Here in the UK there will be a
General Election on 04 July. Over the five Sundays in June, I intend to look at
several key issues relating to how we vote, concluding, today, with equalities
and rights, and democracy. My intention is not to tell you who you should or
shouldn’t vote for—though I will touch on policies—but to ask how does
Christian faith inform how we cast our vote?
Let’s begin with some principles.
First, it is worth noting that Jesus did not live in a democracy, but under the
rule of a colonial empire, the latest in a succession of colonising empires. The
State we live in, and the state of that State, is a constantly changing accident
of history, and not something to vest ultimate identity in. Nor did Jesus ever
advocate exerting religious power for temporal gain. Whenever the Church is
seduced into trying to do so, the vision of following Jesus is corrupted.
Second, Jesus emphasises the command ‘love
your neighbour as yourself.’ Command, here, should be understood as divine
decree: that it is the human vocation to love one another, in the same way that
it is the vocation of the sun and the moon to light the day and the night. When
we seek to withhold from others what we would not want withheld from ourselves—and
not least when we seek to exercise control over others by declaring that we
know what is best for their own good, better than they do—we violate that
divine calling.
Third, while democracy, as a system
of government, is traced back to ancient Greece, Jesus adopts and expands this
model, taking the term ekklesia—a word used 114 times in the New Testament—to
describe the church he will build. The ekklesia was the citizen’s assembly in
Greek city-states, such as the Decapolis, a league of ten such cities local to Jesus,
which enjoyed political autonomy from the Herodian Kingdom and its successors,
the Herodian tetrarchy and the Roman province of Judea. The Athenian model was
based on three institutions, the ekklesia, boule, and dikasteria. The ekklesia was
the sovereign governing body, meeting weekly, writing laws, determining foreign
policy, and appointing officials to serve one-year terms as head of state and
organisers of festivals. The boule was a council of representatives, chosen by
lot from each district (‘tribe’), meeting daily for a one-year term,
responsible for the day-to-day running of the city, and setting the agenda for
the ekklesia. The dikasteria were courts in which cases were brought before
lottery-selected jurors.
In the early church we see
citizenship—the criteria for participation in the ekklesia—broadened to include
women, slaves, foreigners (the gentiles), and youths, all of whom were excluded
from the Athenian ekklesia. We see representatives appointed to administrative
roles by lottery, but also by refined terms (when the Hellenist widows complained
that they were being overlooked in the distribution of food to widows, those chosen
to administer the distribution fairly were only selected from among the
Hellenist part of the church community). Settling disputes within the church rather
than going to external courts was also encouraged—deliberative democracy,
working alongside representative democracy.
So, we see that Jesus and his first
followers take up and develop democracy. We see this today in our structures of
church governance, including the congregation as local ekklesia, with its own
parochial church council and elected officers, as well as elected representative
synods and appointed bishops. It is also worth noting that Christianity has been
a major influence in the evolving democracy of England.
Let us turn now to the readings set
for this Sunday, asking what light they might shed.
Our Old Testament reading is Lamentations 3.22-33. The context is this: Jerusalem has been laid waste, Solomon’s temple
burnt to the ground, the city walls pulled down, the royal court taken into
exile, all at the end of a devastating siege. Everything is broken. Yet we are
reminded that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never
come to an end. And so, we are encouraged to hope, in place of despair; to look
for evidence of the Lord’s compassion; and to bear the burden of rebuilding. Every
party standing in the forthcoming General Election has appealed to our collective
sense of brokenness—a creaking NHS, a cost-of-living crisis, anxiety about
broken borders. We would do well to attend to the tone of their messages: do
they emphasise hope? do they highlight compassion? do they make messianic
claims as to their own (and theirs alone) ability to save us? are they honest
about the challenges facing us, and the cost?
Our Gospel reading is Mark 5.21-43. We
meet a desperate father, who wants the best for his daughter, and a desperate
woman, who is excluded from full participation in society. This raises
questions of what we might call equalities and rights. It is worth noting that
the woman is trapped by a law intended to ensure menstrual health, and also
that the World Health Organisation calls for us to recognise that menstrual
health should be recognised, framed and addressed as a health and human rights
issue, not a hygiene issue. It is worth noting that the woman chooses to ignore
the law, in her determination for restoration, and despite her fear of the
consequences. We might also note that Jesus uses power to empower others, as
opposed to building his own empire. He focuses his attention—and ours—on the
woman, not the crowd, and on the little girl, not the commotion around her.
Finally, let’s turn to policies set
out in the various manifestos, relating to equalities and rights, and to
democracy.
On equalities and rights, Labour and the
LibDems highlight equality for women in the workplace, Race Equality (Labour
proposes an Act, the LibDems a Strategy), and workplace equality and ease of
access to public life for disabled people, while the Conservative focus here is
more on health and welfare reform. On gender identity, the Conservatives plan
to implement the Cass Review recommendations, to ‘protect young people who are
questioning their gender identity from ideologically-driven care,’ while Labour
insists upon ‘freedom to explore sexual orientation and gender identity.’ Both
statements uphold the importance of safe space, to question or explore. The
LibDems go further, proposing reform of the gender recognition process in
favour of respecting a person’s identity claim, and the Greens further still,
simply affirming the right to self-identification for trans and non-binary
people. This is clearly an example of a complex and contested issue—of crowds
and commotion—where legislation matters, and compassion for real lives,
including family members, matters even more.
The LibDems affirm the European
Convention on Human Rights, and the Greens the Human Rights Act and ECHR, while
Reform UK would leave the ECHR, remove the 2010 Equalities Act, introduce a Comprehensive
Free Speech Bill expressly ‘to stop left-wing bias and politically correct
ideology that threatens personal freedom and democracy’ (i.e. no freedom of
speech unless you agree with us) and an Anti-Corruption Unit for Westminster (which
could be weaponized against political opponents).
On democracy, Labour, the LibDems,
and Greens all propose extending the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds (at 16 you
can join the British army; Athenian democratic citizenship was from the age of
military service) enabling them to participate in the democratic processes that
impact every area of their lives. The Greens recognise the right to national
self-determination for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the LibDems
propose a federal UK with a Federal Constitution, including determining the
structures of government in England. Labour would reform the House of Lords,
the Greens replace it with a second elected chamber, and Reform UK replace it
with a structure to be determined. Reform UK would also replace the Civil
Service with political appointees that changed with every government.
Issues of equalities and rights, and
of democracy, have a bearing on how we conduct ourselves, as the ekklesia Jesus
is building. Who is included, as a citizen in the kingdom of heaven? Who is here,
in this place, on equal standing? Who gets to have their voice heard, their
perspective respected, their daily lived experience taken into consideration? Are
those who have been here for fifty years entitled to more power than those who
have been here for six months, simply by virtue of having been here ‘first’—or
should the first be last, when it comes to exercising power in this kingdom? Are
all included, equally, regardless of gender, age, socio-economic means,
ethnicity, disability, abilities, sexuality, family status, education? If not,
whose ekklesia are we?
These issues also have a bearing on
how we vote. We live in a democracy. There are four political parties standing
in Sunderland Central: the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Greens.
Reform UK offers an alternative to democracy: namely, authoritarian populism.
It is an alternative that many Christians in the USA have embraced, the ‘Christian
nationalism’ that coopts Jesus in service of political power concentrated in
the hands of wealthy, white, culturally ultra-conservative men to the exclusion
and control of other groups. It is antithetical to the Way of Jesus, beloved,
and to waiting quietly for the salvation of the Lord. I said that it is not my
intention to tell you who you should or shouldn’t vote for, but to ask how does
Christian faith inform how we cast our vote? This is my caveat: I would have
significant issues with anyone who called themselves a follower of Jesus and
who voted for an authoritarian populist movement.
As we place our cross in a box on the
ballot paper, may we reach out to Jesus, and, grasping the hem of his outer
garment, may we be rescued from whatever keeps us from loving service of our
neighbour. And may we go out at peace and be made whole.