Social Engineering, the Bible, Tradition and Political Ideology

Quite a grand title, and I'm not sure I'll manage to collect all those strands together in this quick (I hope!) post, but I'm responding to that person denigrating the name of Archbishop Cranmer once again.

In the post linked, he bemoans the whole gay marriage thing that's currently going on here in the UK. The simple gist of things is that the state is legislating for marriage to no longer be between a man and a woman. This is, unfortunately, affording many church leaders great opportunities to make statements that play into the media and general public's characterisation of them as out of touch and homophobic. "Cranmer" lists a few of these.

Then he goes off on one about David Cameron, the current Conservative leader and Prime Minister, who has put the full weight of his support behind gay marriage. "Cranmer" then says that in doing this, Cameron "aligns his conservatism with the rather antithetical socialist instinct to engineer society".

Does he?! Why exactly is the state stepping in and saying who can and can't be married anything other than socialist engineering? If the state says it's just men and women, that's social engineering just as saying it can be men and men and women and women. If anything, loosening this definition is a sign of less socialist engineering.

The bigger point here is another one that "Cranmer" appears lost on - it's the separation of church and state, which has to be a good thing - precisely because it should take us, in an ideal situation, away from social engineering (of course, in reality, the state just engages in a different kind of social engineering, the type pushed by the most powerful lobbying groups).

There's no reason why the state should impose Christian values via the marriage system, and in fact there's a very good argument why it shouldn't, put forward by a great friend of mine in a very insightful blog post this week: "What good is it, other than in a purely utilitarian sense, if a person is kept from sinning at the point of a bayonet?"

Provided there is no equality legislation forcing Christians to marry against their conscience (or athiests to do so, for that matter), then there is no reason why the state shouldn't change its definition of marriage. The church needn't change its. I believe in the linked post, "Cranmer" is too wedded to history and tradition, where the church has had a strong role in the state here in the UK, rather than relying on Biblical principles. I believe that is about as socialist as it gets - if socialism is defined as social engineering.

In case a reminder was needed...

...Jesus also most certainly was not a left winger either, or at least a left winger in the form of someone like Sunny Hundal. The blog is attempting to create some kind of outrage out of the fact that a Christian group called Christian Concern is holding a conference at Exeter College.

This Christian Concern (CC) group is simply labelled as bigotted, and homophobic, without at any point the case against them being put forward. Simply, it seems, Hundal has something rather sinister against Nadine Dorries, and hence any friend of Dorries's must also be very sinister.

Judging by past articles on the Liberal Conspiracy (LC) website, what CC have probably said at some point is that they believe something slightly different to Hundal on homosexuality. They have probably pointed out that some folk of a homosexual orientation are not comfortable with that (just as, presumably, some heterosexual folk are), and perhaps seek some help. Pretty innocuous? Nope - that's bona fide homophobia for you right there!

Thankfully, in reading the comments on Hundal's latest rant, it's clear there are plenty of people ready to put him in his place.

Confused?

I'm not sure I can follow the logic of this. It starts with a fairly commonplace swipe at anyone who happens to not be on the political right - how dare that nasty Labour government have given some folk in parts of the UK some devolved powers.

But then it goes on to rail against attempts to restrict power being devolved to local people - the right for people to utter prayers before a council meeting (does it really matter? I don't get why a conservative is so het up about something as trivial as this - shouldn't ministers' time be better spent elsewhere?).

I don't quite get it - if Labour devolves power it's an unmitigated bad thing, throwing away centuries of history (because history is all that matters when making decisions), yet if the Conservatives do it, it's localism, it's getting the government out of the way, it's an unmitigated good thing.

Does he want powers to be devolved, or not? Or does it just matter what party it is that's doing it?

Courts and Governments

A general stance of those on the right, Christian or otherwise, it seems, is to be anti-Europe, and also in particular, anti-ECHR (European Court of Human Rights). As the right-wing press usually bemoans, it gets in the way of us doing the things we want to. Ten a penny are the Daily Mail stories to this effect.

What I don't quite understand is why this is such a bad thing. If we assume first off that the Court of Human Rights is a court set up to defend the liberties of humans in a fallen world, and does so without bias (but with the odd mistake here and there), then is it a problem if it says to a government that it can't do something that stands in the way of civil liberties?

For example, with this cleric recently released from jail in the UK; the ECHR has stopped his deportation to Jordan because courts there may try him using evidence elicited via torture.

Now what I don't quite understand here is what the problem is exactly. Do right wingers want us to be a country that hands people over to be tried by courts that use torture to elicit evidence? Wash our hands of them and be done of it?

Now I appreciate this man is charged with something pretty nasty, but he is still a man, and still innocent until proven guilty, and what about the precedent of allowing someone to be tried unfairly, regardless of how unpleasant he or she is? The precedent isn't a great one. So thus, I don't really understand what the opprobrium from the right is here.

Governments generally set the rules; usually, I guess (I'm not an expert here by any means since I'm not a lawyer), they are also confined to act within a constitution. So what is wrong if a court is able to point out to a government where it is behaving illegally, domestically or internationally? Are we really happy to live under governments that feel able to do whatever they like, trampling on the civil rights of citizens? Why shouldn't governments be kept in check?

Of course both governments and courts make mistakes, are guilty of terrible things, but resorting to specific examples where courts made nasty decisions and governments were more noble (e.g. slavery) doesn't really answer the more general point I'm making here: Why shouldn't governments be kept in check? Why do we want governments to be unrestricted in what they do? If we do, then I think we are guilty of a contradiction - we are essentially slaves to governments in the latter situation.

Can someone enlighten me please?!

Christians and Kings

Today is the 60th anniversary of the current Queen of England ascending to the Throne, and Christians, particularly on the right, are lauding this.

I think leftie Christians are often slightly uneasy about this, and I've noted right-leaning Christians making a big play about the fact that this is wrong, that the Queen (and any head of state for that matter) is of course only there because God put him or her there.

This is undoubtedly true, and the fact that the Queen, it seems, does communicate the Gospel will is an added bonus - something to praise God about.

But I'm just not sure that the justification I've given here is a reason for right-leaning Christians to beat left-leaning ones (or even centrists ones for that matter). Surely the same reasoning says Gaddafi was the God-ordained leader of Libya for quite a few years, and Assad is currently God ordained for Syria, right?

Or have I got that wrong?

I almost forgot to comment on this trash...

...a blog post entitled "We Need More Tory Bishops". Oh we do, do we? Apparently, the writer is also "is firmly persuaded that the Lord wants Ed Miliband to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom about as much as He wants Johann Hari to write the Third Testament".  Apparently all Bishops in the Church of England "pore over The Guardian every morning with their mint tea and muesli and intercede fervently for the amelioration of the fortunes of Ed Miliband".

Apparently though, this kind of thing is all humour, because right wingers have a better sense of humour than left wingers (to quote Michael Ehioze-Ediae).

The post, as us usual from this really rather abhorrent imposter of a probably caring, compassionate and non-judging historical member of God's church, descends into a prejudiced and deliberately misleading rant, as perhaps best exemplified by this: "How in the name of St Gemma could an income of £2000 a month be considered poverty?".

Has "His Grace", as this blogger pompously calls himself, considered who might actually get the full amount of benefits?

Has "His Grace" thought about the determinants of this? I guess he probably figures we should shut up such people as his lovely (and totally non-judgementally named) St Gemma in some ghetto areas of town, the slums, rather than have the possibility, shock horror, that they might actually live somewhere near decent, sophisticated people.

Sophisticated people that read the Telegraph and studied A-level economics and thus think they are entitled to judge on exactly how the economy should work, and what governments should and shouldn't do.  But, of course, in writing that, I slip right into the category of "His Grace" in making judgements about people.

The bottom line is this: I'm yet to find a right winger, particularly one who is a Christian, talk about benefits and the poorer in society, without resorting to such vague generalisations about the "kinds of people" who claim benefits - based on no more evidence than what they read in the Daily Mail. The idea that the "kinds of people" that are on benefits are our neighbours, and thus we should love them, as Jesus exhorted, seems very lost on these people.

Go on someone, surprise me.

Sons and the Welfare State; an update

A few days ago I wrote about my tentative thoughts about applying the parable of the prodigal son to our thoughts about the welfare state. My main purpose was to solicit the thoughts of those more theologically learned than I am, and I was very pleased to get the thoughts of one particularly more theologically learned scholar who doesn't nail his political colours to the mast.

The bottom line was that since Jesus is using a story in the first place, then clearly he has in mind the interpretation he wants to that story, and it's to spiritually lost people, rather than materially lost folk in need of some welfare state and perhaps the intervention of a government. So I guess it's applying an application, one level removed than I'd previously thought about, and that was a good thing to ponder on.

I was seeking objections to making the link, and a few have emerged. One is that the younger son only received the father's welfare state when he came to his senses and recognised how broken he was. In that respect he became deserving rather than undeserving. My favourite right-wing vessel is full of horror stories of families seeking to live off benefits rather than do an honest day's work. Lefties I think do down these stories, righties overstate them. Such folk undoubtedly exist, the question is to what extent - but even that is somewhat moot here. But if these folk do that, taking advantage of the system deliberately and manipulatively, they remain undeserving poor, and if we were to apply this parable to the welfare state, then the objections of righties remain. They haven't returned to the father/Father/government.

What's left then? I thus don't think that the parable can be used as I previously thought; it doesn't change the fact that right wingers think there are millions and millions of scroungers, while lefties think these guys are deserving because of the way the market system has manipulated them. One group is sceptical about those out of work, the other about those that put them out of work, and surely both have their faults.

What are we to be as Christian though? Matthew 5:47 and surrounds point out that if we respond, like for like, we're no better than pagans. So should we be harsh on such scroungers, dock them their benefits, throw them to the dogs? Or should we be gracious?

But should we be a doormat? Equally we shouldn't be doing that; I guess if forced as a non-theologian to find the Biblical reference to back that up, I'd point to 1 Timothy 5:20, but even then I think the context is wrong but that's by the by. Those that are having kids just to get benefits, who refuse to take work because being on benefits is easier, should be rebuked.

I'd like to think that reflecting on the lost sons should make us reflect on whether our attitudes towards those less fortunate to ourselves are not cynical, not judgemental, and instead gracious, but not to the point that things become ridiculous. But I suspect everyone I know who leans to the right would say they already are at that point, whereas all those I know that lean to the left, myself included, would probably say the same. I guess this kind of makes this a rather pointless post!