Evangelicals Now
<< January 2004 >>

How Christians can turn the tide

Down the years, every country has some kind of moral order, Islamic, Confucian, Shinto or Christian, as the basis of its law and custom.

In Europe, since the Dark Ages, the Christian moral order, though never obeyed to the letter, was accepted as the basis of British law and custom. When we lost that in the permissive 1960s, we lost the whole plot. Today, government and Parliament look to the think-tanks and their moral order is secular humanism. But the ideas of the intellectual elite do not persuade the ordinary voter. Its 'reforms' consist mainly in demolishing the previous moral order, but inspire no new self-discipline in its place.

Today, the police have lost control of many streets and, in too many city estates, it is the drug gangs which carry the weapons and are in charge. When we asked the taxi driver in Bristol to take us to an address in the St. Paul's district, he would only take us to the edge and we had to walk the rest. A few days before, the Yardies from London had come in with guns and made off down the M4 with the loot.

Thousands of girls are in deep and dreadful post-abortion trauma, about which no one had warned them. Abortion has also disposed of a third of the generation on which we depend for our pensions and now the pension funds are in crisis. The two-thirds who remain cannot learn the trade of their parents, because, in one industry after another, plants have closed and would-be apprentices are earning a mean living behind fast-food counters. Our low saving and high spending has given us a record trade deficit and we live on borrowings, which will cause a crisis when the foreigners want their money back. What the think-tanks cannot give us is moral order, which was reflected in our laws and customs and the self-discipline which enabled us to save, invest and earn our living in a hard world.

Salt and light?

The Christian church still has the power, if only we will use it. We are, as Christ has said, 'the salt of the earth' and the 'light of the world'. Our role model is our Lord's own ministry, in which he showed his love, not only by his final sacrifice for our sins, but by all he did and said. When the disciples told him to send the multitude away, he said that they had to be fed first, or they would faint on the way. So he fed the 5,000 and, on another similar occasion, 4,000. He healed the lepers, the sick, the lame, the blind and the woman with an issue of blood. So he cared for the body as well as the soul and tells us that we should do the same.

In Matthew 25, we have the stark story of the sheep and the goats, the sheep welcomed to heaven at the last judgement, the goats turned away. His reason: 'I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me'. The sheep protest that they have done none of these things, but he replies, 'As you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me'. The goats protest that they have done all these things and he replies, 'As you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it unto me'.

From Calvin on, the great commentators all point out that Christ is not teaching salvation by works; but as James teaches, 'Faith without works is dead' (James 2.17). Works do not save but are an indispensable sign of faith.

It might be argued that 'the least of these my brothers' limits these works to fellow-Christians. But Christ's own life denies that. He was rebuked by the Jewish religious leaders for being a friend of 'publicans and sinners' and he healed whoever was in need. But the clinching argument is the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus's answer to the question, 'Who is my neighbour?' The church leaders passed by the wounded man - he was not their responsibility. It was the outsider, the Samaritan, who helped him. Jesus teaches that, like the Samaritan, we help whoever is in need, whether they are in our church or not, and should not be put to shame by those outside helping in our place.

Preaching and caring

I once made this case to a church in a large northern city. They protested that their job was to preach the gospel, not to do the job of the social services. I asked how many non-Christians came to listen to the gospel and there was a long silence. But not far away were two churches which did try to help their neighbours and both churches were full of new converts. This is not surprising. How can we preach the love of God if we do not show it in our lives? Churches which care for their neighbours' practical needs earn the respect which brings a willing hearing when we move on to their spiritual needs.

The break-up of the moral order has led to social chaos, and social services and police can no longer cope. One primary school teacher was the only public official on a sink estate. The children arrived without breakfast, so she fed them. The single mothers came too and she managed to feed them too. Drunken fathers smashed the furniture. Couple swapping was so frequent that children did not know who was their real father. So she retired, raised the funds for a derelict farmhouse and tries to help whole families learn how to live together. She also tries to get the children through their education and into a job. And she has no hesitation in teaching the Christian faith. There are Christians in hundreds of other desperately needy estates, but hundreds of estates without any Christian help.

A beginning

Across the country, churches are beginning to fill this moral vacuum and also to arouse the interest of local authorities and local members of Parliament. In a meeting of churches in Derby to discuss a proposed Christian action network, the mayor - who was a Muslim - welcomed us and said that their social services could no longer cope with the problems, especially among the young. Gwyneth Dunwoody visited a church with a social outreach in her Crewe constituency, Ken Clarke, a church which looks after dropouts in his Nottingham constituency. Both these tough politicians were most impressed. In South London, a Borough Council which used to be implacably hostile, has been won round and in Kingston a new building has been put up as a joint venture between a church and the Borough Council. Christian actions speak louder than words.

In our chaotic, selfish and increasingly violent society, practical love for our neighbours not only does not detract from our Christian witness, but is absolutely central, as it has been down the centuries. Famous social reformers of the 19th century, Spurgeon, Shaftesbury, George Muller, Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale, were all spurred on by their Christian faith. In the 18th century, the Methodist societies looked after the great needs around them and Whitfield crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic to raise funds for his orphanage in Georgia. And if we go right back, how can we explain the rise of the Christian church in the pagan Roman Empire, except on the assumption that they gained such a powerful reputation as good neighbours that the Emperor recognised them as the Empire's main religion. Then, 100 years later, the Empire fell and they had to show the same love and care to the invading tribes, including our own ancestors.

We are a democracy, so change for the better will not come from the top down, but, as in the past, from the bottom up, through those whose Christian care for their neighbours earns the respect of their local Councillors and Members of Parliament.

Fred Catherwood