Why I have joined the Labour Party

I’ve been hooked to politics ever since the 1997 general election campaign. But with the exception of a single year within the Liberal Democrats I’ve never been a member of a political party. There have been a number of reasons for this, but the two recurring ones have been having other priorities at various times and my political vision not fitting neatly within any of the three dominant ideologies of British politics (socialism, liberalism, conservatism). This latter point is further complicated by the fact that the three major parties of the UK that are supposedly the standard-bearers of such ideologies have wildly blurred their heritage in a pursuit of pragmatic vote grabbing, the PC-agenda and active secularism.

Today, it is arguable that the UK political scene has never been more uninspiring. This despite the fact that the nation is facing some of the greatest strategic challenges in its history, almost all of which are global in their scope. These include the challenge of stewarding an economy that is both flourishing and sustainable without running up colossal debt, seeking territorial security in a world of unregulated nuclear development and volatile terrorism, and the urgent need for continual global resolve over food, water and environmental security for all. The question that sits over all this is - with the economic eclipsing of Europe by new markets, what global role does Britain now have? What role should we look to have? Westminster barely scratches the surface of such issues, and without being dogmatically alarmist, we really do have our head in the political sand right now. Party politics appears as sterile as ever, voter engagement largely cynical.

So why plunge in now? Surely this is the time to walk away and get on living a full, joyful, Christ-centred life outside of the murky machinations of politics? While a greatly attractive prospect in many ways, I have found myself unable to walk away. It is a call on my life I can’t lay down. And I feel that now is the time to get involved. I have had many helpful years of political formation and reflection, and do not regret waiting until now. But I would regret waiting any longer. So in I have plunged.

But why the Labour party? In purely ideological terms, I have made convincing cases to myself for joining any one of the three main parties. I believe in the socialist ethic of caring for the less-well-off, marginalised and vulnerable within society; I believe in the liberal view of civic society and democratic governance; I believe in the one-nation conservative social vision of a politics that embraces cultural-moral concerns as well as material matters. Yet, as has already been noted, these visions seem at best confused and diluted within their respective contemporary parties, so I have had to take some other questions into account:

o       What values are at the core of each party?

o       Which parties reflect the interest of all and not just a select group?

o       Which parties have the political courage to take on the strategic Goliaths of our age?

o       Which parties move beyond materialism to consider the fullness of ‘the good life’?

There was not a uniform answer to these questions. But after great reflection, I have decided that the Labour Party is the party closest to my political home, despite falling short on some of the above points. I have many views that will not be shared with the majority of other Labour members (such as on EU membership, schooling and gay marriage) which may prove challenging, although this would equally be the case (perhaps on different issues) within the other parties. But faced with the alternatives of frustration in a minority party or the tirelessness of starting a new movement, I am happy to have made this choice.

So, I’ve joined the party, what next? There are two very clear next steps for me – to agitate the Labour policy agenda to deal with these huge national challenges and to campaign for a Labour majority in the 2015 general election, to deliver a government that will truly govern as a ‘one-nation’ party.  After that, who knows…

Shelf Stacking and Humanity

Of the yards of comment produced by the recent high profile Work Scheme case of graduate Cait Reilly (who was 'forced' to stack shelves for no pay to continue receiving benefits), by far the most interesting was that of Independent writer Terence Blacker. Particularly striking was the assertion that:

"For many conservatives, [big society ideas] must have been dangerously liberal thoughts. If people like Cait Reilly began to discover that there was more to life than being an economic unit, then the whole market-based system of values would start to crumble."

This is one more presentation of the battle between liberal and conservative views on the ordering of life that have raged since the 18th century. Yet what is interesting is that both socialist and social democratic movements also fall prey to exactly the same material critique- that in their systems the first measure of humanity is their economic wealth (or lack of). The counter critique is that liberal notions of humanity that are 'light' on economic urgency will soon lead us down the path of excess, laze and ultimately disorder. 

As in most dialectic impasses, Christianity urges us to choose the truth of both ideas and learn how to keep a healthy tension in our public (and private) life. According to scripture Human is made in the image of God, and the character of God encompasses creativity, community, love and labour. Therefore we are intrinsically economic beings but we are intrinsically much more than that also. Unemployment does indeed offend our core humanity, but so does workaholism or an expression-free life.

Manual work is a dignified activity that should not be snobbishly shunned, for indeed the Lord Jesus himself partook of it. Yet this isn't the debatable point in this case, for the vast majority of reasonable people will agree with such a view. The real issue is as Terence Blacker described it - does the Work Scheme embody a dangerous view of humanity that we are only materialist and therefore can only fulfil the Human Call through being 'economic cogs'? Let us hope this is not so and that this case merely highlights a gross lack of sense and flexibility in the Work Scheme administration. 

'Born to raise the sons of Earth!' - Final Day of Advent

            Born to raise the sons of Earth!

            Born to give them second birth.

Christmas Eve marks the final day of Advent, and where could these reflections end but on that most iconic of carols, ‘Hark! the herald angels sing’? So revered is it within our canon that we are in danger of familiarity dulling us to the sensational text, penned by Charles Wesley. It is in richness of hope, theology and poetry unsurpassed by any other popular carol in the English tongue. And having a tune crafted by the great Felix Mendelssohn has undoubtedly consolidated its endurance and estimation!

‘Born to raise the sons of Earth!’ Jesus Christ was born, lived, died and rose again. He bids all people to die to themselves and follow Him, that he might raise them up in the same resurrection power with which He himself was raised. He came into the world to die that we would no longer be slaves to death, but be raised to new life. ‘Born to give them second birth’; not only did Jesus come to raise us from death, He came to make us new, to be born again, in a miracle of birth reflecting his own Christmas incarnation.

As the seasonal campaign proclaims, Christmas does indeed begin with Christ. But Christ does not end with Christmas; rather, His wonderful promises of new life and new birth to those who will receive Him reach down to us all even this day. So let us indeed give alert attention the heralding angels and worship Jesus Christ, our glorious King!

Hark! the Herald Angels Sing - words by Charles Wesley.

Sussex Carol and the Goal of Christmas - Advent Day 22

            “Glory to God and peace to men,      

            Now and for evermore, Amen!”

If the Christmas message is great news of hope, what exactly does that hope look like? What is its end or its goal? The final lines of ‘Sussex Carol’ summarise the three essential characteristics of the new relationship between God and Man made possible through the coming of Jesus Christ.

Firstly, ‘Glory to God’. All wrongdoing ultimately stems from pride, and all pride is an attempt to take the glory that belongs to God and place it on ourselves. It is not that we shouldn’t seek glory – for that is an essential stirring of the human heart – but that we should seek it in God, for that will ultimately satisfy us in a way that prideful striving never can. Jesus came to redress our woeful pride and liberate us again to give ‘glory to God’.

Secondly, ‘peace to men’. Not only had pride divided the human race from God, it had divided us from each other, and continues to do so when Christ is not honoured as the Lord. But Jesus came to reverse all the effects of the curse, including to restore right relationships between all people. And the creation-wrought dynamic of mankind was not to be at war but at peace with each other, that we could prosper without fear of evil.

Finally, ‘now and for evermore’. There is a forever, an evermore. Given the struggles we and the world still face it would be cruel to hold out all of these promises of restoration without their resolution. And while glimmers of their resolution shine today, these things will only be fully known in the New Heavens and New Earth that are still to come.

The invitation to a God-centred, glory-fulfilled, peaceful and eternal land has been issued in Jesus Christ – we must take hold of it! Or will we prefer to carry on in the comfort of self-centredness, conflict and instant gratification? That would be a tragic choice to make this Christmas time.

Sussex Carol (On Christmas Night) - traditional English.

The Age of Gold - Advent Day 21

            For lo! the days are hastening on,

            By prophet bards foretold,

            When through the ever circling years

            Comes round the age of gold.

There is a golden age coming. An age where peace shall reign over all the Earth. An age of prosperity, an age of fulfilment, an age of exploration. An age where humankind and God are united as in Eden; an age with no room for pride.

It is an age revealed to the prophets of the Old Testament, an age of which the apostle John saw glimpses of, an age hoped for by all the martyrs of Jesus. It is an age that all believers must long for. The age of the New Jerusalem come down to Earth.

It is the age that the angels proclaimed over Bethlehem that first Christmas, for it was in the birth of Christ that history’s corner was turned and the Earth could once again hope with the awe of a new morning. So let us cast away deafening noise and strife this Christmas time, that we may ‘hear the angels sing’.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear - words by E. Sears

'O Holy Child of Bethlehem...' - Advent Day 20

            O Holy Child of Bethlehem

            Descend to us, we pray;

            Cast out our sin and enter in,

            Be born in us today.

Nostalgia is, to its core, bittersweet. A longing for something that was, but is not any more. “Do you remember when…”; “What would it have been like to be there when …?” A present detachment from the event is a requisite for true nostalgia. Indeed, we need not have ever experienced that which we long for in order to know nostalgia for it.

The first Christmas seems a prime candidate for such emotions, separated as we are by two millennia from those glorious events. And yet, it cannot be! There are two reasons for this – firstly, the promises of Christ heralded by the first Christmas are still here to be taken today. Secondly, the hope of Bethlehem is still to be perfectly fulfilled in an age to come. Therefore, we are not detached from the first Christmas, nor is it ‘not any more’.

The final verse from ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ recognises our present connection to the first Christmas through earnestly pleading for Jesus to ‘be born is us today’. We need Jesus to cast out our sin, to be present with us and to be preparing us for His final advent. There could not be a better prayer to pray this Christmas time!

O Little Town of Bethlehem - words by Phillips Brooks

'Born to set us free' - Advent Day 19

Soon it will be Christmas morning,
Cards and gifts around the tree;
But will you treasure, will you worship
Jesus born to set us free?

I am a big fan of the giving and receiving of presents. It is an opportunity to give those you love something they like. It is a way of saying to someone ‘I appreciate you’. Our family Christmas day is a great and multi-dimensional day, but the centrepiece for me is undoubtedly the present giving ceremony (yes, even ahead of dinner!)

Yet in buying our gifts, we can easily get weighed down under a sense of burden and duty. And in receiving, more of our emotion can settle on what the gift is rather than the fact someone having given it to us. The corporeal outweighs the symbolic; the actualised trumps the theoretical.

This song reminds us that cherishing material things is not the right path to walk at Christmas. And good as it is to cherish the heart of the giving exchange, the writer exhorts to go further than this still, and adore the One whose birth we give these gifts in remembrance of. And when we remember that Jesus was indeed ‘born to set us free’, why would we not treasure Him above all things this Christmas time?

On a Dark Night (link to lyrics only, sorry no YouTube available) - by Paul Oakley.