Providence or judgement – it’s too early to tell

In 1972, the then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was widely misquoted as saying that it was too early to tell whether the French revolution had been a success. It turns out that he was actually referring to the 1968 student uprising, not the 18^th century revolution. But why let the facts ruin a good quip. At the turn of a new year, with Boris Johnston’s new administration (it could hardly be called a new government) still to take full shape, I’ve been trying to work out what to make of recent events.

I dutifully made my way to my polling station on the 12^th December, more or less decided on which party not to vote for, but less sure who I should vote for. When it came to it, I just couldn’t put my “x” against the Conservative party candidate. Where I should put it was more of a struggle. On one level this is all entirely unimportant. We’re talking about just one vote (ie mine) in a safe Labour seat. Unlike so many in the north of England it is still a safe Labour seat. Voting Conservative in this election was a possibility simply because they were the only party on the ballot that were going to deliver on the outcome of the EU referendum. As I’ve explained before, even although I voted “remain” I think that the clear (if narrow) result of the referendum should be upheld. That’s means leaving the EU. I find none of the subsequent rewriting, rewording, rerunning, and reneging on the outcome of the referendum in any way convincing. Even had the alternatives been a lot more palatable than they were, I would still have considered voting Conservative on the basis of this one issue. But on careful reflection, I couldn’t do it. Here’s why.

I have lots of friends in the US who thought carefully about their options in the last US presidential election, and decided for a whole heap of reasons that they would vote for one Donald J. Trump. I thought, and still think, that this was a crazy decision. I understand that many of them wanted a president that would make conservative picks for the Supreme Court and I understand why this is important to them. For others there were other issues like Trump’s support of the state of Israel. What I don’t understand is why these political issues trump (as it were) the demonstrable fact that the Donald is a serial liar, with apparently little respect for truth. He has raised telling not just half-truths (the terminological inexactitude so beloved by British politicians), but full blown non-truths to a finely honed political weapon. He has systematically sought to undermine truth more widely by sowing confusion at every turn. He has branded those who have sought to hold him to account and fact check him as “fake news” peddlers. Words matter. True words matter, and false words matter. I’ve concluded that none of this is accidental, it’s policy. Neither is it because of some intellectual impairment on his part. It’s done deliberately, knowingly and with calculation. It is unforgivable because it is plain wrong; and it is corrosive.

Then there’s the issue of his attitude to women. The “Access Hollywood” tape should have killed his presidential campaign stone dead. He never fully repudiated the views he expressed, and indeed subsequently suggested that the tape is not genuine. The lack of plain human decency revealed by that particularly nasty conversation was exhibited on other occasions during the campaign, and has been exhibited time after time in his conduct as president particularly in his twitter rants. The notion that he could be re-elected, now that his basic indecency has been chronicled, observed and established, is terrifying in the extreme.

I would gently point out to my US chums that the US Supreme Court is mentioned nowhere in Scripture. But a commitment to truth is. Being careful with our words does. Integrity, honesty, decency all do. What Scripture teaches about the role of women we can argue about. What we can’t argue about is the basic respect that all are entitled to, which contrasts sharply with Trump’s attitude that debases women to the level of exploitable objects. There is such a basic disconnect between the values, attitudes and behaviours that we are called to, and those exhibited on a daily (not to say hourly) basis by the Donald. I cannot understand how so much of what Scripture calls for can be set aside, in order to obtain questionable temporal objectives that Scripture has little to say about. “Evangelicals” as a block in the US elevated arguable political gains above clear values that they should have been articulating and honouring. But what struck me on the way to polling station was that I was in danger of doing exactly the same thing.  

Brexit, the issue that nearly decided my vote, isn’t in the Bible either. Things like telling the truth are. We can argue about austerity, universal credit, NHS spending, taxation and the rest.  And we should. We can argue about whether and how we should leave the EU. Of course these things are important. But there are other things that are more important. Leading the Conservative party (by their active choice) is a man whose basic dishonesty over a long period should have disqualified him from high office. Boris has, after all, lost two jobs (one in journalism, one in politics) for telling straight out lies. And there was no obvious evidence in the election campaign that he has any regrets about what has been the hallmark of his basic approach to life as well as politics. This is enough to disqualify him from high office in the estimation of some who politically share many of his views. And while he hasn’t quite had an “Access Hollywood” moment, there are doubts about his attitude to women and family. I know that in our system all politics is about compromise, and if I’m waiting for what I think is perfection, I’ll be dead and in the glory before it arrives. But I only had one vote to cast, and basic issues of honesty, truth telling and decency determined how it wasn’t cast. Because our elections are a secret ballot, I don't need to let slip here how it was cast.

But given that even without my one vote Boris still got his “stonking” victory, did I just get it wrong? Well, that’s clearly logical possible. But I have my responsibilities, and I leave it to the Almighty to decide the big issue of who gets power. His perspective is bigger, deeper and longer than mine. Bigger forces were at work, and always are. Underpinning the stuff we see is a deeper reality of a God who continues to work His purposes out. It may turn out that, in ways invisible to me, Boris is just the right man for the times. Just the man to get us through the Brexit morass we find ourselves in (for which he is partly responsible after all). If we do get out of the situation we’re in with anything like limited damage, this will not reflect on Boris’ brilliance, although undoubtedly political hubris will impel him to claim exactly that. It will be providence protecting us from ourselves – again.

Of course it could be that things are going to go from bad to worse. The predictions of the remainers will turn out to be spot on, and we will endure economic, political, security and strategic disaster. We will never reach the sun-lit uplands promised by the hard brexiteers. In that case, Boris may turn out to be a modern form of Old Testament Babylon: God’s instrument of judgment. We would certainly deserve it. There are many ways in which the culture in which we find ourselves is deeply dysfunctional. I’m partly to blame of course by not being the salt and light that I should be. For all that, although we Christians may moan about the state of the UK, the fact is that compared to many of our brothers and sisters elsewhere we’ve actually had it very easy for a very long time. Maybe the ease, freedom and relative order we’ve enjoyed partly explains out lack of saltiness. Maybe it is coming to an end. I have no way of knowing. 

Time will tell. It’s too early to know which way it will go.