It is a modern assumption that Religion and Politics don’t mix. The American Christian Right are synonymous in secular Europe with a regressive social agenda and intolerance of minorities. Closer to home, reactions to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent incursions into politics with his comments on accommodating Sharia law come firmly from the Henry II school.
This is an assumption I share. I may go to church, and I may go to CUCA events, but never the twain shall meet. However I was rather taken aback last Sunday having hauled my caucus to church early in the morning that the day’s sermon was overtly political. More manifesto than Mark.
The speaker was one Dr. Michael Schluter, founder and chairman of the Jubilee Centre, a Christian research group based in Cambridge. In his paper ‘How to create a relational society: Foundations for a new social order’ (published in the Cambridge Papers), he advocates a complete rethinking of our economy and society along biblical lines. This rethinking takes as its inspiration the Jubilee legislation (from which the organization takes its name) as laid down in the book of Leviticus. As he laid out this vision in his sermon, I sat incredulous that our 21st century, post-industrialised, multicultural land should seek to model itself on that of a 5000 year old agrarian society. But as the sermon went on I realized that what Dr. Schulter was talking about was of great relevance today, particularly for Conservatives.
The legislation is designed to maintain the division of land between the tribes of Israel as decreed when they first came out of the desert and settled in the land of Canaan. It requires that every 50th year, the Jubilee year, all Israelis return to their place of birth, and the compulsory selling of property back to the original owner or their heirs. The point of this is twofold. Firstly it ensures that all property is shared equitably and universally. Secondly it discourages geographic mobility, encouraging families to stay together where they have deep roots. This is the relational society, placing the strength of relationships with family and community alongside economic growth and greater equality as the main political aims.
The universal ownership of property is a very old Tory idea. Margaret Thatcher may have re-popularised the phrase “a property-owning democracy” with her council house sales in the 1980s, but it has been a key plank of Conservative thinking since the Second World War, when in 1950 Anthony Eden pledging to build 300,000 new homes a year, and the concept can be found in Conservative thinking at earlier dates. An Englishman’s home is, after all, his castle. The idea is that when a citizen owns an asset in their society, they have a stake in the success of that society and see it as part of their responsibility to further that success. Property is also a wealth-generator- many families have more wealth stored in their pile of bricks than they do in their bank accounts, and more wealth can be created with rising house prices than through the 9 to 5 slog. Homes also are a necessity in creating stable families.
As for the second point: encouraging strong ties to family and place, I believe there is a tension in Conservative thinking. The tension comes from the two largest strands in modern Conservatism, that between economic liberalization and social conservatism. For example, conservative politicians all over the globe preach the benefits of two parent families bringing up their kids with love and devotion but those same politicians want both parents out working every available hour in the pursuit of profit and economic growth. Every hour at the grindstone is one less with the sprogs nurturing them into responsible adults.
Norman Tebbit famously exhorted the jobless to ‘get on yer bike’ and look for work. But for many finding work may mean uprooting and leaving town for distant places where their line of work is more available. This geographical mobility of labour (free movement of labour being one of the key planks of economic liberalism) surely disrupts stable family and community life. I myself remember my childhood where my Dad worked in such disparate locations as Plymouth, Manchester and Dublin to get the work he was qualified to do. The poor man not only got on his bike, but cycled it within an inch of its life. While it was necessary to put money on the table, it obviously made bringing up a young family much harder; and not all families would survive under this strain.
Conservatives are only just beginning to think through this tension. The work of Ian Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice and David Cameron’s leadership has finally begun to think how to redress the balance in conservatism away from Margaret Thatcher’s ‘There is no such a thing as society’ economic liberalism without undoing the great and necessary gains that her premiership had. As the sermon came to an end, I realized that take out the references to God, and Schulter’s manifesto differs little from Cameron’s crusade to mend our broken society, or George W. Bush’s ‘compassionate conservatism’.
What does this mean in policy terms. David Cameron has already talked of restoring tax breaks for married couples and those with children. Dr. Schulter goes further and points to some policies from Singapore. Tax breaks for homes shared with elderly parents, and lesser breaks for those who live within 5km of their elderly parents. With an ageing population set to put greater pressure on elderly care and the health service, encouraging families to act as a welfare unit for the old as well as young is surely sensible. He also points to the John Lewis partnership which will relocate its employees to any store in the country if they wish to be near their families.
No doubt there are many other policy implications which could have great benefits to our society. In future I hope to look past turbulent priests and anti-abortion, anti-gay bible-bashers to see that religion and its adherents have much to give in ideas, time and compassion to build stronger families, safer and more stable communities and a more humane society.
Amen to most of what you say in terms of what religion (and in particular, it has to be said, traditional Christianity) has to offer society in terms of moral robustness, responsibility, strong family values, expectations and duties as well as rights, and a less self-centred framework of objectives and desires. However, I’m very concerned that the new emerging approach to religion and “faith groups” in society is, although preferable to Dawkinsite broadsides against the churches, a little patronising: religion is seen as something peripheral and private but fairly benign, and to be tolerated so long as it doesn’t conflict with the “moral” diktat of the state. Religion is not utility-based – religious people don’t follow the faith because it is useful to them, or because religion somehow assists their way of life (possibly with the exception of New Age religions and the Westernised quasi-Buddhism of yuppies). Quite the opposite is true: believers are expected to derive their values from their faith, not from current social trends, and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Individual morals must be made to conform to the requirements of one’s religion, not vice versa. Of course I agree that the values of religion (and Christianity in particular) are “useful”, in that they produce good results when put into practice, but that’s not the reason why I follow them, and my beliefs about marriage and the family (the ones that are “useful” for the government) exist within a broader and interconnected moral framework that abhors much else that the state attempts to force us think is acceptable, and which contains much that would be objectionable to a modern touchy-feely Cameroon.
From a turbulent (but not a priest), anti-abortion, “anti-gay” Bible-basher.
An economics lesson:
I agree that universal property ownership is a good thing. However, one of your justifications for it is false:
“Property is also a wealth-generator- many families have more wealth stored in their pile of bricks than they do in their bank accounts, and more wealth can be created with rising house prices than through the 9 to 5 slog.”
This is bad economics. Property does not generate or create wealth. It is wealth. Wealth is the stuff we own, and the economy as a whole grows as we create more stuff. Intuitively, a house just sits there. It doesn’t do anything.
What you mean is that property generates income. Income is a flow of wealth. A property owner earns rent, but this doesn’t necessarily make society any better off. No extra stuff has been created; just a transfer of money from one person to another. Similarly, you can make a lot of money if you’re a property owner and house prices are rising. But no wealth has been created. All that’s happening is the government is printing loads of money and most of it is going into the housing market; house prices are inflating faster than other things. So anyone who owns houses will become richer, and anyone who doesn’t will become poorer. Society isn’t better off as a whole. Another problem with government intervention.