|
| Christian news worldwide |
 Home |
 Archives |
 Subscriptions |
 Adverts |
 Find a church |
 About us |
 Contact us |
 Site Map |
 PrintableVersion God's Politicians: the Christian contribution to 100 years of LabourGOD'S POLITICIANS: the Christian contribution to 100 years of Labour This book can be seen as an expansion of the thought that 'the Labour movement owes more to Methodism than to Marx'. It covers the century and more from Keir Hardie to Tony Blair who contributes a foreword. Because it covers such a period it is necessarily concentrated at times, but does manage to give a good overview of the history of the Labour Movement. Many of the names were active in my lifetime and my father would talk about the earlier ones. When he writes of Wesley on p.12 the author sets the tone for the book. He deals with his concern for social justice, etc., but manages, in his summary of the life of the founder of Methodism, not to mention at any time his preaching of the gospel of grace. He does not address the problem that concerned Christians of my generation, namely: Are those who are Christians by grace called to a vocation which may be politics, or are people moved by Christian teaching to seek to set up the Kingdom of God by political means? Or again: Is politics for Christians or for 'the Church'? Or: What is the 'Social Gospel'? Or putting it another way: 'Where did Christian students of my generation go? Westminster Chapel or Kingsway Hall? Lloyd-Jones or Soper? The definition of Christian is widely and thinly spread. We start with Keir Hardie who heard Moody and wrote in his diary: 'Today I have given my life to Jesus', and move on to Tony Benn's lecture to the Sheffield Academic Press in 1995 on 'the Power of the Bible today', when he argued that 'The moral force of Bible teaching, and the teachings of Jesus are not necessarily weakened by being secularised. Indeed it can be argued that humanism may entrench them more strongly for those who cannot accept the Christian faith.' Even further out you find Tom Driberg, whose Times obituary de-scribed him as 'a drinking man, a high churchman and a homosexual' and at whose wedding there was so much incense that Nye Bevan said his 'Calvinistic blood was roused.' Many of the leaders undoubtedly owed their training in leadership and speaking to their Methodist roots, and this is true of those like Callaghan and Bevan who are not in the list of people particularly considered. There are some errors which should be checked before another edition. As a child I was taught the song: 'The Land, the Land', quoted on p.1. My version rhymes better than the one given here, but I do not know how to authenticate a verbal tradition. It should be sung to the tune of 'Marching through Georgia.' Also the story on p.129 is surely of Herbert Morrison, Peter Mandelson's grandfather, not Nye Bevan. And was Mrs. Wilson really called Gladys? She wrote her poems as Mary Wilson. Was it Private Eye who brought in Gladys? There is an old Lancashire saying: 'Clogs to clogs in three generations.' This interesting, readable history bears out the Christian equivalent. Faith in the first generation is replaced by ethics only in the next, till finally people only know the hymn tunes to sing at funerals and football matches. Where will the Labour Party go in this millennium? John Marsh© Evangelicals Now - December 2000 |
|
