a house and was told that his mother and brothers were waiting to see him outside. Jesus’ reply was that “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice,”[13] loving God and loving others.

What we believe about Jesus shapes our understanding of love. Love of God and love of others go hand in hand together; one cannot be separated from the other. A real love of God is demonstrated by a concern to do his will, as he has outlined in what we call commandments. Yet we push love aside by selfishness, greed, a desire for power over others, and because keeping the commandments to love demands something of us from deep within. God’s commands may be challenging, but they are not a burden since love brings us closer to God and one another. It is by loving God and neighbour that God’s love is made complete in us and the world becomes a little more like God intended it to be, and we shall have nothing to fear when our life on this earth is over.

Points for reflection

1. Is it possible to keep our political life distinct and separate from our life of faith?

2. Should Christians be active in politics?

3. Is it possible to use a political agenda to demonstrate love for others and further God’s Kingdom on earth?

4. Christians are called to love God and love neighbour. How do these commands influence the way we vote if we live in a political democracy?

5. What are the political issues of today? In each situation, how can we love God and others?

Prayer

Loving God, we lay before you the needs of all who face injustice, the poor who get poorer whilst the rich line their pockets, people abused and exploited, the person forced from their home. Help us to speak out against injustice and to speak up for the voiceless. May there be a willingness to recognise each other’s grievances with compassion and love.

Bless the leaders of nations and peoples. May they govern with integrity, honesty, dignity and respect for others.

God of grace, work in hearts torn apart by hate, pride, greed, and fear, and pour into them your healing balm of love. Make our hands strong to reach out to people downcast and fallen, and lift them up.

Help us to use the resources of the world, not to kill, maim and destroy but to give life in all its fulness.

In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

[1] International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species Version 2020-2022. https://www.iucnredlist.org

[2] The University of New South Wales’ Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. Factsheet on Climate Change and Disasters and Displacement. October 2018. https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/Factsheet_Climate%20change_Apr2019.pdf

[3] Bernardo, David. Reported in The Guardian Newspaper 5.12.2020. Barnardo’s hits back at Tory MPs upset by talk of ‘white privilege’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/05/barnardos-hits-back-at-tory-mps-upset-by-talk-of-white-privilege

^[4] Clark, D. Number of people using food banks in the UK 2008-2020 Statisa Sep 23, 2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/#:~:text=In%202019%2F20%20approximately%201.9%20million%20people%20used%20a,year%2C%20from%20just%20under%2026%20thousand%20in%202008%2F09.

[5] https://www.worldvision.org/hunger-news-stories/world-hunger-facts

[6] Fitzpatrick, Suzanne et al. The homelessness monitor: England 2019. May 2019 https://www.crisis.org.uk/media/240419/the_homelessness_monitor_england_2019.pdf

[7] Fitzpatrick, Suzanne et al. The homelessness monitor: England 2019. May 2019 https://www.crisis.org.uk/media/240419/the_homelessness_monitor_england_2019.pdf

[8] https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2020/6/5ee9db2e4/1-cent-humanity-displaced-unhcr-global-trends-report.html

[9] Ephesians 4:2

[10] Wright, Tom. God and the Pandemic. SPCK. London (2020) p64–65

[11] https://townhall.com/columnists/canonjjohn/2021/05/09/climate-change-and-the-gospel-resisting-popular-appeal-and-embracing-a-biblical-approach-n2589007

[12] Ephesians 2:8–9

[13] Luke 8:21. See also, Matthew 12:50; Mark 3:35