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THE BIG SOCIETY

Jeremy Davies, Canon Precentor (Monday 8th November 2010)

Perhaps the most pervasive characteristic of our post-modern culture in the first decade of this millennium has been the sense that there is no longer an overarching narrative in politics or theology or economic theory (if there ever was one). There was little consensus, institutions – the monarchy, parliament, the church – no longer held undisputed sway, and everybody’s opinion was equally valuable. Or else those who talked loudest or controlled the media or who won the style battle would grasp the reins of power: Thatcher in the ʹ90s, New Labour in the last decade. The only certain things in our life were not death and taxes but the market, which Mrs Thatcher in one of her more fallible pronouncements assured us could not be bucked. We now know better! If we don’t buck the market, then the market will buck us–and how! As a result, as far as Britain is concerned at least, there has had to be a re-alignment in politics. Coalition government, not seen in this country since the second world war, has for the moment at least replaced the polarised ideologies of left and right in what is being called a progressive politics, in which the pain of deficit-reduction will not be borne disproportionately by those who are least able to do so. Fairness is the new watchword, and we wait to see if private sector bonuses are shaved in the same way as child benefit and unemployment benefits will be. Part of the political re-alignment (which has inevitably had its impact on the leadership of the Labour Party as well) has involved the idea of the Big Society, originally a Tory election ploy which was derided by the left as simply a way of dressing up cuts in public services. However, the Big Society (an overarching narrative if ever there was one) with its emphasis on voluntarism and the involvement of all individuals and organisations who have traditionally had a stake in supporting a just, compassionate and humane society, is growing as an idea. It might correct the imbalance in our dependence culture and roll back the intrusiveness of the nanny state, while recognising the centrality of the state in providing the necessary infrastructure of the just and fair society. If the Big Society idea can, in these terms, get off the drawing board and into practice in our local communities, then perhaps we will begin to see that sense of a common humanity – just, compassionate and humane – which the Church has long proclaimed, and at its best put into practice – recognising that “we are members one of another”. That Pauline expression is used, in context, of those who are members of the body of Christ – the Church. But I am one of those who see the Church not simply as an enclosed sect of the like-minded but a model (a sacrament indeed) of what a true humanity might look like. So the idea that “we are members one of another” is not just an insight into church membership, but a vital imperative, by implication, for the whole of humanity. The Big Society is in essence a Christian ideal (shared and differently interpreted by other religious faiths) and the Church needs both to be involved in and contribute to the outworking of the concept in our country over the next decade. And also the Church needs to discover, itself, how to be just and compassionate and humane. It might be that the Big Secular Society has lessons to teach the Church on how to be Christian - and maybe overarching narratives will prove to be not quite a thing of the past.

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