Democracy: A Theological View
Delivered on Sunday 16 May 2010 in St George's Chapel
Isaiah 44:1-8 and Luke 24:44-end
The Sunday after Ascension Day is remarkable. The disciples, who have stood dejected and disconsolate at the foot of the cross, have also experienced the surprise and joy of the resurrection. They now know that they will be involved in a new mission; they will be witnesses to the resurrection; they will be messengers of repentance and forgiveness. But, just right now, they are to wait. Wait for the power of the spirit. Just now they are without a leader and without the power to carry out their new mission. The message is clear: wait!
We too know what it is to wait. On this particular Sunday after Ascension, we know all too well what it is to wait. Any conservative estimate as to the labour required to produce a new government would have required liberal readjustment. What a business. It all began on the Dean's birthday; that was the day the general election date was announced. Shortly afterwards there were manifestoes, speeches, promises and an innovation - appropriate for our media savvy world - a series of televised debates. Like many others I watched those debates; like many others I was fascinated by the reaction they evoked; like many others I expected those same debates to have an impact on the electoral result. As it turns out there was very little by way of direct interest in religious matters; only one question, if I remember correctly, and that had to do with the Pope's impending visit. It gave rise to the most memorable reply of that evening, as Nick Clegg was heard to say 'I am not a man of faith but my wife is'. For me, however, it was not the content of the debates that grabbed my attention so much as the very fact that they were taking place at all. It got me thinking. How do I vote? What is the state? What is democracy? I didn't come to any answers - I seldom do - but I was surprised to find myself surrounded by unfamiliar mental furniture once those seemingly innocent doors, those questions, had been opened.
Democracy has become so much a part of modern life that I had begun to think of it as inherently good. And I'm not alone here. Western leaders are often heard extolling the virtues of democracy even to the extent of exporting it as a legitimate goal of foreign policy. Even in our sitting rooms we are thrilled to have the democratic right to judge Britain's talent or X-Factor musicians, or even to have opportunity of casting a vote for some hopeful who so dearly wants to hear the words: you could still be Dorothy. That sitting room democracy is vastly extended when sitting at a computer. The blogosphere allows for the expression of opinion, for argument and counter argument, for healthy debate and open transparent discussion. We are, in other words, surrounded by a warm, safe, democratic blanket. We are so far removed from Jean Jacques Rousseau's pessimistic verdict: 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'. No chains here for we are awash with democratic freedom, wisdom, even power.
It was with such warm feeling that I began my own mental journey into the world of politics. I began by supposing a rather strange situation. Before me stood three people of considerable gifts, my task was to choose one of them to represent me in a game of chess. In making my choice I would no doubt look for a strategic mind and if possible someone with had spent many hours sitting over a chessboard. Central to my choice would be my understanding of what it is to play the game of chess. By analogy when choosing a politician I would need to be clear about what I meant by governing. Or to put the question in an even more basic form: what do I expect from the state? The question is simple enough; the answer is anything but clear. Writing in seventeenth century England, John Locke thought that it was the role of the state to make laws and to punish those who broke them. To play chess you must have rules; to live socially there must be laws and there must be a means of placing sanction on those who refuse to live according to those laws. For the ancient Greeks this definition of the state would have been too thin. Of course the state must make laws but it must also provide basic goods. What might be included in these basic goods: security, education, health, and infrastructure. The Greeks would have wanted to include something about human flourishing. The state should provide laws, basic goods (although exactly what is described as basic is a matter of debate), and the means by which human beings can flourish. Most of our contemporary talk around politics will agree with the Greeks on the notion of basic goods. There will be debate, however, about how much to spend on security and what cuts should be applied to the National Health Service. Your own view on this matter will depend on how you see the role of the State. That aside, modern politics finds it more difficult to follow the Greeks in talking about human flourishing. Much talk about economic success and stability but that is something quite different from human flourishing. Is the state responsible for providing social conditions suitable for human flourishing?
Let us say that we have decided, at least in our own minds, what we require of the state. The great thing about democracy is that we now have the opportunity to vote for the person or party that we think will best deliver our understanding of what it is to be state. Now let me return to my imaginary chess game and let me suppose that from a list of three potential players I have made a single choice. Do I then, having made that choice, expect my player to get on with the game trusting that he will repay my trust? Or do I expect my player to consult me at crucial points in the game? Jean Jacques Rousseau the author of the that famous quotation about chains and freedom wrote in the same work:
The English people believes itself to be free. It is greatly mistaken; it is free only during the election of the members of Parliament. Once they are elected, the populace is enslaved; it is nothing.
Rousseau's observation is that once we have cast our vote democracy disappears in a puff of smoke. Is he right? Would you wish the government to consult you at crucial points in the political game and when might such points occur? Would you want to be consulted about going to war, about joining the Euro, about electoral reform, about assisted dying? Or having cast your vote would you prefer to leave governing to the government? Whatever we might make of Rousseau's rather emotive language he does appear to have a valid question. Are we really surrounded by a warm cuddly blanket of democracy or is it all an illusion? You will answer that question one way if you believe that democracy is representative - the player gets on with the game - and another if you believe that democracy is participatory - that you ought to be consulted at key points in the game.
So having decided on the function and purpose of the state and having chosen participatory or representative democracy, I head off with everyone else to the polls. I cast a vote. In Ireland we used to have the slogan 'vote early, vote often'; things are less imaginative here. I cast a single vote. Time to sit back and see what together we have decided to do. And here the modern day politician comes into their own. Their ability to read the collective mind takes on gargantuan proportions. Let me return for one moment to the game of chess but this time to a real situation. Some years ago now there was a chess experiment, where a grandmaster played a game of chess against the nation. Everyone was free to ring in their choice of move. The actual move was decided on a first past the post majority. Prior to the game there was great excitement; surely so many minds together could beat a single mind. Of course, the game was a disaster and over and done with in only a few moves. Why? Because the voters had no collective mind, they had no strategy. It is exactly the same with a general election. There is no strategy to which every voter subscribes; there is only a single vote. There is no validity in the claim that the electorate voted for a coalition. You might as well claim that since 35% of the electorate chose not to vote, the common mind was that there should be anarchy. There is, of course, nothing wrong with forming coalitions, and we wish the current one Godspeed, but there is something slippery about the claims made from all parties that a coalition was the wish of the electorate. It was not necessarily the wish of the electorate; it was merely a possible solution to the result of the election.
No doubt by now you are thinking to yourselves, what has all this to do with God. Absolutely nothing ... or absolutely everything.
At the start of this sermon I left the disciples waiting, waiting to be empowered for their mission. That mission of preaching the resurrection, repentance and forgiveness, had at its heart the person of Jesus Christ and the open possibility of human flourishing. To be a Christian in today's world requires involvement in that same mission, in proclaiming the lordship of Christ and the healing and redemption, liberty and equality, that that brings. As democratic debate will continue into the difficult weeks and months ahead, we are required to speak boldly about our belief in the one who holds real power, the one whose will we are trying to enact, the one without whom no thing would come into being. Our calling is to speak the word 'God' into the political scene: to inquire about the true nature of power, to challenge any political narrative that disregards the truth, to speak up for those who are marginalised and disadvantaged, to insist on a fair distribution of wealth and resources, to never tire of striving for those conditions that will lead to human flourishing. To fulfil this demanding unending task we must like the disciples pray for an infilling of the Holy Ghost. And filled with the Holy Ghost, the time for waiting is over. The time for engagement with the democratic process is at hand and we should engage confidently remembering God's word spoken through Isaiah:
Who is like me? Let him speak up; let him declare his proof and set it out for me: let him announce beforehand things to come, let him foretell what is yet to be. ... Is there any god apart from me, any other deity? I know none!
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