The Officer’s Blog
As we await the conclusion of polling on election day Major Drew McCombe shares some thoughts about what we might want from life.
Major Drew McCombe
‘CHANGE FOR THE BETTER OR MORE OF THE SAME’
As I write this blog on the morning of Election Day, 6th May, the question posed in the title is one which many may be asking. The answer to the question is more difficult to say for certain but one thing is for sure we will get what we deserve. If we are looking for the change to only come from the political candidates then we are in for some disappointment. We are increasingly becoming more and more compartmentalised and as a society we are abdicating our corporate responsibilities. We see it in all sorts of areas. If we leave education solely to teachers, social care to the NHS or Social Services, economy to bankers, politics to politicians, church to clergy we are somehow missing the point and in the end we will get what we deserve. We need to regain a much more holistic (shalom) approach to life and understand that we cannot sit back and leave it to the one or two and expect things to be better. We are the ones who can bring about the change. We need to regain the confidence that our voices, our contribution, can bring about this change we believe in.
Many are saying that we might have a hung parliament and that will be lead to weak government. That may happen if those elected continue to stick to party politics. But, however, if it forces parties to listen and work with one another then there may be hope for a better way forward in the long run. It may cause an atmosphere where we feel we can input something to the mix and contribute to a better society – the common good.
For those who claim the mantle of faith, the ultimate command must be for us to know God better, to know God more, and to love and serve our neighbour better. In doing this we fulfil our obligations not only to God but also to the society which we share. Such duties and obligations form the bedrock of a religious approach to politics that extends far beyond the comparatively modern term of “social justice”. Rather the prophets and the law lay the foundation for our primacy of care for the other and in so doing lay down the foundation for the role of religion in politics. As Jim Wallis, of the Sojourners, noted in his foreword to a recent report on the role of Christianity in Britain today: ‘Christians need a commitment to the kingdom mandates that we seek the “common good” of the societies in which we live’. The common good suggests that the good of each individual is necessarily and vitally connected to the good of all. It is a test for all the key questions that we face: from family values to foreign policy, from the housing we dwell in to the social values that dwell within us, from health care to healing of our national fears and divisions, from the distribution of our resources to determining the things we value most, from the things that make for peace on a global level to the community level, from our definitions of justice to our practice of it, from what we’d like to change to what gives us hope for ever changing it.
So, back to the original question ‘ Change for the better or more of the same?’. Its down to you and me, along with the politicians, along with the teachers, social care workers, bankers and the churches under the kingdom values of the common good for all, by all.