The Guardian view on the church and the election: talking sense
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Version 0 of 1. In the internet age it has never been easier to read and study a document before commenting on it. Unfortunately, even now, not everyone bothers to make the effort. Yesterday provided a textbook case of what, as a society, we lose as a result. The Church of England bishops had barely released their 52-page general election intervention before they were getting some glumly predictable responses that owed more to hand-me-down 1980s journalistic prejudices than to good contemporary reporting. The bishops’ letter is important for two reasons. First because it shows the Church of England sharpening up the quality of its public interventions under Archbishop Justin Welby. And, second, because British politics faces a credibility crisis and needs all the help it can get, including from the church. If the quality of our public life were better, the bishops’ letter would be seen as the embracing vision it seeks to be. Yesterday, however, the rule of shoot first and think later took over. The Conservatives were furious about the bishops’ letter, said one headline; yet the claim was based on the pre-publication comments of a single maverick Tory MP. The Church of England had released “a shopping list of leftwing policies,” said another, failing to spot that on page two of their letter the bishops had gone to the trouble of stating: “This letter is not a shopping list of policies we would like to see.” Those who actually take the time to read the bishops’ letter will be rewarded with a thoughtful and well-rooted Christian argument as well as a very different kind of political intervention from the one that might have been expected in the light of such lazy treatment. For instance, in a document that is generally critical of the failings of modern politics, one of the few contemporary politicians who can claim an endorsement from the bishops is, in fact, David Cameron; the church reiterates its strong support for the philosophy of the “big society” initiative and calls for it to be resuscitated. And as for those leftwing policies, the document is at pains to argue that in its calls for a new politics, the church does “not see the way forward as a choice between ‘right’ and ‘left’”. In a striking passage, the letter says there can be no simplistic return to the Britain either of Clement Attlee or of Margaret Thatcher. In fact, the bishops’ letter tries to do what most people probably want the church to do in the run-up to the election, which is to make an overarching philosophical argument about the state of modern politics. The move is unprecedented because the need for it is so unusually acute. While it is true that the letter gets the church into some politically sensitive issues, such as Trident renewal, Britain’s place in Europe and the treatment of claimants, it does so judiciously, while the larger vision in the document recognises that there is an unassuaged public hunger and need for better politics. Fair-minded people should note that the church has risen to the occasion in ways that politicians, on the whole, have not. If nothing else, the document suggests that Archbishop Welby should chair the much-needed constitutional convention which Britain needs after May. |