Corroded Man
In the run up to the UK general election I was praying about the prospect of our democratic process coming under God’s judgement.(See yesterday’s post) The implications were serious. Commentators worked overtime on the potential outcomes. I felt the Lord saying that in the summer there would begin an “evaporation of trust”. I felt this referred not simply to trust in the government, but generally, at large in the world, the markets, in society.
Many would perhaps comment that this has been happening for a long time, and I agree with that. I think the image that I feel is helpful here is of a pot boiling dry. The hot pan on the flame can steam away for hours with the liquid reducing steadily. Even at the last few moments there is still liquid in the pan which could be poured out. Suddenly there comes a moment when the last of the liquid disappears and seems to vanish in a vapour. I think we are watching such a moment of vapourising.
Over years we have seen trust in government – local and national – diminish step by step, scandal by scandal. We sense that we have professional politicians who are seeking public office rather than public service. We suspect politicians and parties which promote vote winning policies rather than principles of conviction. In this way trust at the highest level has been eroded. Hundreds of thousands campaigned against the war in Iraq, and the government ignored the protest. Similarly hundreds of thousands petitioned against changes in marriage legislation and the government did not even acknowledge the petition. All this promotes the idea that government leadership is not to be trusted. In addition we have had scandals in the press, which has always been supposed to be the protector of liberty for the ordinary person; We have had banking corruption – with LIBOR rigging; The NHS has seen hospitals exposed for manipulating mortality rates; The police have had corruption and scandal with senior police officers being forced to resign; The Hillsborough enquiry exposed establishment cover ups and injustice; Church scandals have involved child abuse; child abuse by national celebrities has been revealed and seems to have been covered up at institutional level. The list goes on, but there is something fundamental changing. The underlying fabric of trust that joins all aspects of our society is now worn so thin that we are in danger.
Trust actually enables us to buy and sell. The piece of metal that we call a pound coin has value because we trust that someone will accept it to pay for a loaf of bread. The numbers on our cashpoint print-out are useful if we trust that we can spend what the numbers represent. We trust the system to transfer ‘our money’. We have confidence in the mortgage market to buy a house because we believe that the value will be kept over time. The word confidence comes from Latin words ‘con’ meaning ‘with’ and ‘fidere’ meaning ‘to trust’.
The Volkswagen scandal is a big example of trust evaporating in front of our eyes. VW – A trusted symbol of reliable engineering, disgraced in a day. There will be more. Today the news hints that TV manufacturers and other car manufacturers may have been gaming the environmental tests they are supposed to comply with.
The evaporation point which we are getting to is evaporation in confidence in the authorites, in the money supply, the markets, political processes, banking, technology,and the food chain. What next, the water supply, facebook, or our community leaders?
For generations our society has been built on essentially Judeo-Christian principles. That we are made in the image of God so should highly respect human life and limb. That we may not covet or steal, leading to respect of property ownership. That telling the truth is valuable, so contracts have validity, and God honouring rule of law is upheld. Without the fabric of trust which comes from honouring God and honouring one another at a national and personal level, we have nothing and disintegration follows.
The evaporation of trust is matter of grave seriousness for our politics, our social cohesion, and our stability as a nation. Only truth re-establishes trust.
John D Manwell's Blog 
Immigration Crisis?
October 7, 2015Almost everything that can be said on the subject of refugees and immigration has been said in recent weeks. I should state my interest at the start: I am an immigrant to this nation and I married a daughter of an immigrant family.
Many people are wanting to come to the UK for economic reasons or for their safety and asylum. The UK is seen as a desirable place to live. We need to be quite clear on why this country is attractive and respond accordingly. Some people want to come to exploit weaknesses in our country or even to spread fear and violence. Unless we are clear about people’s motivations and what our own priorities are, we will not be able to respond in the right way.
We should encourage people who want to come to the UK – whether from Poland or Syria. We should be glad that our nation is so attractive to people around the world, and there are many great reasons this is the case. This nation is still a place of opportunity for business, for education and for families to thrive. There is still plenty of room for new people and we have a great history of absorbing people from many cultures into the ‘British way of life’. Who would have thought thirty years ago that the most popular dish in England in 2015 would be Chicken Tikka Massalla?
Many people coming from Romania, Poland, Syria and Iran are entrepreneurial, enterprising, ready to work, and often have a good education already. We should be glad of all these people wanting to get here.
Why do they want to come here?
The UK offers opportunity, economic prospects, stability, relative peace, generally good race relations, and access to the rest of the world, to begin with. This nation still upholds the rule of law, general respect for human life, children do not have to work to eat, and the police are generally unlikely to break into your home if your politics does not agree with the government! We should be delighted that we are enjoying all these reasons that people would want to come here.
So what’s the problem?
The problem is that we have lost our way and disconnected from the values that gave us all these benefits. The disaster that is the secular humanist experiment which has promoted multiculturalism specifically to undermine our Christian heritage has left us disorientated. We should welcome newcomers on the clear basis of Christian hospitality. We have lost the confidence to call ourselves a Christian nation and with that we have lost the basis to require certain constraints on newcomers. It is not OK to promote the downfall of the nation; It is not OK to have multiple wives; It is not OK to expect to enjoy the peace and infrastructure of this nation and at the same time seek to undermine the traditions and culture. We need to recognise as a nation that it is Christian truth which defines the rule of law, the respect for human life, the respect of personal property and the protection of the family. It is Christian thinking which has promoted freedom of speech, children’s rights and increased freedom for women in society. We should be unashamed in requiring compliance with our traditional rights and culture by those who want to come and make a life in the UK.
It is bland, directionless multicultural, humanism which has led us into the confusion of attempting to be tolerant of every position and ultimately being intolerant of truth.
If we welcome people from around the world on the basis of Christian hospitality we will be the richer for it, newcomers will be blessed, and troublemakers will become obvious and more easily thwarted. Our Christian legacy is the compass we need in this stormy season!
Tags:British way of life, children's rights, christian family, Christian values, confidence, economic migrants, freedom of speech, hospitality, humanism, Immigration, international relationships, intolerance, multiculturalism, national security, opportunity, poland, racism, Syria, Theresa May, trust, UK, women's rights
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