This applies to both this and the IS thread. I found this awesome blog post article today. It is from a Christian POV, but I agreed a lot with it and it resonated with me in terms of idea with regards to acts like this.
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Faith in Faith, and valuing values? Reflecting on David Cameron's Easter Message.The Prime Minister has issued an ‘Easter message’, which makes for interesting reading. It has rather less (that is, no) reference to cross, resurrection, or indeed the name of Jesus than I suppose is normal in Easter messages; The claim that ‘Easter is all about remembering the importance of change, responsibility, and doing the right thing for the good of our children’ might raise more than a few eyebrows; Easter always used to be all about ‘the death of death in the death of Christ’ (to borrow what is possibly John Owen’s only truly memorable line). My friend Danny Webster has blogged on this, and I pretty much agree with everything he says.
I cannot imagine any positive reception for this piece; Mr Cameron has (once again) proved himself simply tone-deaf to the concerns of the Christian community (I am told he is similarly blind to the concerns of the Muslim community). I say that not as a complaint – I do not have any right to demand a Prime Minister who is interested in my faith commitment – but as a matter of surprise; if I were running for office in a democracy, and there was a group of organisations that claimed the serious allegiance of about 7-8% of the voters, I would either make sure I understood how to speak to them, or at least had people around me to check my words and give me advice.
He draws attention to the enshrining in law of the 0.7% of GDP overseas aid budget and to the modern slavery bill, two good things for which his administration does deserve credit; I suspect churches that are involved in foodbanks and debt counselling services (which most of us are, one way or another) might struggle more with the claim ‘I am proud that despite the pressure on public spending, we made clear choices to help the … most vulnerable in society’.
That said,
I find the piece interesting and worthy of comment because it displays a particular type of common contemporary liberal piety, which is not only wrong but positively dangerous. He starts with a recognition that is valuable, and deserves to be remembered more often: ‘As Prime Minister, I’m in no doubt about the matter: the values of the Christian faith are the values on which our nation was built.’ Yes; absolutely. He then moves on to defend the importance of faith in British society: ‘I’m an unapologetic supporter of the role of faith in this country … I’m a big believer in the power of faith to forge a better society.’
He then makes a point which I agree with entirely, but which I interpret rather differently: strong faith makes people act. Mr Cameron says ‘…faith is a massive inspiration for millions of people to go out and make a positive difference.’ OK, but I want to think about the word ‘positive’, or at least to suggest that ‘faith’ is also an inspiration for other people – fewer, I hope – to go out and make a very negative difference.Then we turn to that wonderful contemporary idea, ‘values’: ‘in the end we are all guided by the lights of our own reason … this government has consistently taken decisions which are based on fundamental principles and beliefs.’ Well, yes; as Danny said,
‘everything we do is based on some sort of fundamental principle and belief’. And that includes the bad things as well as the good things.I think that celebrating ‘faith’ and valuing ‘values’ is dangerous. Strong faith makes people act, and if their faith is deformed, so will their action be. The Anglicans who condemned Elizabeth Gaunt to be burnt alive for being a Baptist were people of faith, acting according to their values; the German Christians who supported the rise of Hitler were people of faith, acting according to their values; the members of Westborough Baptist Church who picket funerals with their homophobic ‘God hates fags’ posters are people of faith, acting according to their values. (I criticise my own tradition; other faith traditions are, obviously, not immune.) ‘Values’ are not necessarily good; some are, but some are not. Faith is a powerful motivator to action, but that makes it particularly dangerous if it is misplaced.Faith well-placed will inspire heroic and sacrificial action. When Mr Cameron says ‘[a]cross the country, we have tens of thousands of fantastic faith-based charities. Every day they’re performing minor miracles in local communities.’ I know that he is right; I know many people who work for these charities, and some of the visionaries who have started them; I know in some cases just how much they risked to follow the calling of God they discerned; I certainly know how much many people have given up to do wonderful work in national and local organisations.
But all this good comes not because they had ‘faith’, but because of who they had faith in; not because they had ‘values’ but because of the values they had.David Cameron is far from the only contemporary liberal who attempts to negotiate the challenge of faith traditions by praising the concept of ‘faith’. This is not just wrong; it is dangerous. We must discriminate between ‘people of faith’, on the basis of our own ‘values’: faith makes people peculiarly activist, and so either makes them great forces for good, or actively evil. There are serious, and divisive, moral decisions to be made here. Pretending that we can have faith in ‘faith’ and that we can value ‘values’ is a craven and foolish evasion of the problem.Posted by steve on Apr 1, 2015 in Uncategorized | 1 commenthttp://steverholmes.org.uk/blog/?p=7479__________________________________________________________________________________________>
I thought the highlighted parts (discounting the bias) if interpreted liberally and generally highlights a lot of the issues in today's society. Society values/is forced to value faith and values for faith and values sake without an ounce of thought in terms of what is had faith in, and what values that source of faith has. These values are seen as great purely cause they are values, not that they make rational/logical/humanistic/environmental sense. Respect for values is seen as worthy (price) as it secures you a vote, valuable&valid values are not supported cause they don't gain you points; people know the price of everything, but the value of nothing!
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