Features
'My Life, Our Times'
Wednesday November 29 2017
“I have often asked myself: in the absence of references to our religion and religious tradition – and the language we have inherited from it that infuses our debates – in what terms can a political leader or any public figure today make reference to shared moral values? Some who fear religious dogmatism would exclude all religious arguments from the public square, but might the better way forward not be, as Rowan Williams suggests, greater clarity about their proper place?
“For are we not impoverished as a society if the public square is emptied of such a discourse that insists on a generosity of spirit and our mutual obligations for each other’s welfare?
“More personally, how can a public figure who holds convictions that are religious in origin be authentic if we do not state what influences what we say and where we are coming from? A religious conviction cannot be equated with a private preference, such as a liking for sports or a taste in food or music: it is something that shapes your life, public as well as private. The public demands authenticity from our politicians – for us to reveal who we are and what makes us tick.
“No political leader can survive for long if people think of him or her as false, as a PR creation, as an invention of a focus group.
“To expect those of us with strong beliefs to leave them at the door of the House of Commons or No10 is to require us to bring an incomplete version of ourselves into the public arena. If the values that matter most to me are the values that I speak about least, then I am, at least in part, in denial of who I really am.
“This was, to my regret, a problem that I never really resolved. I suspect I was thought of as more like a technician lacking solid convictions. And despite my strong personal religious beliefs, I never really countered that impression. Instead of defining myself, I gave my opponents room to define me.
“Of course, there are limits to the role of religious arguments in the public square. We should not forget the lessons of history: in the name of religion and out of a dogmatic insistence that a theocratic view must prevail, bombs have been dropped; wars have been waged; human beings have been despised, humiliated and tortured; blacks, women and LGBT people have been reviled, ostracised and persecuted – and still are.
“Today the greatest theocratic threat we face in the West is not that one faith group might dominate the organs of the state but that anyone in a position of power might claim divine authorisation for their decisions, imply moral superiority, attempt to turn God into a party- political figure and circumvent rational deliberation in the name of an assertive faith.
“Being religious – or being from ‘our’ religious tradition – should not give any politician a privileged position or a get-out clause that allows them to ignore the accepted bases of authority: logic, scientific fact, experimental test, critical evaluation and an appeal to values we share in common.
“Indeed, people of faith have a duty to use the same tools of reasoning that a person of no faith would use, and to invoke reasons that can be understood and explained at the bar of public opinion, framing their arguments about values in such a way as to include rather than alienate those who do not share their position.
“This is what the philosopher John Rawls meant when he said that in an argument it is right to weigh only those reasons that are part of ‘an overlapping consensus’ of ‘what reasonable people could be reasonably expected’ to endorse. In our public debates we should, he said, appeal not to comprehensive doctrines but to general principles around which there is a possibility of agreement. No matter how strongly felt your religious beliefs, you cannot justify your case for action purely on grounds of faith, and you have to accept that your views are more likely to command authority in the eyes of nonbelievers because they are supported by logic, evidence and an appeal to shared values, than because they have a religious basis.
“You have to argue your case in the public square, submit to scrutiny, acknowledge alternative points of view – and live with the outcome even if your point of view loses out. And that is in line with modern theological thinking: our faith obliges us to use reason, and it is an act of worship to use the brain you have.
“Indeed, any public figure who introduces faith into debate must be sure they are not exploiting it for partisan reasons: deploying dogma to short- circuit democratic debate. To invoke God as if He favoured one side over the other, or to suggest your interpretation of faith must be the last word, or to play religion as some sort of trump card, to use religion cynically for political gain, is to make a mockery of the very idea of God and religion. So I would repudiate both those who say ‘Do this because my religion demands it’ and those who say ‘Vote for me because I’m a Christian’.
“We must never make God a partisan figure, never claim that theology is the beginning and end of any debate, never act as if any kind of theocracy overrules democracy, and have the humility that Abraham Lincoln had: not to claim that God is on our side but to hope, as he did, that we are on God’s side.
“But while religious engagement within the public square must accommodate itself to public reason, public reason must also be willing to accommodate itself to religious engagement. A liberal state is not truly liberal unless it makes room for a conversation amongst believers and between them and non- believers. The question is: what are the shared terms and common ground that will allow for this?
“In the wake of two of the bloodiest world wars in history, in the face of the horrors of the Holocaust and then Hiroshima, many of the world’s most famous thinkers and artists rejected the very idea of a moral compass. But while religion in Europe has seen a dramatic post- war decline, that kind of nihilism has not taken over. ‘Didn’t we get it all wrong when we said there were no such things as moral values?’ one of those thinkers, Albert Camus, is reported to have pleaded with his existentialist friends. If, he said, they were to acknowledge such things as moral values, ‘that would be the beginning of hope’.
“What is truly remarkable is that over the last fifty years the scope of what we call our ‘moral sense’ has expanded. When we talk disapprovingly of malice, selfishness, envy, hypocrisy and indifference, we are making moral judgements that are not now seen as specific to one culture, one religion or one continent but are universally applied and understood. It may be that centuries of civilisation have not made us, as individuals, any kinder, any more altruistic or any more dutiful, but over time the arena in which we exercise our moral sense has continued to expand. Millions have come to feel sympathy towards men and women outside their family or immediate circle and have been prepared to stand up against discrimination no matter where it is found.
“In recent years, national constitutions that uphold human decency have been complemented by universal declarations of human rights that outlaw crimes against humanity, wherever they happen, and uphold the rights of women, children, the disabled, refugees and other minorities everywhere. And the main pressure to extend and update these conventions has come not from governments but from men and women with strong moral convictions.
“The Iraq War raises important ethical questions about war and peace, and whether on occasions the victory of might can be a violation and not a vindication of right. And whether abroad or at home, we cannot, in my view, deal with matters of poverty and social justice without at least considering the ethical basis of our actions. Budgets, as the Rev. Jim Wallis once told me, are statements which have an ethical dimension because they tell people what we value. We might claim, as Martin Luther King did, that the Good Samaritan could have done more by dealing with the causes of the poor man’s poverty, but most of us can identify with the Samaritan’s good intentions and agree with some version of the ‘golden rule’ on which all religions are ultimately based: that we have an obligation to look out for others as we would look out for ourselves and, more than that, to act with integrity, to treat people fairly and to always show them respect.
“I have come to the view that politicians do have a role in encouraging the cooperative and altruistic instincts that are part of our moral sense, in discouraging the competitive and appetitive parts when they can damage our communities, and in demonstrating that the rights we have and the responsibilities we owe each other go hand in hand.
“This is not to say that politicians should moralise, hector or sanctimoniously lecture people. It is arrogant for politicians to presume some superior moral authority that allows them to tell people what their morality should be. However, there is a big difference between foisting your moral stance on others even when they do not agree with it and appealing to an agreed morality that underpins our society.
“But perhaps I did not get it quite right in repeating as a politician a phrase that my father had often used as a church minister – the need for a ‘moral compass’. I was most definitely not seeking to claim a role for myself as an ethical arbiter: I was simply arguing the case for the role of ethics in politics. The distinction I should have made more clearly is between patently dogmatic attempts to impose your will on others – which are wrong – and focusing public attention on values we share.
“Of course, the public square today is mediated not just by print and TV journalism, but also by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the explosion of social media. In both traditional and digital media, we have seen in my view a coarsening of public debate. All too often, the public square resounds with voices that are harsh and discordant, frivolous, or at times even menacing.
“But while all my experience tells me that we have to be careful when we carry religious or even moral arguments into public decision making, I believe, as I look back at the debates we had when I was an MP, chancellor and prime minister, that I should have been more open about my beliefs, more upfront in dealing with the difficulties of doing so, and more willing to take potential criticisms head- on. In the end, the choices in our public square should not be reduced to a theocratic and unacceptable dogmatism on the one hand and a joyless and barren secularism on the other.
“A more ethical politics can introduce an essential moral dimension into the biggest of issues, make for a far healthier and more robust national conversation, and help build what I think millions today yearn for – a better, fairer and more compassionate Britain truer to its best hopes and ideals.”
My Life, Our Times is available in hardback at £25.
