WHAT is politics, and what is the Church? It’s clear that politics has got to go beyond the Palace of Westminster, just as the Church needs to go beyond the four walls of the building — or, indeed, the larger national structures.
When she preached in Chelmsford Cathedral recently, when being installed as an honorary ecumenical canon, Sister Moira O’Sullivan quoted Pope Francis warning that the church institution itself might be “stifling the cries of our prophets”.
He had said this: “In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Obviously, the text refers to his knocking from the outside in order to enter, but I think about the times in which Jesus knocks from within, so that we will let him come out.”
It’s what the Pope calls a “self-referential” Church: one that lives within itself and for itself rather than one that is for the world — dedicated to evangelism and public life. Does the Church seek to keep Christ inside, or do we allow him to get out into the world?
It is a challenge that reminds me of another institution. If you have heard the term “the Westminster village”, you will know just how insular the political class can be. Our central Parliament is a vast machine. It has a hairdresser, several bars and restaurants, fairly decent barista coffee, a post office. Everything is set up to ensure that people who work there do not have to leave the Estate.
I can see the appeal for busy parliamentarians and staff, for whom convenience could mean an extra case-load ticked off the to-do list. But Westminster is supposed to make decisions about how to make the UK a fairer and more equal country. The people there make decisions on behalf of everyone, including those who feel that the Palace of Westminster is somewhere completely alien.
THE insular “clique-iness” of Westminster has turned so many people off politics. In the past 20 years, General Election turnout has been consistently lower than in the 20th century. It peaked at just under 70 per cent in 2017, but that was still a full 30 per cent of electors who did not feel motivated to use their vote; this July, it was 40 per cent who did not turn out.
So many people think that Westminster politics is not for them; and it is generally younger people, those with fewer qualifications, from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and from ethnic-minority groups, who are least likely to vote in the UK. In short, it is the groups who do not feel served by electoral politics who seem least incentivised to turn out. And it becomes a vicious circle: low turnout leads to a weak political offer for groups who are already marginalised, who are then even less likely to head out to their local polling station.
Of course, lots of factors influence turnout, but where there is an offer for otherwise disaffected and disengaged people, they do come out to vote. And voting is just an indicator of wider engagement with elected representatives.
UK General Election turnout peaked at an all-time high in 1950. It was the visionary post-war period, when both main parties were trying seriously to engage with the needs of the country as a whole: there was mass house-building, the dawn of the welfare state, and an ambitious programme of rebuilding and modernising the UK’s war-torn infrastructure.
POLITICS goes way beyond what happens in Westminster, of course. But there is still huge power in our national Parliament. It is a body that should be of the people, for the people, and by the people, and it is important that people can see it is working for them.
There is a church in pretty much every community in the UK. That is a huge opportunity for us to play a part in encouraging democratic participation, and shaping the tone of the debate in local and national communities.
I think that we all know when we have started to achieve a just politics, because people will not feel so disincentivised and disengaged. People from all corners of our nation and society will know that their voice is being listened to. They will feel as if a just society is not only possible, but that it has started to take shape; that politics is not only something that could work for them, but something that has already started to create the change needed to equalise our society.
We need a multi-directional shift: Westminster needs to get out more, with parliamentarians, ministers, and staff actively spending more time in local communities with an open, listening ear.
But communities also need to get into Westminster — through voting and other methods of engagement. There should be knocking on the door from both inside and outside, and I believe that the two will be mutually beneficial. We can work to eliminate the barriers that cause many people to believe that Westminster is entirely isolated from the people. We can create a politics that serves every community — a just politics.
I HAVE talked a lot about Westminster, but, of course, that it is not the only kind of politics. Not only are there other elected bodies across the country, making decisions that have a huge effect on people’s lives: there are also the everyday political acts that shape our communities: a group running a foodbank; a community rallying round to save a beloved local meeting-place; an individual choosing to avoid buying goods unfairly produced and traded — these are political acts, so often with a church community at their heart, and they do make a difference.
I have spoken about a number of tensions or contradictions between conviction and openness, between internal and external politics, and between singing an old and a new song.
At their heart, these are all the same tension. This is the tension between being simultaneously of Christ and of the world, being in the world but not of the world; the tension between what we want to see and what we feel is possible in a broken world; the tension between relevance (or resonance) and conviction, between pragmatism and idealism. We are striving for justice — or the Kingdom of God — in a world where Jesus himself told us we would always have the poor among us. That is one of the many paradoxes of Christian faith.
And we have got to hold the paradox lightly. There aren’t any easy answers or cheat codes, and seeking justice in a fallen world is always going to be an uphill battle. But we trust and we hope in Jesus that change is possible: we must not give up. And we have a clear instruction to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with God — even when that feels difficult.
TO ANSWER my original question, “What should the Church offer politics?”, I think that we can offer the hope of Christ that a more just world is possible.
But I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that perhaps I have been asking the wrong question. The Church and politics are not separate. It is not right to pitch them as two separate things, and ask how the two might talk to each other.
The distinctive function of the Church — seeking justice and peace and sharing the good news of Christ — is inherently political. Christ came to free the captive and to bring good news to the poor. That was a political act.
Sister Moira put it like this: “The world as God made it is good — and the Gospels speak of a world where all are welcome and fed; where there is hope — where there is no hint of injustice or exclusion; a sacred world where, impossible though it may seem, we love our neighbours as ourselves.” To seek such a world is a bold political choice.
Bishop George Bell wanted the Church to be more fully the Church, but he himself proved that to embrace the peace-loving mission of Christ is to be compelled to political engagement. The distinctive voice of the Church is political. To heal division, to pursue peace, to seek justice: that, to me, is a just politics, and not “just politics”.
Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani is the Bishop of Chelmsford.
This is an edited extract from a lecture that she gave on 19 July to the National Justice and Peace Network Conference in Swanwick. Read the full transcript here.