Reflections on Difficult Times

Reflections on Difficult Times

Dear Friends,

I hope you enjoyed John Matthews’ reflections on Bonhoeffer over the last week.  Bonhoeffer is a theologian whose ideas seem very attractive to the contemporary Church.

Over the next two weeks we are going to be looking at Biblical ideas (some of which inspired Bonhoeffer) as we think about the times in which we live.  These are difficult times for those who are concerned with democracy (as we have understood it in the West), the rule of law, and inclusive politics. It can be hard to work out what the Church may say in such times.  

When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved there were some who saw this as a triumph of Western values – one thinker even wrote, rather arrogantly, it was the end of history.  Meaning, I think, that he saw human history as finding its summit in the liberal values of the West.  Yet in the years that followed we’ve endured a lot of painful history.  Ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda shocked the world.  Hopes for a new Western style democratic order in Russia have proved unfounded, and even in the United States, which sees itself as the champion of the democratic order, the previous president tried to cheat the voters and cling on to power and, even now, refuses to admit he lost.  If Mr Trump  wins in November he has promised to be a dictator from day one.  The liberal reforms in Hungary following its transition to democracy have now morphed into something rather different with the Reformed Christian Viktor Orbán dominating political life there.  Trigger issues seem to include fears about migration in both the US and Europe, a sense of people being left behind by elites who are the ruling classes, and a realisation that wealth generated by the super rich doesn’t trickle down to the rest of us.  Add into this stretched public finances where people demand Scandinavian levels of public services with American levels of taxation and we end up with politicians forever urging us to understand their difficult choices.  Riots in England and Northern Ireland in the Summer, the surge in support of Reform and the attraction of some figures on the far right here all add to a sense of gloom about the way things are.  There’s a profound lack of trust in our institutions and in the outlets where we get our news from.

Sometimes this is all set in the context of a rise in Nationalism in both Europe and the US and, in some countries the growth of something called Christian Nationalism.  Nationalism itself can be a tricky term to define – it is basically the idea that the state should be the same as the nation and that no other state should rule over a different nation.  The nation or state can be defined by borders (civic nationalism) or by racial and ethnic groups (blood and soil nationalism).  In a UK context we are often suspicious of nationalism overseas but three of the constituent nations of the UK have strong nationalist movements arising from the idea the country next door shouldn’t run them (the country next door might point out that it too was subsumed into the Union).  This nationalistic idea also appealed to many who voted Leave in the Brexit referendum believing that the UK itself, not the EU, should be the ultimate decider of our laws. (The EU might have pointed out that sovereignty pooled made everyone stronger.)   Christian Nationalism adds the particular power of the Church into the mix.  In Russia, Orthodoxy, which was nearly extinguished in the early Soviet era, has grown in wealth and prestige and Patriarch Kirill has supported Mr Putin’s war in Ukraine.  In Hungary Orbán has used his new found Reformed faith to forge alliances with the churches who then often support his political agenda.  Many, but by no means all, evangelicals in America see the serial adulterer, and non Church-going, Mr Trump as divinely ordained to bring many of their political agendas to fruition – most notably a ban on abortion.  This view ignores the fact that each of Mr Trump’s opponents have been more regular attenders at church than him!  When the Church is close to the state there is potential for the state to use the Church to push its own agendas.

The Worship, Faith, and Order Committee is looking at these ideas and, in due course, we hope a paper will be issued exploring what a Christian response might be to these troubled times.  Over the next two weeks I will explore some Biblical passages which might offer hope and resources to respond to the state we’re in.

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship