Politics, HIV/AIDs, Education, and the General Election 2005
The Starting Point and William Temple
After "Godly Living" and "Church Growth" the third part of our vision statement is "Changing Britain". But how is a Christian to "change Britain"? Paul's letter to the Romans, and especially chapter 13, is where you can start. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury who died towards the end of the Second World War, wrote an important book in 1942 entitled Christianity and the Social Order. This took seriously that biblical tradition. Temple was adamant, therefore, that any political doctrine had to acknowledge the reality of sin. It was in this book that he gave a famous definition of sin:
I am the centre of the world I see; where the horizon is depends on where I stand ... But I am not the centre of the world, or the standard of reference as between good and bad; I am not and God is. In other words, from the beginning I put myself in God's place. This is my original sin ... Education may make my self-centredness less disastrous by widening my horizon of interest; so far it is like the climbing of a tower, which widens the horizon for physical vision while leaving me still the centre and standard of reference.
Statesmen have to deal with self-centred men and women who are sinners; and statesmen fundamentally have to provide security. The first priority of government, according to Temple, is not so much love or justice, but "some reasonable measure of security against murder, robbery and starvation." Therefore, we should be more interested in achievements than promises. A political programme can promise a great deal; but if it cannot deliver the basic necessities of life, it is useless. So he concluded: "Its assertion of original sin should make the Church intensely realistic and conspicuously free from Utopianism." It was for this reason that Temple never forgot the priority of evangelism: "If we have to choose between making men Christian and making the social order more Christian, we must choose the former." Also it was for this reason he believed the State only had a limited public function; and it needed to be kept that way. So he asserted three basics about the state: "One, society is more than the State, and has a life which is largely independent of the State; two, social progress largely consists of the expression and development of that independence; three, the State is distinguished from other 'social cohesions' by the fact that it alone is entitled to use force in order to secure obedience to its command."
Temple endorsed the view that the Public Square is not to be identified with Parliament Square. But while agreeing "that the task of the Church in the face of social problems is to make good Christian men and women," he realized that in a democratic society each person has a responsibility as a citizen to exercise political influence. Each person is part of those "governing authorities ... established by God" (Romans 13.1) and so responsible for justice and order. Most, of course, do not want to be heavily involved in politics (though, it needs to be said, currently we need more Christians to be elected to local and central government and then willing, when necessary, to act as a minority of one). But all Christians should be sufficiently informed of issues and of the key political players every five years or so. They can then register their support or protest by a cross on a voting paper; and that five-yearly vote has enormous influence. To be "sufficiently informed", Temple argued, the Church - its clergy and teachers - must provide Christian men and women "with a systematic statement of principles to aid them in doing these two things [i.e. living positively for Jesus Christ in the world and, then, voting responsibly], and this will carry with it a denunciation of customs or institutions in contemporary life and practice which offend against those principles."
Ends and Means
Temple believed that the Church (as such) was also limited. It was to focus on "those principles". This, he said, meant the Church was, first, to concern itself with ends, not means; and, secondly, to oppose means that were not achieving the prescribed ends or were self-evidently evil. He used an analogy:
If a bridge is to be built, the Church may remind the engineer that it is his obligation to provide a really safe bridge; but it is not entitled to tell him whether, in fact, his design meets this requirement ... in just the same way the Church may tell the politician what ends the social order should promote; but it must leave to the politician the devising of the precise means to those ends.
The three ends that Temple advocated for a Christian social order were "freedom, fellowship and service". These were derived from the "fundamental Christian postulates that man is a child of God and is destined for a life of eternal fellowship with him." Service, he believed, was so important. He was saddened that the French writer Rousseau, during the eighteenth century French Revolution, and Marx, during the nineteenth century economic revolution, had "taught the democratic movement to take its stand on rights." But there is only one safe way to true social progress, he claimed. That is not to be found in rights but duties. Initially there may be little observable difference in a system that majors on rights from a system that majors on duties. Duties are the other side of the coin to rights. For example, what is a duty for one man, namely that he observes a no-parking sign, is another man's right, namely that his drive-way is not obstructed. "But the difference in the temper of the movement that rests on rights will be aggressive, violent, contentious; and the temper of a movement that rests on duties will be persuasive, public spirited, harmonious."
What, however, of the first two of Temple's trio of ends, "freedom and fellowship"? It can reasonably be argued that "the right" majors on freedom, while "the left" on fellowship. The right seeks to restore the balance when the collective state ignores or frustrates personal opportunity and initiative; the left seeks to prevent personal freedoms unfairly frustrating the collective good. Then again the right seems more concerned to fulfil the biblical mandate of "being fruitful and replenishing the earth". It is concerned with wealth creation. The left seems more concerned with the biblical command to secure justice for the poor and oppressed and a fair distribution of the wealth that has been created. The dangers respectively are that the right, in its proper concern for wealth creation, ignores certain injustices; and the left, in its proper concern for justice and distribution, can forget wealth creation - so before long there can be general "want".
Principles, their Application and HIV/AIDS
In all of this we have to think clearly, and not least when we use the word "biblical". With the growth of evangelicalism it is now fashionable to claim as "biblical" all sorts of policies. Sometimes that means little more than someone has started with a biblical principle. They then, however, make claims about "means" by making deductions based not on the Bible but on human experience and observation. Their final conclusion is then said to be "biblical".
Surely this is misleading. Let me explain why, in simple terms using a
classical syllogism (or formal argument). Kenneth Myers puts it well in his essay, Biblical Obedience and Political Thought:
If the major premise of my argument is drawn from Scripture (e.g., God hates injustice), but the minor premise is based on empirical analysis (e.g., capitalism is unjust), I cannot assert that the conclusion (e.g., God hates capitalism) is simply the teaching of the Word of God. I can say that God hates injustice and that, in my judgment, capitalism is unjust. But the truth of the minor premise is not determined either by the truth of the major premise or by the validity of the argument. Continually repeating the major premise with prophetic fervour will not demonstrate the truth of the minor premise. Only sustained examination of the facts and argumentation from them can do that.
Much of politics should be "a sustained examination of the facts". And not only Christians want this. But Christians are often more open to facts and more honest. Take the debate on HIV/AIDS and condoms.
Roman Catholics are regularly damned for their policy on this issue, not least as regards the developing world. The Church of England disagrees with their forbidding the use of condoms for married couples. But epidemiologically Roman Catholics may be more right than wrong with regard to HIV/AIDS. On current evidence it is likely that widespread condom campaigns will increase the spread of AIDS. What is needed, as they argue, are campaigns for abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage. Uganda has had some success with such campaigns.
The hard facts that are not being faced are these: users of the condom as a contraceptive have a "typical use" failure rate in preventing contraception of 15% per year (according to the 2004 edition of Contraceptive Technology). True, the "perfect use" failure rate is 2%; but most people are not "perfect users". So in any given year we must predict that 15% of most women who rely on condoms for contraception will conceive. However, we know that women are fertile for only a small proportion of any given month. Therefore, the failure rate of the condom as a prophylactic against HIV/AIDS could be considerably higher than 15% for most people (not, of course, for the "perfect users"). All this should be warning enough. But "Utopian" politicians and health-workers are refusing to face other and more significant hard facts. We now have the research of Professor David Paton with regard to adolescent behaviour. He argues that "measures aimed at cutting teenage pregnancy and sexual disease among teenagers, such as making condoms more widely available, have had the opposite effect" (to quote the summary from the Journal, April 2004). All this, of course, is "on average". His own words in the conclusion to his paper on Random Behaviour or Rational Choice are:
It is not enough to introduce a measure aimed at a specific outcome without considering the endogenous response of agents to the policy itself. In the case in question, it appears that some measures aimed at reducing adolescent pregnancy rates induced changes in teenage behaviour that were large enough not only to negate the intended impact on pregnancy rates but to have an adverse impact on another important area of adolescent sexual health - sexually transmitted infections.
The point is this: some "measures" lessen some dangers when "perfectly" followed, once there is a decision to engage in sexual activity. But the measures themselves increase the amount of sexual activity. The result then is that the overall health outcome is not what was intended, rather the reverse.
The Denial of Christian Principles and Education
The fight against AIDS raises another important question for the Christian in regard to politics. As we have seen, we must be careful about calling all policies "biblical" simply because we start from biblical principles. However, where a policy directly contradicts a biblical principle, the political response of the believer is crystal clear. It is to affirm the principle as a non-negotiable policy and vote or lobby accordingly.
Take a proposal, whether overtly or covertly, to outlaw legitimate evangelism. Indeed, it seemed that the recent "religious hatred clauses" debated in Parliament could have resulted (covertly) in such a law. So Christians sided with those opposing the clauses. Today there is an assault on the Christian faith in Europe. Sadly that means there are more and more cases where a biblical principle is directly being attacked in Parliament. It then is not just a matter of having a fair debate over the application of a principle and where Christians can be on different sides. This is fighting for a principle. William Temple seemed to see these distinctions very clearly.
One of the areas where he personally saw the application of biblical principles as being important was education. Indeed, he was one of the behind-the-scenes architects of the 1944 Education Act. So Temple concluded his little book Christianity and the Social Order with his own views on Education. But he was clear: this was "application". So he distinguished what he had said earlier in the book, and which he believed was a fair statement of Christian political theory, from what he was now saying. He realized that not everyone in the Church would necessarily agree with him over education (in the event, however, the majority in the Church and country did). Similarly, speaking personally but from a local perspective, I, too, want to talk about education.
In 2001 I convened a local group of pastors and clergy to discuss the educational needs of the West of the city. The Secretary of State for Education and Skills was at that time inviting clergy, in particular, to sponsor new City Academies. So the group agreed that we should explore the possibility of such an academy for the West of the City. The DfES gave us encouragement; but we received, and have received, opposition locally from both the former Labour controlled Newcastle Council and now the Liberal Democrat controlled Newcastle Council. We believe something must be done. In terms of 5 A*-C's GCSE's, Gateshead LEA is 10th out of 150 LEA's in the country. Newcastle LEA, however, is 113th out of 150 LEA's. Newcastle West schools are, respectively, 3159th, 3421st, 3542nd out of 3579 state secondary schools in England. The children deserve better.
The latest twist in the saga is that Clive Harding, the senior Pastor at Bethshan Christian Centre, is standing as a Parliamentary Candidate for the new Newcastle Academy With Christian Values Party (NAWCVP) in this Election. You can be "sufficiently informed" about the other parties by reference to the Christian Institute's Election Briefing (www.christian.org.uk). But this does not include details about NAWCVP (www.nawcvp.co.uk) which is a single issue party. The Party shares the beliefs and aims of the Sponsoring Group and "fully endorses the statement of ethos of the Sponsoring Group". Subject to minor modification these were all documented in a previous Coloured Supplement for January 2001. But let me repeat them again.
The Newcastle Academy With Christian Values Party (NAWCVP)
The NAWCVP believes that a Newcastle Academy with Christian values will be a catalyst for growth and development for some of the most disadvantaged members of the North East community. It believes that an Academy run to the standards and
with the ethos that the Sponsoring Group propose will bring renewed confidence to the area and in turn produce significant social and economic regeneration. The NAWCVP believes there must be a general improvement in secondary level education. Particularly it wishes to see, one, greater diversity and choice in education; two, a raising of standards of achievement among 11-14 year-olds; three, vocational concerns and more flexibility in the national curriculum; and, four, greater managerial freedom with the employment of sponsors from the business world.
The NAWCVP believes the proposed Newcastle Academy with Christian values would be a partner school in the family of schools of Newcastle upon Tyne, ready to share what the school will be doing with others and equally desirous to learn from others. The NAWCVP believes that the Academy would offer a VIth Form with a realistic range of courses and so provide a pathway for those who want it and need it to higher education. The NAWCVP believes that the Sponsoring Group would produce an Academy better than any alternative as it would draw on the help of people with a proven track record for some of the best Academies in the country. The NAWCVP believes that the Sponsoring Group would ensure an Academy that is committed to working for high standards of work and behaviour and wants to see high academic standards from children including those who face challenges in their educational development.
The NAWCVP knows there are business professionals who strongly support a Newcastle Academy with Christian values. These professionals see that the project will play a significant part in helping the revitalization of the North East. The NAWCVP supports the proposal for the Academy to have as its specialism business and enterprise and an imaginative language programme that could involve languages such as Cantonese, other Asian languages and Latin as well as modern European languages. The NAWCVP also supports the concern of the Sponsoring Group to see excellence in sport and also the creative arts, including music and film/radio/TV production. The NAWCVP is confident that the concern for all subjects, both in the arts and sciences, will in no way be lessened by the specialisms. It believes they will all to be taught to the same high level.
Ethos
The NAWCVP fully endorses the statement of ethos of the Sponsoring Group who say:
1. We are a Christian group with a mainstream, historic, biblical Christian ethos. We are leaders of some of the largest churches in the city from a range of denominations - Anglican, Baptist and Pentecostal as well as the new and growing Chinese Church. But we are emphatically "non-denominational".
2. We are committed to an inclusive policy of "open" admissions. No tests will be applied to any parent or teacher who is willing to accept the ethos of the school. We, therefore, expect parents from other religious traditions or none to want to enrol their children. Such, we believe, will be the success and excellence of the school.
3. We will also hold a daily act of worship in accordance with the Education Reform Act 1988 and our religious education will, of course, involve the teaching of Christianity but also teaching about other world religions and non-religious philosophies.
4. We will be concerned to help children be clear on moral issues and we will expect pupils to finish their school careers being able clearly to distinguish right from wrong.
5. Our sex education will be premised on the view that two married parents committed together for life are in the best interests of the children while recognizing the need for the support of children from disrupted families and all the pressures that young people are under today.
6. Our ethos will seek to produce "good citizens". This will come through our training for public life. It will also come from our clear discipline but exercised in a secure and caring environment.
7. We see every human being as unique and of value in the sight of God from whatever background or environment. We will, therefore, seek to address the needs of every individual pupil. With those with potential or actual learning difficulties we will develop a strategy to raise their attainments.
8. We will seek to develop firm links with the business community in order to enhance the employment and life opportunities for our pupils.