UK Edition
The Christian church has a long and honourable history of engagement in the public sphere – Wilberforce’s work against slavery and Lord Shaftesbury’s campaigns on behalf of children in the 19th century both spring to mind. So why is it that so many of us feel uncomfortable with the Church’s political and economic utterances? When Archbishop Welby said that the EU has been “the greatest dream realised for human beings since the fall of the Western Roman Empire” the incredulity extended well beyond whether one voted Leave or Remain.
The Church cannot, and should not, make its voice heard by reinforcing such a perception of elitism, or by identifying the Gospel with the state, and its provision. Perhaps it has grown so close to the establishment that it cannot conceive of any responses to social or economic questions which do not involve an expansion of the state, rather than a genuine debate around moral ideas and principles.
The real problem is the Church simply does not know how to engage in social, economic and political debate. Rather like the Conservative Party, it has lost any vision for enterprise and entrepreneurship, for wealth creation before distribution, for the morality of a low-tax economy. Yet Christ worked in a profitable family construction company. He will have understood customer service, innovation, creativity, planning, accounting and profit, alongside the complexities of labour, wages and capital. He worked because if you did not, then you did not eat, a point also made by St Paul. Jesus Christ not only exemplified the dignity of labour, but also the dignity of enterprise. Why do we rarely hear the Church making this point?
The role of the Church should be distinctive from the political sphere: to preach the Gospel, proclaiming the person of Christ, to hold to Scriptural moral truth, even when unpopular, proclaiming religious liberty, defending persecuted Christians, speaking out on abortion, family life, sexual morality and so on. And to equip its members for service in other spheres.
Wilberforce and Shaftesbury understood this distinction. In doing so, they achieved great moral and social reform. Shaftesbury, the sponsor of much protective legislation, was deeply sceptical about the increasingly dominant role of the state, in education and in social provision.
Today, we are in danger of outsourcing our responsibility for social welfare to the state, so giving greater moral weight to a pound raised in taxation than one remaining in the family unit. That does not mean there is no role for the state in caring for the vulnerable; nor does it mean that proper public debate around the nature of the modern company is out of order. It is, though, a warning against presumption.
The Church must not act as an echo chamber of the Left. Rather it should call us back to debate moral purpose and ideas in business, economics and society, encouraging its disciples to a more active participation.
The Rev Dr Richard Turnbull is the director of the Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics
The Church should call us to debate moral purpose, not act as an echo chamber of the Left