Praying for the Election

I've posted this prayer today. As a person of faith, I believe that everything we human beings do, we do before God. So it's important that we pray for the forthcoming general election. Let me try to explain what I mean - and what I don't mean when I say this.

I know that the Church of England has also issued a prayer today. It's fine as far as it goes. It asks that we the electorate may have wisdom at election time, be protected from despair, cynicism and false utopianism, and help make politics "a noble calling that serves the common good of all". I especially like that last bit. And I like the appeal to integrity as we cast our vote. G. K. Chesterton once said that the problem with elections was not that only half the electorate voted, but that only half the elector voted: half-heartedly, without real conviction, not really believing that elections make a difference.

But we make our prayers too narrow by false limits of our own (apologies to Father Faber for misquoting his famous hymn). We should be more ambitious as we lay the issues of this election before God. It's the outcome that matters, not simply the process that leads up to it. And while we mustn't turn prayer into a kind of spiritual manipulation motivated by party politics, I think we can agree that we should crave leaders who are principled, embody healthy values and who will have the courage to make decisions that will put them into practice. Hence my use of words like integrity, courage, compassion, vision, truth, justice, the love of neighbour and the healing of division in our nation - surely a top priority for everyone in public life right now. The Seven Gifts of the Spirit that are set out in the messianic portrait painted in Isaiah 11 might be a good place to begin exploring what we look for in our leaders: this was the text in my mind when I alluded in the prayer to "the Spirit of understanding".

No doubt we won't all agree about what these values and virtues mean in practice. But I believe that to pray with integrity about the kind of nation we want to be also commits us to debating with integrity during the election campaign. The lack of it was what many of us lamented during the EU referendum campaign. To descend to empty slogans (or, to quote Chesterton again, the "easy speeches that comfort cruel men") is to devalue what we mean by democracy. An election debate means listening carefully, evaluating evidence, discerning good arguments from bad, and not personalising matters of principle. (So please let's stop referring to Theresa May as "the vicar's daughter" - she deserves to be heard in her own right as a responsible adult woman, not someone who is still being defined by her father, however good a priest he no doubt was.)

Above all we need to be committed seekers after truth. A good election is one where we don't cling to old political tribalisms, some of which have clearly had their day. On the contrary, we need to take the trouble to think for ourselves as grown-ups who are privileged, in a way not open to everyone in our world, to be able to take part in a democratic election. To listen, to think and to debate in this respectful way is, I want to say, an act of discernment. It asks the question, where might the voice of wisdom and truth be detected amid the babble of human voices that clamour for our attention? Where might we even hear the voice of God? Discernment and prayer are close relatives.

I'm not saying it's easy. Discernment never is. The word diakrisis literally means "making a judgment", coming to a mind. The weighing of arguments, the ability to place them in a larger context, the capacity to inquire what theological or ethical issues might be at stake all demands wisdom, effort and good deal of perseverance. But if we care about our nation and the human family of which we are part - if indeed, we are not only good citizens of the UK but also, in the best sense, citizens of the world (sorry, Mrs May!), then discernment is precisely what we are called to practice in the next few weeks. Amid the clamour of earthquake, wind and fire, we need to listen out for the still small voice. Not just for our own sake, the nation's sake or the world's sake, but for God's sake too.

This is where prayer comes in. If we are people who pray, our concerns will already be engaged towards those who represent us in Parliament and the other institutions of which we are part. But now, as we get ready to make political choices that will have far-reaching consequences, it's especially a time to focus on our common life, and pray for wise and principled leaders who will cherish just, compassionate and humane values. We need to pray for the destiny of our nation as it searches for its place in a changing world order.

Prayer isn't (or shouldn't be) a way of getting God to orchestrate events our way. Nor is it a binary spiritual exercise ("answered" or "not answered"). It's more subtle than that. I believe it is a genuine and heartfelt desire to bring the affairs of the nation into the orbit of God's love and care, to acknowledge that all life is dependent on him, and that we are ultimately accountable to him as our Judge. It is a joyful affirmation that out of his love for the world, God is passionately concerned for the welfare of all peoples. Self-interest doesn't come into it - or, shall we say, ought to become as enlightened as possible by our love of God and our neighbour. Perhaps the best prayers are those that spring not from desperation but from gratitude and that are built on the central petition of the Lord's Prayer, "your kingdom come".

Even if you are not a religious person who habitually prays, maybe you could still think about the forthcoming election in this kind of way? Can we agree to practise "mindfulness" together over the next few weeks and try to raise the tone of the debate? Maybe we can make common cause with everyone of good will who wants to play a part in shaping a healthy ecology of mind and heart during the campaign? Perhaps we can encourage one another to entertain the idea of a more generous political discourse that rises above tired, simplistic formulae and genuinely tries to listen and understand?

There are two direct benefits of thinking about and praying for the election in the way I've suggested. The first is to revitalise our imagination about what is possible, what our society could become. The other is to help us learn the lesson of humility. Our politics could really do with generous helpings of both.

The General Synod and Same Sex Relationships

The day after the Bishops' report on Marriage and Same Sex Relationships came out, I wrote a blog about it. Many others have done the same, and there is now a useful collection of resources on the Thinking Anglicans website. I hope members of the General Synod will study them as they prepare for the "take note" debate on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I listened to Bishops Stephen Cottrell and Peter Selby on Radio 4 talking about the report "This is not the report I would have written" said Stephen Cottrell. "We want to hear what is really going on in the House of Bishops" said Peter Selby (I'm quoting both from memory but you can check by going to the Sunday Programme on the BBC Radio iPlayer). This followed the letter from fourteen retired bishops, of whom Peter Selby is one, expressing serious concerns about the report and what the Synod is being asked to do with it.

A Take Note debate is supposed to be a neutral discussion that paves the way for the matter in hand to be worked up more rigorously for formal debate and decision later on. So what the Synod is being asked to do is to pursue the exploration of marriage and same sex relationships along the general lines indicated in the Bishops' report. Often, Take Note debates don't need to be voted on since the Synod is not committing itself to any particular action, simply to go on talking. The report says that "it is worth recalling that voting to ‘take note’ of a report such as this does not ... commit Synod members to the acceptance of any matter contained within it."

But the Bishops express a clear aspiration for this week's consideration of their report. "The House nevertheless hopes that through the group discussions and the Take Note debate, the General Synod as a whole may be able to: (1) understand the approach being advocated by the House of Bishops and some of the reasoning behind it; (2) comment on that approach, while recognising that it is for the bishops to formulate teaching on the doctrines of the Church; and (3) contribute to consideration of key elements of it.

If I were a member of the General Synod, what would I do? (Thankfully, my Synod days are over, but I'm trying to feel for those who are still bearing the burden and the heat of their day in governance.)

My instinct would be to listen as carefully as possible to the debate. I would find that hard, because as I've already blogged, I have such grave misgivings about the report that I wonder how my mind could be changed. But that's the whole point of a debate. The purpose of rhetoric (which preachers practise every week in the pulpit, though they may not think of it in this way) is to persuade your listeners to your way of thinking, to open minds and hearts to new perspectives. It's a fundamental principle of democracy that we believe in this way of doing business. I should expect minds to be changed, including my own. It's perfectly possible to go into a debate with a burning conviction about the truth and justice of your cause, but still be attentive to those who see things differently. So when the Bishops ask us to "understand" their approach, we must do them the justice of listening carefully. It's a matter of Christian courtesy.

But what if the Synod decided after all not to "take note"? Would it be a disaster? I don't think so. Here's why.

First, it would require the House of Bishops to revisit their thinking about gay relationships in the church in a more searching way than the report does. This would certainly be hard and challenging. But I believe that far from damaging the credibility of the Church of England's leadership, it could actually affirm it by enabling the Bishops to say, in effect, "look, we didn't get this quite right. We acted out of good motives and had the best interests of the church at heart, but we now see that our approach hasn't commanded assent. So we are glad to be sent back to the drawing board and look at it again." Leaders are respected when they are big enough and wise enough to think it possible that they were mistaken.

Secondly, it would allow Bishops like Stephen Cottrell who say that this is not the report they would have written to elaborate their dissent more openly and tell us what they really think about how the church welcomes and affirms LGBT people, both laity and clergy. Indeed, I hope that this may happen in the Synod debate anyway. As I said in my blog, it was heartening that the report did not claim that the Bishops spoke with a single voice. I asked whether there might be a minority report from Bishops who took a different view because we need to overhear the debate that is going on among the church's senior leadership, and contribute to it as Peter Selby said. These are highly complex theological and ethical, not to say emotive, matters. To open up the episcopal debate would, I think, offer perspectives that would help those of us who are disquieted to put the report into context.

Thirdly, it would affirm the role of the General Synod in the Church of England. There's a phrase in the Bishops' report, quoted above, that concerns me. They invite the Synod to comment on their approach while recognising that it is for the bishops to formulate teaching on the doctrines of the Church. Up to a point. But only up to a point. For you can't separate doctrine from praxis. And this report is very much about the praxis of church discipline: do we or don't we permit non-celibate gay people to be ordained? Do we or don't we celebrate same-sex marriage or bless such marriages and civil partnerships in church? The answers we give these questions express a theology. Lex orandi, lex credendi. And it is precisely Synod's job as the CofE's governing body and legislature to determine these legal questions that embody its doctrine of marriage and sexuality. So if the Synod pushed back and did not take note of the report, it would remind the Church of England where its governance belongs.

And isn't it good when the Synod does theology-through-governance and respects the sensus fidelium that belongs not just to Bishops but to all the baptised whom the Synod represents? But this kind of theological discernment always comes down to good listening, not just to speeches but to the voice of conscience. Especially to that still small voice. To do this well is to undertake serious spiritual work. So (without a trace of envy), I wish the members of Synod good listening this week. And the promise of my prayers.