christians in politics?

I took issue with a friend last week who was waxing lyrical on the potential benefits of the new(-ish) political party, the Scottish Christian Party. Hopefully it was more than mere argumentativeness, but I'm definitely open to challenge on this point (as at least that friend was distinctly unconvinced by all my arguments).

It worries me for one thing that a dedicated Christian party in mainstream politics might (might) be incompatible with the Establishment Principle. As I see it, a Christian Party would presumably be consciously and deliberately setting out to represent the Church, and presumably, the ultimate aim of a political party in the UK situation would be to get into government. An official representative from the church in government would mean (I think) that the state would have been intruded upon to some extent by the church, in roughly the same way that a government official sitting on a kirk session would represent the state intruding on the church. It would also mean, would it not, that in the unlikely scenario that a Christian party got enough of a majority in parliament, the church would effectively be ruling the country. Does this argument make sense?

Obviously I don't have a problem with Christians, as individuals, running for office and acting according to their Christian values in their attempt to represent their constituents. But I think that it's a different matter when a group of Christians band together to offer an official line from the church within the political sphere.

It worries me in addition that even supposing those quibbles about the establishment principle are not well founded, there is still a problem of what exactly a Christian political party can realistically hope to offer.

For one thing, I strongly resist the campaign slogans emanating from some Scottish Christian Party spokesmen along the lines that 'a vote for us is a vote for Jesus.' Assuming they're working from the best of motives, and don't really believe anything quite so presumptious, slogans like that are deeply cringe inducing and off-putting.

For another thing, I'm sceptical that a Christian party can truly offer anything beyone a moral or ethical framework while still remaining Christian. I mean: you can there are some contemporary moral issues, such as abortion, on which you can take a clear stand without alienating hardly a Christian in the land, but what on earth kind of a policy could a Christian party have on the NHS, for example? Policies on the war in Iraq, on immigration, on carbon emissions, on funding for higher education - you hardly need to look beyond your own congregation to know that people can be perfectly good Christians and yet differ wildly on their approach to issues like these. So in what sense could a Christian party, trying their best to implement Christian values, genuinely draw up a manifesto of concrete policies on issues like these? A disagreement between Christians on how to tackle third world poverty, or whether to build new motorways, would not by itself cause a rupture in the Church as such, but there are obvious serious implications for how effectively any group of Christians could represent "the Christian position" on exactly the kinds of issues which no serious political party can possibly fudge.*

Which brings me back to how incongruous it is for any party to canvass support on the basis that a vote for them is "a vote for Jesus," and from there I'd like to suggest again that if you take the establishment principle seriously, you probably wouldn't be wanting to even try and find a Christian policy for making A-levels harder and combating MRSA infections. Individual Christians who are good at that sort of thing are welcome to go for it, but the Church, as the Church, can't have (and shouldn't want to have) a say on any of these matters. If the government should leave the church to decide whether or not to kneel at the communion rail, the church should definitely leave the government to decide for itself how to "do governmnent."


* Do the Tories still count as a serious political party?

religious courts

[Updated!]

I've been pondering a post about the Establishment Principle since a conversation about a week ago - this isn't it, but it's a stepping stone on the way.

This article in the BBC magazine raises the question of the place of religious courts alongside (in their case) English and Welsh law. How far can a religious court reach into the lives of the followers of that religion?

Within Scottish presbyterianism, there used to be (1600s-1800s) a well-worked out model of the relationship between church and state, whereby church courts were meant to have jurisdiction over spiritual matters, and civil courts had jurisdiction over everything else (including property and divorce, if I understand right). The two spheres of church and state were meant to co-operate wherever their jurisdictions overlapped (eg presumably a convicted criminal would undergo church discipline), but at the same time they had to mutually recognise that when there wasn't an overlap they would each defer to the other. The state wielded the magistrate's sword, and the church held the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The state couldn't dictate which liturgy the church should use or which ministers should be inducted into which pastoral charges, but the church couldn't meddle in political matters either.

They called it erastianism when the church was meant to be subservient to the state, and they called it romanism when the state was meant to be subservient to the church; both options were regarded as sub-optimal, but the use of that latter term only shows how unimaginable it was for them that islam would ever be a force to be reckoned with - how inconceivable that sharia law might ever be invoked in the civil sphere in the western world. The church does have the right to a voice in society, and an authoritative voice at that, but only within its own jurisdiction. I don't know if it's really adequate to talk about 'the church' in Islam, but the Establishment Principle does have something to say about Islam's locating of the interface between religious authority and secular authority; and what it says is that religious courts have no business encroaching on civil issues. That's as far as I understand it anyway.

If anyone is more clued up than me on the Establishment Principle I'd be very interested to know how sharia law could be implemented in the Scottish situation.

UPDATE: Thanks to all you readers who *didn't* spot the deliberate mistake in the second paragraph. At least in the Scottish situation, marriage and divorce does fall into the jurisdiction of the Church, as well as (?) that of the State. A better example of things within the remit of civil courts would presumably be property and financial matters, or something. But will this egregious error prevent me from speculating further about the usefulness of the establishment principle in contemporary Scottish life? I think not.

not able to answer

I've just broken the back of that stack of assignments I've been feverishly marking for the past half week. On a tight schedule with unfamilar data it hasn't been the most tranquil of times.

I'll tell you what's the most distressing thing of all: it's seeing students who failed to venture even the attempt at an answer. Honestly, one student's paper looked like this:

6. Not able to answer.
7. Not able to answer.
8. Not able to answer.

I never used to know why lecturers spent so much time exhorting their classes not to leave blanks - I never really believed anyone did that. Not when the questions are worth ten marks anyway. Now I know, and it's not just for the student's benefit either. If they've written something, you can at least try and treat it sympathetically, or give them credit somewhere else seeing as how they've made an effort. But if you can't even see how their mind is working, they've left you with absolutely no option but to give them zero.

It breaks my heart, it really does.

Unless, of course, they're the same people who who submitted their hand-ins with single spacing and font sizes less than 12 and not knowing how to spell "auxiliary". They, obviously, deserve everything they get.

not for a moment

John Bunyan has a lengthy section in Come and Welcome where he demonstrates how impossible it is that a sinner going to the Saviour for salvation would ever be rejected - the thought shouldn't be entertained for a moment.

If Jesus Christ should allow us once to think that the coming sinner shall be cast out, then he must allow us to question his will, or power, or merit to save. But he cannot allow us once to question any of these; therefore not once to think that the coming sinner shall be cast out.

(1) He cannot allow us to question his will; for he saith in the text, 'I will in no wise cast out.'

(2) He cannot allow us to question his power; for the Holy Ghost saith, He is able to save to the uttermost them that come.

(3) He cannot allow us to question the efficacy of his merit: for the blood of Christ cleanseth the comer from all sin, 1 John 1.

The whole book is devoted to unpacking that one verse in John 6 - 'All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,' and it's done in the most homely and encouraging way imaginable, but in some ways just the title of the book is enough to know: Come and welcome to Jesus Christ. (The verse itself is written above the pulpit in our church, which should presumably make it easier for this congregation to remember anyway!)

intuitions on nasality

I'm looking at the section on prosody in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. It goes through the standard aspects of prosody - intonation, rhythm, loudness, etc, and then there's a box at the side which talks about the "paralinguistic" uses of prosody, or the way that you can use those features of spoken language to send messages 'alongside' the actual words you speak (in much the same way as body language does).

So far, so uncontroversial, but I did have a question about one of the examples which was given to illustrate the use of 'voice quality':

The following examples of paralinguistic effects are accompanied by a gloss indicating the context in which they commonly occur.
* whisper - secrecy or conspiracy
* breathiness - deep emotion or sexual desire
* huskiness - unimportance or disparagement
* nasality - anxiety
* extra lip rounding - intimacy (especially to animals and babies).

Did anyone else think that nasality wasn't particularly closely connected with anxiety? or is it just me?

Presumably part of the problem is that the distinctions between, say, breathiness and huskiness, is left to the reader's own impressions, and I think it's fairly well recognised that ordinary language users can classify a startlingly wide range of speech phenomena as being "nasal," even when acoustically and articulatorily there's no nasality to be found. (The air coming out of the lungs in speech production flows out either by your mouth or by your nose - if it's flowing through the nasal cavity, that's when the sounds are nasal. It happens automatically with sounds like m, n, ng, but the suggestion here is that nasality would characterise a much larger stretch of speech as produced by an anxious person.)

It could well be a lack of imagination on my part, but I would be grateful if anyone could explain what might have been behind this claim.


David Crystal (1995), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, p248-249

specially welcome

It's been dawning on me for the past few months that all the books I've personally found most helpful have been written by English authors - Ryle, Bunyan, also Thomas Goodwin although I don't mind admitting he was something of a struggle, and Spurgeon on and off.

Obviously, if a thing is true, it doesn't matter who said it. But I've been starting to feel I should make more use of more home-grown talent. Theologically speaking, I don't know if you can beat Thomas Boston or George Smeaton, but I should really branch out into other practical works in addition to The Christian's Great Interest.

So yesterday I had a look at the works of Robert Traill, which I'd heard good things about, and instantly gleaned some very heart warming things. He was talking about coming to 'the throne of grace,' meaning approaching God in prayer, and in more than one place in the couple of sermons I managed to read he made the point that some people were more specially welcome at the throne of grace than others. Those who come to the throne of grace early and often, he said, are especially welcome. Also those who come when they have no other source of support whatsoever. Although he said it was a sad sign of unbelief that people don't go to God for help until they have absolutely nowhere else to turn, he still said those people were welcome when they did come, because their faith would be the more undiluted, the fewer props were available to them.

Another category of people who he said were especially welcome at the throne of grace were those who come "to get, and not to give." You might think it was obvious that your prayer wouldn't include anything by way of self-help - by definition, it should be a going out of yourself to another for help. But he went on:

"Take heed to your spirits in this matter. When you come to the throne of grace, come to receive out of Christ's fullness, and come not to bring grace with you to add to Christ's store. He loves to give, and glories in giving, but he scorns to receive grace from you, and in truth you have none but what he gives. Bring your wants to him to supply, but bring not your fulness to brag of. Spread your sins before this throne with shame and sorrow, and plead for a gracious pardon, but take heed you bring not your sorrow, tears, and repentance; nay, your faith itself, as a plea for that pardon. How abominable it is to Christians' ears, and how much more to Christ's, to hear a man plead thus for pardon: 'Here is my repentance; where is thy pardon? Here is my faith; where is thy justification?' I know men abhor to say so. But take good heed, lest any thought bordering on it enter into thy heart. Faith is the tongue that begs pardon - faith is the hand that receives it, it is the eye that seeth it; but it is no price to buy it. Faith uses the gospel plea for pardon, but itself, neither in habit nor act, is the plea itself. That is only Christ's blood. Christ's blood goes for the remission of your sins, if ever they be forgiven, and it is the only plea to be heard at the throne of grace."

Traill was a covenanter and I think (if I remember) it mentioned in the brief account of his life that he was a friend of William Guthrie (author of the Christian's Great Interest). All I managed to read yesterday was Sermon I and Sermon II on the throne of grace, in the first volume of his works published by the Banner of Truth (ie, I didn't take a note of the page numbers, but that's where to find these quotes if you wanted to track them down!).

red and white

I was all set to unleash a pompous post on the pseudo-controversy surrounding red versus white poppies the other day, but in the end I abandoned the effort. Then last night I finally sat down to read The Last Town on Earth by Peter Mullen - a novel about an American town which closed itself off in an attempt to avoid being infected by the flu pandemic during the First World War.

The book deals with the dilemmas arising from how to deal with a couple of soldiers who came to the town for refuge. One of the most interesting characters was Rebecca, the wife of the mill-owner whose progressive ideas about workers' pay and conditions had led him to establish the town in the first place. She was something of a socialist, her sympathies were anti-war, she was excited by this new movement called feminism, and she muted her dislike of the idea of shutting off the town so as not to disagree with her husband in public. She didn't want the quarantine imposed since, as long as the town was healthy, she thought they could have contributed to the welfare of the rest of society, rather than excluding themselves, turning their backs on everyone else in order to preserve their own privileged position. Unfortunately she fades from view as the central character, her adopted son, ends up confiding in a new found girlfriend instead - someone whose heart was in the right place but who wasn't so ideologically interesting, I thought.

Anyway, the point of bringing up the book was to say how blurry the lines between good and bad can get when they're drawn at the level of nations and international violence. The town was regarded with the greatest of suspicion by its neighbours for consisting of 'rapscallions and reds,' and there's also a nasty description of the experience of a conscientious objector in one of the army's training camps, in spite of how these people's experiences and beliefs don't seem to me to be particularly outrageous or alien. I don't really know enough about World War I to decide how far the patriotism was justified, versus the perception of pointlessness, the perception that it was a 'rich man's war': I just know I got a bit depressed, and in the end I decided I really didn't care about the colour of your poppy. One version might make more of a statement about the undesirableness of violence and conflict and express more forcefully a determination to avoid it, but if the other version references the stark cost and suffering, it's not by way of celebration but to serve as a reminder. So, pomposity aside, if I'd gone for one rather than the other it wouldn't involve a principle, just a question of emphasis. I think.

phobias, morality, the law

I was impressed by a letter published in Edinburgh University's Student newspaper this week which addressed the validity of making moral judgments on homosexual activity - pointing out that if you believe that homosexuality is wrong, it doesn't automatically mean you're homophobic.

The author [of a previous article] also implies that moral disapproval of homosexual activity should be regarded as homophobia. The author's own perfectly sensible definition of a phobia as an irrational fear or hatred should demonstrate that this elision is also false. The judgment that a certain kind of activity is morally wrong is simply not the same thing as fearing, hating, or mistreating those who indulge in it. If someone who disapproves of homosexual activity is cruel to persons who are inclined to or indulge in such behaviour, this is a grave wrong; and it is in no way a necessary concomitant of the moral judgment about the activity in question.

It's a relief to see views like that being articulated - especially since it takes care to make the point that homophobia is actually wrong. A person's homosexual lifestyle is no reason for them to be ridiculed or insulted, and a professed belief in the moral wrong-ness of it is definitely no excuse for being offensive.

But what's maybe even more of a relief is to see views like this being published. The Christian Institute's latest email is about Joe and Helen Roberts, who want a legal declaration that it was unlawful for the police to interrogate them in their own home for two hours and threaten them with imprisonment after they had asked the council to display Christian leaflets in addition to literature promoting a gay-rights agenda. (Jonathan Freedland used the incident in an article back in January as one of several examples of free speech coming under direct attack in recent months, so it's not just religiously conservative people who care about this.) I think the Christian Institute have set up a legal defence fund to help with the Roberts case, which is intended to stop similar confrontations arising in the future between members of the public who haven't actually committed a crime and hyper-zealous police officers who seem to wish they had.

philosophical question

Is it consistent with humility for a person to spontaneously announce to a roomful of people what was the greatest compliment they ever received?

I only ask because today, someone said to me .... nah, only kidding!

modernity

Tony Blair wants us to think that identity cards are an issue of modernity, not about civil liberties at all. This is a pretty feeble line to take - as if it counts as an argument to simply say nice things about your own position and act as if all the criticism coming from wide ranging and well qualified sources doesn't really exist.

Even supposing that identity cards (and the associated national database) actually had the potential to bring about the magic cure for such diverse problems as illegal immigration and benefits fraud (not forgetting terrorism as well of course, and basically just 'crime' in general), there still remains a massive problem of trust. Does it make sense to trust this government with 51 categories of personal information? If you don't do anything wrong, maybe. But how hard has it been for this government to invent new categories of wrong-doing, such that people who wouldn't have been criminals ten years ago now find themselves on distinctly the wrong side of the law, whether they're autistic teenagers whose neighbours land them with an asbo for staring over the fence, or little-England parishioners who think that civil partnerships aren't somehow quite as valid as conventional marriage.

ID cards and the national identity register, if they go ahead, will not only be a massive waste of money but a massive intrusion into our privacy. There's nothing shameful about wanting your personal details kept personal, as opposed to collected minutely and held centrally and made to contribute to a society where your innocence needs to be established and the people become answerable to the state rather than the other way round.

Anyway, we have an overnight guest due to arrive shortly; beds need to be made; it's better that I step down from the soapbox for the time being.

incontestable and unquestionable

This is a piece from Matthew Henry's Communicant's Companion - it's not the quote I'd intended to post next, but the one I'd made a mental note of, I can't actually find now that I'm looking for it.

Here [at the Lord's table] we must confide in his power, trusting in him as one that can help and save us. He has an incontestable authority - is a Saviour by office, sanctified and sealed, and sent into the world for this purpose; help is laid upon him. We may well offer to trust him with our part of this great concern [ie salvation], which is the securing of our happiness, for God trusted him with his part of it, the securing of his honour, and declard himself well pleased in him.

He has likewise an unquestionable ability to save to the uttermost. He is mighty to save, and every way qualified for the undertaking. He is skilful, for treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in him; he is solvent, for there is in him an inexhaustible fulness of merit and grace, sufficient to bear all our burdens, and supply all our needs.

We must commit ourselves and the great affairs of our salvation unto him, with a full assurance that he is 'able to keep what we commit to him against that day,' that great day, which will try the foundation of every man's work.

We must confide in his promise, trusting in him as one that will certainly help and save us, on the terms proposed. We may take his word for it, and this is the word which he has spoken - 'Him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out,' a double negation, 'I will not, no, I will not.' He is engaged for us in the covenant of redemption, and engaged to us in the covenant of grace, and in both he is the Amen, the faithful witness. On this, therefore, we must rely, the word on which he has caused us to hope. God has spoken in his holiness, that he will accept us in the Beloved, and in that 'I will rejoice...'.

There is not salvation in any other but in him; trust him for it therefore, and depend upon him only.

From Chapter 10, 'Helps for the exciting of those pious and devout affections which should be working in us while we attend this ordinance;' the second section.