I lean, in my angrier moments, to excommunication of unrepentant fascists. In my angriest moments I want to break out bell, book and candles for a full blown rite of anathema.
Maybe an exorcism?
That would imply fascism was something other than a choice they made.
I’d prefer that, obviously. Well, I wouldn’t prefer the possibility that demonic possession was not genuinely rare, but so widespread as that, which would be horrifying in a different way.
I think that saying that Satan misled you is an easy "get out of jail free" card for people who know exactly what they are doing.
I think I would be simply astonished if MAGA people, or technically former MAGA people, particularly a significant number of them, claimed they voted for Trump because of demonic possession.
(I don’t believe that most, or possibly any, people voted for Trump because of that, though I do believe that demonic possession, and exorcism, happen, just very rarely.)
I was thinking more of explicitly fascist-identifying people (which most MAGA people are not), and especially the tendency of those who use born-again status as a way to avoid accountability.
@Gamma Gamaliel@Alan Cresswell I do think you have to take the Nazi bar approach - aside from anything else, unrepetant fascists put other members of the congregation and local community in danger.
Absolutely, but how do we know when someone has crossed that line?
They are hardly likely to draw attention to themselves by goose-stepping around with a swastiki arm band.
I mean you are aware that increasing numbers of people are self-identifying as fascists, right? Many of them will indeed just state that that's their political position. Also, anyone in the congregation or known to them who is in local antifa groups or had run-ins with local fash would be able to identify them.
Sure but although the 'f-word' isn't one I'd bandy around loosely - any more than the 'h-word' (heretic) - as to do so denudes it of seriousness, I'd be more concerned about those who don't self-identity that way but whose views are borderline fascist or likely to tilt in that direction.
Anyone rocking up who is clearly an activist in that direction or openly identifies as fascist is going to be immediately identifiable as such and the parish/congregation can take whatever steps are necessary to protect people.
It's the more subtle forms I'm concerned about, which doesn't mean we should go on a paranoid Mccarthy-style witch-hunt to weed out anyone who might be vaguely right-wing or who don't conform to whatever views we may personally find acceptable.
I lean, in my angrier moments, to excommunication of unrepentant fascists. In my angriest moments I want to break out bell, book and candles for a full blown rite of anathema.
Maybe an exorcism?
That would imply fascism was something other than a choice they made.
I’d prefer that, obviously. Well, I wouldn’t prefer the possibility that demonic possession was not genuinely rare, but so widespread as that, which would be horrifying in a different way.
I think that saying that Satan misled you is an easy "get out of jail free" card for people who know exactly what they are doing.
I think I would be simply astonished if MAGA people, or technically former MAGA people, particularly a significant number of them, claimed they voted for Trump because of demonic possession.
(I don’t believe that most, or possibly any, people voted for Trump because of that, though I do believe that demonic possession, and exorcism, happen, just very rarely.)
I was thinking more of explicitly fascist-identifying people (which most MAGA people are not), and especially the tendency of those who use born-again status as a way to avoid accountability.
I'm inclined to say that if someone was fascist before, and is not now (or later), then I'm going to rejoice that they've changed or been changed, regardless.
I suppose it's theoretically possible that someone in that situation could claim they were possessed, either before or after becoming a Christian. They might even believe they were. Certainly it's possible that demonic influence could be involved (the cruelty and callousness and arrogance, in particular), though I'd personally say only in the way it is all the time anyway, through the usual means of temptation that everyone experiences in any time, place, or culture. I could imagine someone coming from the "seven mountain mandate" end of the spectrum of Christian nationalism realizing that they'd been seriously and dangerously deceived, and concluding that it was literally diabolical (which is, indeed, arguable--such a twisting of the Christian faith into something like that), though perhaps not thinking they were possessed. But misled by Satan, at least on some level? Certainly.
In OT times, of course, Israel's devotion to YHWH was repeatedly appropriated, sublimated and merged into the prevailing culture, to the point where its distinctiveness was lost. It happened subtly and over periods of years, and among the prophets much of the blame is ascribed to the failure of the religious leadership. Incremental drift is very hard to counter - what is the point at which you take a stand? The minister who rebuked Trump for filming an election video on the steps of his church stands out, but such opportunities for public resistance are few.
Whatever else this is, it is not an expression of wholehearted support for democratic forms of government.
I think this is capable of multiple readings, some of them contingent on the time period in which the Feast was inaugurated, it can read as both orthogonal and oppositional to all forms of voernment.
I think there's something to it being orthogonal. But I'm not sure that it's in opposition to all forms of government as such, more that it's indifferent to how government is organised as, ultimately, all earthly rulers come under the supreme authority of Christ.
Back in September in the UK … a demonstration under the title ‘Unite the Kingdom’. A phalanx of demonstrators were carrying crosses and some people who self identify as ministers of religion led prayers. Research reveals that these were people who have no or irregular denominational status.
It also transpires that Jerusalem was, indeed, on the playlist, which shouldn't be the least bit surprising, given its musical origins at a Fight for Right meeting during World War I.
Parry was initially reluctant to supply music for the campaign meeting, as he had doubts about the ultra-patriotism of Fight for Right; but knowing that his former student Walford Davies was to conduct the performance, and not wanting to disappoint either Robert Bridges or Davies, he agreed, writing it on 10 March 1916, and handing the manuscript to Davies with the comment, "Here's a tune for you, old chap. Do what you like with it."
How do you understand the kingship of Christ and, if your church has it, the Festival of Christ the King?
Do you think that God, either as the Trinity or in the person of Jesus endorses your government as an earthly manifestation of that kingdom or favours one nation over any other?
Remember that God has a number of seats in the English Parliament. As Humanists UK points out:
The UK Parliament automatically awards 26 seats in the House of Lords to bishops of the Church of England. These bishops are able to (and do) vote on legislation, make interventions, and lead prayers at the start of each day’s business. … The only two sovereign states in the world to award clerics of the established religion votes in their legislatures are the UK and the Islamic Republic of Iran (a totalitarian theocracy).
For Christians and churches, it seems that an unwanted distinction between two contrasting models of Jesus is being made by recent events.
Christ the King, returning in triumph to rule the earth
Christ the Servant, washing the feet of his disciples
I don't know what worship songs were sung at Unite the Kingdom, but I'd be surprised if they included The Servant King.
More generally, repackaging Christian Nationalism for the UK today really doesn't seem difficult, more a case of updating what's already there for a modern audience. It's also not difficult because of the way that it's long been about evoking nostalgia for a reimagined lost past.
Whatever else this is, it is not an expression of wholehearted support for democratic forms of government.
I think this is capable of multiple readings, some of them contingent on the time period in which the Feast was inaugurated, it can read as both orthogonal and oppositional to all forms of voernment.
I think there's something to it being orthogonal. But I'm not sure that it's in opposition to all forms of government as such, more that it's indifferent to how government is organised as, ultimately, all earthly rulers come under the supreme authority of Christ.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
"CRT, the 'Quiet Revival' or "any other vaunted initiative, programme or apparently spontaneous grass-roots movement is going to 'transform our nation' [Gamma's inverted commas]".
Is it within or without the parameters of theological legitimacy to present faith in Jesus as something to choose because it will 'transform our nation'?
This can run the gamut from a vague feeling that more Christians would change the orientation of society somewhat, through Kruger's ideas above which seem to be a combination of this and the idea that the orientation of that society would necessarily then change in a socially conservative direction along the lines he advocates, through to ARC end of things which seem to involve a lot more hierarchy, social conservatism along with libertarian economics and traditionalism.
So it depends on what they mean when they say it, and whether they are aware of alternate meanings.
It has been said that God created humanity in his own image, and ever since Humanity has been returning the favour.
When Christians talk about Christianity "transforming our nation", especially in the context of conversion, increase in bums on pews, etc. what they mean is "people becoming more like me, or at least the idealised image I have of myself". So if a wet pinko lefty like me says it, I mean the nation becoming kinder, more tolerant and rejecting right wing devil take the hindmost libertarianism or theocratic enforcement of social conservatism in favour of a kind, compassionate and welcoming society. Because that's my idealised view of how I'd like society to be, and as a Christian if I thought God wanted something completely different I'd be trying to come round to his point of view.
If someone like Kruger or, God help us, Yaxley Lennon says it, then I suspect they mean something rather different.
Whatever else this is, it is not an expression of wholehearted support for democratic forms of government.
I think this is capable of multiple readings, some of them contingent on the time period in which the Feast was inaugurated, it can read as both orthogonal and oppositional to all forms of voernment.
I think there's something to it being orthogonal. But I'm not sure that it's in opposition to all forms of government as such, more that it's indifferent to how government is organised as, ultimately, all earthly rulers come under the supreme authority of Christ.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
That was rather my point. Putting "indifferent to how government is organised…" in other words: regardless of whether the system of government is democratic, authoritarian or a dictatorship, the leaders (or leader) will ultimately be held to account by the supreme authority, Christ.
Whatever else this is, it is not an expression of wholehearted support for democratic forms of government.
I think this is capable of multiple readings, some of them contingent on the time period in which the Feast was inaugurated, it can read as both orthogonal and oppositional to all forms of voernment.
I think there's something to it being orthogonal. But I'm not sure that it's in opposition to all forms of government as such, more that it's indifferent to how government is organised as, ultimately, all earthly rulers come under the supreme authority of Christ.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
That was rather my point. Putting "indifferent to how government is organised…" in other words: regardless of whether the system of government is democratic, authoritarian or a dictatorship, the leaders (or leader) will ultimately be held to account by the supreme authority, Christ.
Again, I don't think this implies indifference, in the same way that this same idea when held individually can be a spur to both passivity and activism.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
Very much at the core of my understanding of this, is that all those who exercise power of any sort at whatever level are accountable to God for how they exercise that power, and this applies whether they believe in him or not.
If God is, then he is and this is irrespective of whether people believe in him or not. That seems to me to follow automatically.
I think that saying that Satan misled you is an easy "get out of jail free" card for people who know exactly what they are doing.
I rather agree with you on that one. It sounds like an attempt to say that Satan is responsible for my failings. I had nothing to do with them and could not help it.
@ChastMastr I had to look up your 'seven mountains mandate'. I had not heard of that before. Looking briefly at the history, I would interpret that as an example of people taking an idea which may once have had some value, and then running with it to places that it did not belong. I suspect, those that took that run were people who found the idea a convenient excuse to support what they already wanted to think.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
Very much at the core of my understanding of this, is that all those who exercise power of any sort at whatever level are accountable to God for how they exercise that power, and this applies whether they believe in him or not.
Yes, but how this then translates practically can vary depending on the emphasis people place on getting things right vs the final resolution of all things (and those two things don't necessarily have to be exclusive of each other).
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
Very much at the core of my understanding of this, is that all those who exercise power of any sort at whatever level are accountable to God for how they exercise that power, and this applies whether they believe in him or not.
Yes, but how this then translates practically can vary depending on the emphasis people place on getting things right vs the final resolution of all things (and those two things don't necessarily have to be exclusive of each other).
I am not sure that I understand quite what you're saying there.
If I am accountable to God, it is he who decides how this 'translates', not me. So any emphases I might think he ought to place on what, depend on him, not on how I think I should measure my accountability.
I was both intrigued and quite surprised that the Prospect article on Paul Marshall you linked to listed Richard Tice among those with past associations with Iwerne. I would be very surprised if somebody were to tell me he retained any links with either public school evangelicalism or any other sort these days.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
Very much at the core of my understanding of this, is that all those who exercise power of any sort at whatever level are accountable to God for how they exercise that power, and this applies whether they believe in him or not.
Yes, but how this then translates practically can vary depending on the emphasis people place on getting things right vs the final resolution of all things (and those two things don't necessarily have to be exclusive of each other).
If I am accountable to God, it is he who decides how this 'translates', not me.
Okay, so it's devoid of any practical meaning is it ? Because for it to have any kind of significance would imply holding some idea about 'how God decides' what accountability means.
Thank you @Baptist Trainfan for those links. They look really interesting and I had not heard of this organisation before. Alas, I do not think I will be able to watch either of them live. Do you know if they are recorded and available afterwards?
I referred to Helen Paynter in my opening post but Sarah Shin is a completely new name to me. In some ways, the Cruddas/Kruger one might be for me the more interesting because both of them are people who represent positions I find it difficult to relate to. Kruger, I have already mentioned, but Cruddas is someone I associate with the fossil part of the Labour tradition.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
Very much at the core of my understanding of this, is that all those who exercise power of any sort at whatever level are accountable to God for how they exercise that power, and this applies whether they believe in him or not.
Yes, but how this then translates practically can vary depending on the emphasis people place on getting things right vs the final resolution of all things (and those two things don't necessarily have to be exclusive of each other).
If I am accountable to God, it is he who decides how this 'translates', not me.
Okay, so it's devoid of any practical meaning is it ? Because for it to have any kind of significance would imply holding some idea about 'how God decides' what accountability means.
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here, which is making it difficult for me to respond to your question. It is possible we are speaking cross purposes.
I would have thought that engaging with God to try to work out the implications of one's responsibility to him is a fundamental part of the spiritual life. A person who does not believe in God presumably sees no reason why they should seek to do that, but that does not let one off responsibility for trying.
Alas, I do not think I will be able to watch either of them live. Do you know if they are recorded and available afterwards?
I don't know, sorry.
... Sarah Shin is a completely new name to me. In some ways, the Cruddas/Kruger one might be for me the more interesting because both of them are people who represent positions I find it difficult to relate to.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
Very much at the core of my understanding of this, is that all those who exercise power of any sort at whatever level are accountable to God for how they exercise that power, and this applies whether they believe in him or not.
Yes, but how this then translates practically can vary depending on the emphasis people place on getting things right vs the final resolution of all things (and those two things don't necessarily have to be exclusive of each other).
If I am accountable to God, it is he who decides how this 'translates', not me.
Okay, so it's devoid of any practical meaning is it ? Because for it to have any kind of significance would imply holding some idea about 'how God decides' what accountability means.
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here, which is making it difficult for me to respond to your question. It is possible we are speaking cross purposes.
I would have thought that engaging with God to try to work out the implications of one's responsibility to him is a fundamental part of the spiritual life. A person who does not believe in God presumably sees no reason why they should seek to do that, but that does not let one off responsibility for trying.
Surely it makes absolutely no sense to work out the implications of one's responsibility to a being one does not believe exists? It'd be like me working out what Vishnu or Cthulhu requires of me.
Does God really expect people to do the logically nonsensical?
I would have thought that engaging with God to try to work out the implications of one's responsibility to him is a fundamental part of the spiritual life.
Yes, and people who do this tend not come to the same conclusions as to what 'working out the implications of responsibility' means. "It is he who decides how this 'translates'" is ultimately refracted through our individual theologies and doctrines of God.
…
Surely it makes absolutely no sense to work out the implications of one's responsibility to a being one does not believe exists? It'd be like me working out what Vishnu or Cthulhu requires of me.
Does God really expect people to do the logically nonsensical?
People - each and every one of us - do logically nonsensical things every day of our lives!
It is quite possible to have no belief that God actually exists, but nevertheless to see the idea of God as being a useful invention of human beings, an imagined hook on which to hang a collection of ideas about meaning and how to live one's life.
…
Surely it makes absolutely no sense to work out the implications of one's responsibility to a being one does not believe exists? It'd be like me working out what Vishnu or Cthulhu requires of me.
Does God really expect people to do the logically nonsensical?
People - each and every one of us - do logically nonsensical things every day of our lives!
It is quite possible to have no belief that God actually exists, but nevertheless to see the idea of God as being a useful invention of human beings, an imagined hook on which to hang a collection of ideas about meaning and how to live one's life.
Yes, but that doesn't sound like what @Enoch said.
Moreover there's a massive difference between observing people do nonsensical things and suggesting they have a responsibility to do so.
Returning to the actual subject of this thread, although the more traditional U.S. type of Christianity advocated for in this article is much more beneficient in its social effects than anything presented either by Yaxley-Lennon/Kruger/Orr in the UK, or the various evangelicals who cling onto Trump's coat-tails, back him or defend his as Cyrus in the USA, I am not persuaded it is not just another of what C.S. Lewis criticised as 'Christianity and ..... ' where the 'and' gradually takes over and supplants Jesus and Christianity.
It is easy to see this in people one does not agree with, like those behind the Patriot Bible or the Revd Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean of Canterbury, who saw Joseph Stalin as the true manifestation of the Christian faith for the mid twentieth century. From his diary, it appears that even Maisky the Soviet ambassador in London at the time, regarded him as a naive idiot. It is harder for most people to see it in the question whether Christianity endorses the social assumptions they have grown up into. It is much easier to assume Jesus agrees with a package of ideas that already fit one's predispositions and to develop them further in whatever direction one imagines one's sanctified brain could like to take them than actually to ask him whether he has any views on the subject and listen to what he might nudge one towards.
Yes, but that doesn't sound like what @Enoch said.
Moreover there's a massive difference between observing people do nonsensical things and suggesting they have a responsibility to do so.
In practical terms, the alternative to living according to a system of values predicated on a notional deity is developing one's own system of values. Most of the people that I know seem unwilling to do this, even after they have ceased believing in the deity. In practice, they ditch the values they find most objectionable and keep the rest. They also tend to maintain a responsibility to try to live up to those values, said responsibility apparently being largely unaffected by the absence of the deity who they previously believed to be holding them to account.
In other words, for a given person, whether they believe there's a deity looking over their shoulder doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to the responsibility they feel.
The logical nonsensicality doesn't seem to make much difference.
@Enoch, what if he apparently 'nudges' you towards completely opposite positions to those you currently agree with?
There's a guy in our parish who is getting involved with Your Party because he feels Labour has sold out.
Has Jesus 'nudged' him towards that position or is it one he has arrived at through his own volition and convictions?
Equally, there are people in our parish or 'enquirers' who come from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Has Jesus 'nudged' them that way?
I didn't feel any particular sense of divine 'leading' or nudging as it were when I became involved in local and regional politics nor did I do so when I felt it right to step back from it.
I wouldn't claim any particular sense of divine leading were I to leave my own political party and join another.
If someone believes their Christian faith is compatible with being Green, Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, Plaid Cymru or SNP then that's a matter for them and for their conscience. I can't imagine our Lord looking down from heaven and going, 'Dang! I wanted them to join Your Party ...'
You'll notice I didn't include Reform on my list.
'Arise Peter, kill and eat ...'
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I might think that Orr, Kruger and so on are entirely misled but what if they claimed that God had nudged them that way? How would that be any easier to evaluate spiritually than if I said God had nudged me to become a Lib Dem (I don't believe he did, by the way but then he didn't 'stop' me either ...).
I would feel uncomfortable with anyone from whichever end of the political spectrum who claimed some kind of direct divine guidance into this, that or the other political grouping.
... I would feel uncomfortable with anyone from whichever end of the political spectrum who claimed some kind of direct divine guidance into this, that or the other political grouping.
I agree, wholeheartedly and unequivocally.
I am also very suspicious indeed of a retired CofE priest locally who regularly gets themself prosecuted for performative acts of civil disobedience, in their case for Green causes. This has included attempting to damage a glass/perspex case with an original Magna Carta in it, with the claim that Magna Carta was being betrayed by those who were not rallying to the cause. This person has claimed in court that Jesus Christ commanded them to do this because that is their interpretation of what scripture adjures one to do.
Perhaps they are right and I am a slack Laodicean compromiser, but I have my doubts.
I think there are occasions where a political choice can actually be wicked or sinful, but these are very rare. That, though, is a negative thing, the exclusion of an option, not the choosing of one. I would be very suspicious of anyone who claimed that God had nudged them towards a particular politics, or that the politics they were advocating had more divine authority than anyone else's did.
This person has claimed in court that Jesus Christ commanded them to do this because that is their interpretation of what scripture adjures one to do.
Perhaps they are right and I am a slack Laodicean compromiser, but I have my doubts.
Or perhaps it's what they've been led to or a consequence of how their individual conscience has been shaped by faith.
I think there are occasions where a political choice can actually be wicked or sinful, but these are very rare.
Although I doubt if the Almighty is particularly impressed by loud pronouncements of something as 'wicked'.
Unless it accords with what you or I or anyone else here would count as 'wicked'?
I'm reminded of the comment Oliver Cromwell is supposed to have made to Ireton.
'Evety man that wages war believes that God is on his side. I'll warrant God must often wonder who is on His.'
Which perhaps doesn't quite fit with his, 'God made them as stubble to our swords,' comment in a letter after Marston Moor.
I don't know, notions of divine providence popular at the time would suggest that if a victory was won it was because God wanted it to happen. You can certainly get a lot of support for this from Hebrew Scripture. Presumably one could only be sure of whose side God was on after the fact, which then neatly proves the necessity of warfare.
This person has claimed in court that Jesus Christ commanded them to do this because that is their interpretation of what scripture adjures one to do.
Perhaps they are right and I am a slack Laodicean compromiser, but I have my doubts.
Or perhaps it's what they've been led to or a consequence of how their individual conscience has been shaped by faith.
I think there are occasions where a political choice can actually be wicked or sinful, but these are very rare.
Although I doubt if the Almighty is particularly impressed by loud pronouncements of something as 'wicked'.
Unless it accords with what you or I or anyone else here would count as 'wicked'?
I'm reminded of the comment Oliver Cromwell is supposed to have made to Ireton.
'Evety man that wages war believes that God is on his side. I'll warrant God must often wonder who is on His.'
Which perhaps doesn't quite fit with his, 'God made them as stubble to our swords,' comment in a letter after Marston Moor.
That first quote sounds really apocryphal, like the kinda stuff that gets attributed to Einstein and put on inspirational calendars.
Also, while I realize people are often more nuanced than their reputations, I would not expect Oliver Cromwell to have much ambivalence about which side in a military conflict God was on.
Comments
I was thinking more of explicitly fascist-identifying people (which most MAGA people are not), and especially the tendency of those who use born-again status as a way to avoid accountability.
I mean you are aware that increasing numbers of people are self-identifying as fascists, right? Many of them will indeed just state that that's their political position. Also, anyone in the congregation or known to them who is in local antifa groups or had run-ins with local fash would be able to identify them.
Anyone rocking up who is clearly an activist in that direction or openly identifies as fascist is going to be immediately identifiable as such and the parish/congregation can take whatever steps are necessary to protect people.
It's the more subtle forms I'm concerned about, which doesn't mean we should go on a paranoid Mccarthy-style witch-hunt to weed out anyone who might be vaguely right-wing or who don't conform to whatever views we may personally find acceptable.
I'm inclined to say that if someone was fascist before, and is not now (or later), then I'm going to rejoice that they've changed or been changed, regardless.
I suppose it's theoretically possible that someone in that situation could claim they were possessed, either before or after becoming a Christian. They might even believe they were. Certainly it's possible that demonic influence could be involved (the cruelty and callousness and arrogance, in particular), though I'd personally say only in the way it is all the time anyway, through the usual means of temptation that everyone experiences in any time, place, or culture. I could imagine someone coming from the "seven mountain mandate" end of the spectrum of Christian nationalism realizing that they'd been seriously and dangerously deceived, and concluding that it was literally diabolical (which is, indeed, arguable--such a twisting of the Christian faith into something like that), though perhaps not thinking they were possessed. But misled by Satan, at least on some level? Certainly.
For me, this looks like a serious issue.
Back at the opening post: It also transpires that Jerusalem was, indeed, on the playlist, which shouldn't be the least bit surprising, given its musical origins at a Fight for Right meeting during World War I. Remember that God has a number of seats in the English Parliament. As Humanists UK points out:
For Christians and churches, it seems that an unwanted distinction between two contrasting models of Jesus is being made by recent events.
- Christ the King, returning in triumph to rule the earth
- Christ the Servant, washing the feet of his disciples
I don't know what worship songs were sung at Unite the Kingdom, but I'd be surprised if they included The Servant King.More generally, repackaging Christian Nationalism for the UK today really doesn't seem difficult, more a case of updating what's already there for a modern audience. It's also not difficult because of the way that it's long been about evoking nostalgia for a reimagined lost past.
Every ruler being ultimately under the authority of Christ doesn't necessarily imply indifference, it can also signal accountability.
It has been said that God created humanity in his own image, and ever since Humanity has been returning the favour.
When Christians talk about Christianity "transforming our nation", especially in the context of conversion, increase in bums on pews, etc. what they mean is "people becoming more like me, or at least the idealised image I have of myself". So if a wet pinko lefty like me says it, I mean the nation becoming kinder, more tolerant and rejecting right wing devil take the hindmost libertarianism or theocratic enforcement of social conservatism in favour of a kind, compassionate and welcoming society. Because that's my idealised view of how I'd like society to be, and as a Christian if I thought God wanted something completely different I'd be trying to come round to his point of view.
If someone like Kruger or, God help us, Yaxley Lennon says it, then I suspect they mean something rather different.
Again, I don't think this implies indifference, in the same way that this same idea when held individually can be a spur to both passivity and activism.
If God is, then he is and this is irrespective of whether people believe in him or not. That seems to me to follow automatically.
I rather agree with you on that one. It sounds like an attempt to say that Satan is responsible for my failings. I had nothing to do with them and could not help it.
@ChastMastr I had to look up your 'seven mountains mandate'. I had not heard of that before. Looking briefly at the history, I would interpret that as an example of people taking an idea which may once have had some value, and then running with it to places that it did not belong. I suspect, those that took that run were people who found the idea a convenient excuse to support what they already wanted to think.
Yes, but how this then translates practically can vary depending on the emphasis people place on getting things right vs the final resolution of all things (and those two things don't necessarily have to be exclusive of each other).
If I am accountable to God, it is he who decides how this 'translates', not me. So any emphases I might think he ought to place on what, depend on him, not on how I think I should measure my accountability.
I was both intrigued and quite surprised that the Prospect article on Paul Marshall you linked to listed Richard Tice among those with past associations with Iwerne. I would be very surprised if somebody were to tell me he retained any links with either public school evangelicalism or any other sort these days.
Okay, so it's devoid of any practical meaning is it ? Because for it to have any kind of significance would imply holding some idea about 'how God decides' what accountability means.
I referred to Helen Paynter in my opening post but Sarah Shin is a completely new name to me. In some ways, the Cruddas/Kruger one might be for me the more interesting because both of them are people who represent positions I find it difficult to relate to. Kruger, I have already mentioned, but Cruddas is someone I associate with the fossil part of the Labour tradition.
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here, which is making it difficult for me to respond to your question. It is possible we are speaking cross purposes.
I would have thought that engaging with God to try to work out the implications of one's responsibility to him is a fundamental part of the spiritual life. A person who does not believe in God presumably sees no reason why they should seek to do that, but that does not let one off responsibility for trying.
Ditto.
Surely it makes absolutely no sense to work out the implications of one's responsibility to a being one does not believe exists? It'd be like me working out what Vishnu or Cthulhu requires of me.
Does God really expect people to do the logically nonsensical?
Yes, and people who do this tend not come to the same conclusions as to what 'working out the implications of responsibility' means. "It is he who decides how this 'translates'" is ultimately refracted through our individual theologies and doctrines of God.
It is quite possible to have no belief that God actually exists, but nevertheless to see the idea of God as being a useful invention of human beings, an imagined hook on which to hang a collection of ideas about meaning and how to live one's life.
Yes, but that doesn't sound like what @Enoch said.
Moreover there's a massive difference between observing people do nonsensical things and suggesting they have a responsibility to do so.
It is easy to see this in people one does not agree with, like those behind the Patriot Bible or the Revd Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean of Canterbury, who saw Joseph Stalin as the true manifestation of the Christian faith for the mid twentieth century. From his diary, it appears that even Maisky the Soviet ambassador in London at the time, regarded him as a naive idiot. It is harder for most people to see it in the question whether Christianity endorses the social assumptions they have grown up into. It is much easier to assume Jesus agrees with a package of ideas that already fit one's predispositions and to develop them further in whatever direction one imagines one's sanctified brain could like to take them than actually to ask him whether he has any views on the subject and listen to what he might nudge one towards.
In other words, for a given person, whether they believe there's a deity looking over their shoulder doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to the responsibility they feel.
The logical nonsensicality doesn't seem to make much difference.
There's a guy in our parish who is getting involved with Your Party because he feels Labour has sold out.
Has Jesus 'nudged' him towards that position or is it one he has arrived at through his own volition and convictions?
Equally, there are people in our parish or 'enquirers' who come from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Has Jesus 'nudged' them that way?
I didn't feel any particular sense of divine 'leading' or nudging as it were when I became involved in local and regional politics nor did I do so when I felt it right to step back from it.
I wouldn't claim any particular sense of divine leading were I to leave my own political party and join another.
If someone believes their Christian faith is compatible with being Green, Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, Plaid Cymru or SNP then that's a matter for them and for their conscience. I can't imagine our Lord looking down from heaven and going, 'Dang! I wanted them to join Your Party ...'
You'll notice I didn't include Reform on my list.
'Arise Peter, kill and eat ...'
?
I might think that Orr, Kruger and so on are entirely misled but what if they claimed that God had nudged them that way? How would that be any easier to evaluate spiritually than if I said God had nudged me to become a Lib Dem (I don't believe he did, by the way but then he didn't 'stop' me either ...).
I would feel uncomfortable with anyone from whichever end of the political spectrum who claimed some kind of direct divine guidance into this, that or the other political grouping.
I am also very suspicious indeed of a retired CofE priest locally who regularly gets themself prosecuted for performative acts of civil disobedience, in their case for Green causes. This has included attempting to damage a glass/perspex case with an original Magna Carta in it, with the claim that Magna Carta was being betrayed by those who were not rallying to the cause. This person has claimed in court that Jesus Christ commanded them to do this because that is their interpretation of what scripture adjures one to do.
Perhaps they are right and I am a slack Laodicean compromiser, but I have my doubts.
I think there are occasions where a political choice can actually be wicked or sinful, but these are very rare. That, though, is a negative thing, the exclusion of an option, not the choosing of one. I would be very suspicious of anyone who claimed that God had nudged them towards a particular politics, or that the politics they were advocating had more divine authority than anyone else's did.
Or perhaps it's what they've been led to or a consequence of how their individual conscience has been shaped by faith.
Although I doubt if the Almighty is particularly impressed by loud pronouncements of something as 'wicked'.
Unless it accords with what you or I or anyone else here would count as 'wicked'?
I'm reminded of the comment Oliver Cromwell is supposed to have made to Ireton.
'Evety man that wages war believes that God is on his side. I'll warrant God must often wonder who is on His.'
Which perhaps doesn't quite fit with his, 'God made them as stubble to our swords,' comment in a letter after Marston Moor.
I don't know, notions of divine providence popular at the time would suggest that if a victory was won it was because God wanted it to happen. You can certainly get a lot of support for this from Hebrew Scripture. Presumably one could only be sure of whose side God was on after the fact, which then neatly proves the necessity of warfare.
That first quote sounds really apocryphal, like the kinda stuff that gets attributed to Einstein and put on inspirational calendars.
Also, while I realize people are often more nuanced than their reputations, I would not expect Oliver Cromwell to have much ambivalence about which side in a military conflict God was on.