Margaret Thatcher (1925-)

ROWAN Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has once again criticised Margaret Thatcher’s statement that “there’s no such thing as society” (Telegraph).

It is, of course, fully twenty years since Mrs Thatcher was in power. Thirteen of those years have been under a socialist government.

By any measure, society is less free, cohesive and equitable, and significantly less Christian, than ever.

Yet Dr Williams repeatedly comes back to Mrs Thatcher’s famous line. This time, he even called it “toxic”.

What Mrs Thatcher actually said, in an interview with lifestyle magazine Woman’s Own in 1987, was this:

IF children have a problem, [people say] it is “society” that is at fault. There is no such thing as “society”. There is [a] living tapestry of men and women and people, and the beauty of that tapestry, and the quality of our lives, will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves, and each of us prepared to turn round and help, by our own efforts, those who are unfortunate.

Visit The Margaret Thatcher Foundation for the full text.

Now, if this is “toxic”, the New Testament is toxic, because this is exactly what it teaches.

Dr Williams asserted, apparently unware of how cold and manufactured it sounds, that “The role of government is building connections between people and communities and making them work”.

The governments in both Jerusalem and Rome loudly claimed to do just that, yet not one single verse in the New Testament looks to them to perform or even facilitate this role. Indeed, St Paul warned the Christians of Thessalonica against being taken in by Rome’s “peace and security” propaganda (1 Thess 5:3).

In passage after passage, “building connections” and providing for the less fortunate was the task of unregulated, private Christian individuals, families, and above all parishes.

They did not need, ask, or expect help of the Emperor – they knew what a price he would extort in return.

POSSIBLY it may seem a good reason to some, for their own neglect of the poor, that the law makes provision for them.

And it is certainly an honour to the law, that it doth: but no honour to us, that it needs do it.

Besides, there are very many cases of great distress, to which legal provision is neither easily nor properly extended: nor can it give by any means so plentiful relief, as should be given to the greater part of those, to whom it may extend.

But suppose the law capable of doing every thing that needs be done: what would be the consequence of leaving every thing to it? That we should lose intirely the means, which now we have, of proving to the world, and to ourselves, the goodness of our own hearts; and of making an undoubted free-will offering to God, out of what he hath given us.

Thomas Secker (1693-1768), Archbishop of Canterbury.
Sermon IV. Preached in the Parish Church of St Bridget, London, Monday in Easter Week, 1738.

St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta, India. © Mjanich, Wikimedia Commons. Used under licence.

AT the recent General Election, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York stated,

WE should not forget that, in spite of everything, many in the United Kingdom are still better off financially than they have ever been.  The deepest challenge is how the wealth we possess collectively is to become a real ‘common wealth’, wealth that serves a whole population not just the powerful and privileged. (Read here).

Yet our Divines believed that our deepest challenge was to help individual people care spontaneously about their neighbours.

They did not believe that any Government regulation could meet it. Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta, warned that coercive redistribution of wealth comes a very poor second to the Church’s traditional esteem for private, in-house charity.

And he went on to reassure us – much as Aelfric of Eynsham had done over seven hundred years earlier (see here) – that the act of voluntary, face-to-face giving (in coin or kind, or simply in kindness), as an explicit part of our Christian discipline, is itself a precious gift. It makes us care, it makes us pray, and it binds us into one nation.

ALL these good feelings, and good principles, will soon perish and fade away within us; unless we bring them, into constant application, by acts of daily kindness; by acquainting ourselves with the wants, and distresses, of our neighbours; and, above all, by denying ourselves some portion of our own comforts and pleasures, for their sake, and in order to their assistance.

Not only, are services produced by love; but love itself is yet more certainly produced by acts of kindness and attention. We are always, for the time, well disposed towards those whom we assist. Our interest becomes joined to theirs; and we rejoice in their happiness, because it is, in some measure, our own work and contrivance.

And, accordingly, the more we labour in doing good, the more really kind will our tempers become; and we shall do good, with the greater readiness.

But, lastly, since the practice of charity, as we have seen, contains within itself so wide a range of duty and behaviour; since it requires, to be perfect, so entire a conquest of some of our strongest natural passions, of our pride, our anger, our idleness, our love of money, and our love of pleasure, how necessary is it to begin, and to accompany, all these endeavours, with unfeigned and earnest prayer to the Almighty author of all good gifts,— that His grace may strengthen our weakness, to those acts of selfdenial which surpass our powers; and that He would pour into our hearts, not only that faith which is the foundation of all other virtues, but that love, which is their ornament, and crown,— that blessed gift of charity, without which whosoever liveth, is counted dead before Him!

Sermon XXVIII: The Sunday After Ascension Day (Part II)

See also Wealth And Poverty, Taxation and Charity.

St Justin the Martyr (?100-?165)

OUR second reading at Mattins (Lk 20:1-26) recounts the famous incident in which two opposing political parties, the Pharisees and the Herodians, challenged Jesus on the question of paying tax to Rome.

The Pharisees were committed to national sovereignty, and saw paying taxes to Rome as legitimising the forces of occupation. The Herodians supported Rome’s client ruler in Galilee, Herod Antipas.

Both groups assumed law and government were at the heart of God’s plan for his people. But Jesus’s teachings focused on personal responsibility; and so he replied,

RENDER therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.

Rome, however, continued to accuse the Christians of a lack of public spirit, simply because they did not buy into Imperial propaganda. Justin Martyr (?100-?165) explained that this charge was unfair; but he left a little warning in there too.

WE make it also our principal endeavor in every place to pay tribute and custom to such officers as are appointed by you, even as we have been taught by him.

For “at that time certain came unto him, and asked him, whether it were lawful to pay tribute unto Caesar. And he answered, Tell me, whose image doth the tribute money bear? They said unto him Caesar’s. Then again answered he them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.”

Wherefore we worship God only: but in all other matters we joyfully serve you, confessing that ye are kings and rulers; and praying that ye may be found to possess, together with your royal power, a sound and discerning mind.

If, however, notwithstanding we thus pray, and openly lay every thing before you, ye yet treat us with contempt, we shall receive no injury, believing, yea rather being firmly persuaded, that every one, if his deeds shall so deserve, shall receive the punishment of eternal fire; and that an account will be required of him, in proportion to the powers which he hath received from God; as Christ hath declared, saying, “To whomsoever God hath given much, of him shall be much required”.

Apology, §23

THAT it may please thee to keep and strengthen in the true worshipping of thee, in righteousness and holiness of life, thy Servant ELIZABETH, our most gracious Queen and Governor;
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

That it may please thee to rule her heart in thy faith, fear, and love, and that she may evermore have affiance in thee, and ever seek thy honour and glory;
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

The Litany

See also Taxation; and Church, State And Society.

Margaret Thatcher with Ronald Reagan

WITH a General Election set for May 6th, the issue of which party should attract the Christian vote is once again very much a live one.

The Anglican tradition is far from apolitical. Below, you can find links to passages by the Church Fathers and by Anglican writers which illustrate some of the key points.

Patriotism. Jesus, the loyal Jew, is the model of true patriotism. Love of country is a particular instance of love of neighbour. But patriotism sometimes demands sacrifices to be made, and the example of Nehemiah is one that our politicians with their expenses, and our financiers with their bonuses, might have done well to follow. [Patriotism; Gibson on Nehemiah]

Liberty. The chief purpose of law is to limit the absolute power of the Executive. Socialism’s use of dense regulation to make people righteous is quite simply justification by works, and doomed to fail. To shift active responsibility for ourselves and our near neighbours onto the state is to deprive us of one of the chief means of grace. [Church, State And Society; Thomas Secker on the welfare state; Samuel Johnson on liberty and laws]

Private enterprise and private welfare. Our calling is to make all godly use of our talents and opportunities, and then from our surplus help those who are less fortunate. Cash handouts are all very well, but the best charity consists in personally providing the dignity of education, moral improvement, and secure employment. [Wealth And Poverty; Charity; Ruskin on giving dignity; Cobbett on employment]

Family. The Christian family is the fundamental unit of a stable society. It is here that the responsibility for education resides, and it is here that a man’s first duties of charity and doing justice are to be found. [Family; Alison on education; Wesley on stewardship; Blair on charity in the home; Herbert on parish charity; Ruskin on family before state]

Pro-life. From the 1st century Didache to Bishop Gore, our tradition has emphasised that the marriage of one man to one woman is a mystery of Christ’s espousal to his Church, and also that seeking to kill the unborn child is a grave moral wrong. [Pro-life; Marriage]

The Church At Prayer. Stability and prosperity cannot be achieved without divine grace. The parish breaks down social barriers, and provides an opportunity for self-betterment; its worship fosters faith, humble repentance and amendment of life. [Beveridge on how the Daily Office supports the nation; Blair on why politicians shouldn't neglect public worship; Blair on the social benefits of Church attendance]

See also Margaret Thatcher; Conservatism (not to be confused with the Conservative Party, more’s the pity).

Bishop Thomas Sherlock (1678-1761)

ST Paul instructed the Christians of the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor (now Turkey),

LET him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

Drawing on this text (which we read at Evensong today, Eph 4:25-5:21), Thomas Sherlock (1678-1761), Bishop of London, stated categorically (extract here) that the compulsory redistribution of property from the rich to the poor, as a matter of political philosophy, is little less than legalised theft; and by trampling on the rights of private property, it is contrary to God’s laws (and Article XXXVIII, for that matter).

Yet having said that, he did not wish to see those who had done well for themselves idle, self-satisfied, or self-indulgent. Wealth is not a reward, he said; it is actually a debt.

LABOUR is the Business and Employment of the Poor, it is the Work which God has given him to do; and therefore a Man cannot be satisfied in working merely as far as the Wants of Nature oblige him, and spending the rest of his Time idly or wantonly: For if God has enabled him to gain more by his Labour, than his own Wants, and the Conveniencies necessary to his Station, require, he then becomes a Debtor to such Duties, as are incumbent on all to whom God hath dispensed his Gifts liberally.

He must consider that he owes a Tribute to his Maker for the Health and Strength he enjoys; that there are others who want Limbs to labour, or Sense and Understanding to arrive at the Knowledge of any Art of Mystery, whereby to maintain themselves; and to these he is a Debtor out of the Abundance of his Strength, and Health, and Knowledge, with which God has blessed him: And therefore he is obliged to labour, working with his Hands the Thing which is good, that be may have to give to him, that needeth.

To the great Men God hath given Riches, to the Mean Strength and Understanding; both are equally indebted for what they have received, and equally obliged to make Returns suitable to their Abilities: And therefore, as the rich Man must honour God out of his Substance, so must the Man of low Degree make his Acknowledgment out of the Product of his Labour and Understanding: And therefore Men are obliged to use Labour and Industry in their honest Callings and Employments, first to provide for themselves, and all who depend upon them for Maintenance; and, in the next place, to provide a Stock to discharge the Debt they Owe to their Maker, by administering, in proportion to their Ability, to the Wants and Necessities of their poorer Brethren.

Temple Sermons. Discourse V, Part II.

More by Thomas Sherlock here.

Bishop Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889)

IN Article VII, we are assured that we are not bound by the ceremonial law. “[T]he law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, do not bind Christian men (Heb 10:11-18; Acts 15:19-21)”.

Article VII goes on, “… nor the civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth (Acts 15:23-29).”

This is not because the Law was bad (Mt 5:17-20; Rom 7:12). We as Christians just do not believe that regulation is the way to put new hearts in us (Jer 31:31-34).

In today’s second reading at Evensong (Gal 4:21-5:13), Paul reminds the Galatians “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage”.

With our General Election coming up, all three main parties are busily setting out how big government and/or social engineering will make our country better. But preaching one Trinity Sunday to an assembly of senior Judges, Bishop Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889) warned:

IF the ceremonial of to-day is intended, as I cannot doubt it is intended, to teach us any lesson at all, it must surely be this; that law renders homage to a higher power; that it acknowledges its own imperfections; that it looks up to those eternal principles of duty and order and self-restraint, which are the expression of the mind of God, as the Great Original, of which it is only a partial, shadowy image, the Fountain-Head, from which it derives its truest inspiration. In short it bears testimony to the importance of belief.

History is our witness, that not even the most perfect administration of law, and the most complete elaboration of political machinery, can save society from utter degradation and ruin, if this higher principle be wanting. This truth has been vindicated at infinite cost to a sceptical world, but it has been vindicated signally and beyond dispute.

The Roman Empire — the most elaborate organisation and the vastest power, which the world has ever seen — fell at length — fell, and how great was its fall, we know. At the very moment, when her great lawyers had elaborated that marvellous system of jurisprudence which has been the special bequest of Rome to an admiring world; at the very moment, when the cornice had been placed on the edifice of her political institutions, and the franchise, gradually extended, was at length granted to all the subjects of that vast empire; then, just then, unmistakable signs of decay appeared. She was seen to be tottering to her fall.

And this, because despite her admirable laws, despite her political institutions, her moral principles were eaten away. She had ceased to believe in any higher power, who vindicates those principles. She was rotten at heart. This is a lesson surely, on which we Englishmen may do well in this age to ponder.

More by Bishop Lightfoot here, and on traditional, Anglican conservativism here.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

IN our second reading tonight (1 Cor 12:28-13:13) St Paul describes to us the true nature of Christian charity.

The Anglican doctrine of charity (see my extracts section) as explored by the Divines faithfully reflects the subtlety of the Greek word αγάπη (“love”, “charity” &c.). I have been particularly impressed by their attention to helping the poor and distressed to take back control of their own lives.

George Herbert (1593-1633) cautions that charity must be used with close attention to individuals, and focused on finding employment, gently weaning them off income support and fostering self-respect and independence (more here).

In the same spirit, social critic and radical Tory John Ruskin (1819-1900) stressed that effective charity rests principally in teaching others the very same skills of self-discipline and domestic management which have led others to settled prosperity and upright living.

ALAS! it is not meat of which the refusal is cruelest, or to which the claim is validest. The life is more than the meat. The rich not only refuse food to the poor; they refuse wisdom; they refuse virtue; they refuse salvation. Ye sheep without shepherd, it is not the pasture that has been shut from you, but the Presence.

He would agree with Hugh Blair (1718-1800):

IN order to fulfil that charity which is the end of the commandment, œconomy, and good order in private life, ought to be carefully studied by all Christians. This is more closely connected with a good conscience, than many seem inclined to admit. Economy, when prudently and temperately conducted, is the safeguard of many virtues.

“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, … and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” wrote St Paul. Charity as he explains it is really a gift of self, making yourself  – your human skills, your spiritual gifts – available to others and to God, humbly and unstintingly. You can’t give this kind of charity through tax and spend. This is something I think the Anglican tradition used to understand.

The Woman Of Bethany At Jesus's Feet

SOMETIMES, zeal for the holiness of God’s house and for the beauty of traditional worship is blamed for neglect of social justice (e.g. here).

In fact, traditional worship is a powerful tool in promoting libertarian ideals and practical justice.

Today’s first reading at Mattins (Dt 15:1-15) provides us with a heartfelt appeal to help the poor.

FOR the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

Judas was therefore disgusted after a woman bought costly fragrance and “wasted” it on Jesus (Mk 14:3-9). But Jesus was remarkably sanguine about it.

AND Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

Was this ego peeping through? Hardly. Jesus knew that Judas’s way of looking after the poor was fundamentally flawed, precisely because it had become over-focused on the institutions of Israel’s government.

By shifting focus exclusively to Jesus, the dynamics of society would be altered and the poor incalculably benefited. The Revd Thomas Bisse (1675-1731) wrote:

AS the house of God, so the worship performed in it should in like manner be exceeding magnifical. For it is a work of a superior nature: it is not a respect paid to our superiors; it is not an offering made to our governors; it is not a homage done to our princes: No; worship is not for man, but for the Lord God. (More)

Modern-style worship plays down a sense of the resurrection and of our obligations to the next world and its invisible King, and so tends to focus attention back onto political institutions, parties and figures in this world. But in the words of the Church of Scotland philosopher the Revd Hugh Blair (1718-1800),

JUST conceptions of religion promote a free and manly spirit. They lead men to think for themselves; to form their principles upon fair inquiry, and not to resign their conscience to the dictates of men. Hence they naturally inspire aversion to slavery of every kind; and promote a taste for liberty and laws. (More)

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3, Mt 4:4). It is dangerous to reduce Christian social justice, as self-styled “radicals” like Judas would have reduced it in Israel, to government patronage, redistributive welfare and repressive regulation: desperately dangerous, most of all for the poor.

Bishop Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889)

IN this morning’s reading (Mk 12:35-13:14), Jesus promises to his disciples not world peace and seamless social justice, but constant persecution and betrayal.

FOR nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Jesus never promised a Utopia. “Not peace, but a sword” was his prediction (Jn 14:27). And yet as Bishop Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889) reminded us, Jesus left with his Apostles a peace which no other creed, no commerce or politics, can begin to approach.

IF you would learn how Christ fulfils His promise to His true disciples, if you would test the value of this peace which He has left as His parting gift, do not seek it in the heat of controversy, in the wrangling of theological disputants, or in the strifes of religious parties: but go rather to the true disciples of Christ, to the lowly and the poor in spirit, to the suffering and oppressed, to the sorrowful and bereaved, to the sick and dying.

Watch the wife cruelly outraged in her deepest feelings by the desertion, or worse than desertion, of a husband, for whose love she has given up all; or the mother wounded at heart by the base ingratitude of a child, for whose advancement she has sacrificed all the comforts, and was ready to sacrifice even the necessities of life.

See how, notwithstanding the bitterness of her trial, a deep calm broods over the sufferer, lulling her sharpest pangs, and enabling her to forget her own sorrow, while she ministers to the less poignant sufferings of others. Go to the wretched hovel of the pauper, worn out with age, helpless, unfriended and alone, destitute of everything which could make the burden of life tolerable, and yet cheerful and contented, drawing from an unseen source never-failing draughts of comfort and hope.

Go and stand by the bed of the dying man; watch his last agonies, as the soul struggles to set itself free; see how amid his paroxysms the gleam of joy lights up his features, flushing them with the consciousness of an invisible Presence, and the faint smile and the pressure of the hand bear witness to this inward peace, triumphant over pain, triumphant over death. Go and visit these scenes, and then say, whether Christ is slack to fulfil His promise, whether the peace of the Gospel is a delusion or not.

Sermons In St Paul’s Sermon X: Christ’s Gift Of Peace.

More by Bishop Lightfoot here.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta

OUR Gospel reading today is St John’s account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in today’s Gospel (John 6:1-14).

Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826) reassured us that just as Jesus’s blessing made the meagre provisions of five loaves and two fish far exceed anything we would expect, so too even the smallest gestures of charity – even those which do not involve money or material goods – can be life-changing.

A SINGLE warm and comfortable meal given to a poor neighbour, in a time of distress, may, by its consequences, be the means of saving a family. It may seem strange; but what if this man were, even then, almost worn out with want and toil, and if such timely nourishment have prevented his falling sick, and preserved him in a capacity to labour; — are not then his own and his family’s lives sustained by it? or what, if such a small relief came at a moment, when his heart was growing hard with distress; and when he was tempted to take to bad courses, for support; — may not a soul have been saved for ever, by our means?

Oh, it will be a glorious sight, hereafter, when the books of Providence are laid open before our eyes; — to see by what secret springs, what humble exertions, what meek and modest charities, the happiness of families, the support of nations, the great machine of the world itself, have been regulated and influenced: — to witness how God’s Providence may have given power and energy to the feeble alms of a widow; or to the silent prayers of those, who had prayers only to bestow; or how a cup of cold water given in the name of Christ, shall, in nowise, lose its reward!

Sermons On The Lessons, The Gospel Or Epistle, For Every Sunday. The Fourth Sunday In Lent.

It would be very satisfying, to win back charity from distant and wasteful governments, and from those who are more interested in the pain it brings to the rich than the relief it gives to the poor.

Heber shows just how very powerful charity is when it is given in kind, in person, and in constant attentive gestures – and above all, when it is given with Jesus’s blessing.

More by Reginald Heber here, and on Charity here. Heber also wrote some well-known hymns.