On Thursday I took my children to London to visit The Houses of Parliament. Once we’d found a path through all the crowds of remainers and leavers waving their respective EU and UK flags, we entered the education centre and participated in lots of activities about the evolution of democracy and how to be an activist for a cause that matters to you. But the highlight of the visit was a short trip into Parliament itself and to the viewing galleries for each of the chambers. The House of Commons was debating some bill aimed at supporting local government; it all seemed very dull! The House of Lords on the other hand was debating the now famous bill to prevent Boris Johnson and his Government from taking the nation out of the EU without a deal being in place. For me, walking around Parliament, it was an opportunity to ponder the history that undergirds the institution of the United Kingdom’s legislature and the stability that its debating chambers have brought to these Islands.
Living abroad for almost one fifth of my life has helped me understand the world better in numerous ways, but none more so than coming to realise that stable and free societies, founded upon the rule of law, and affording great value to human beings is not the normal state of affairs for humanity. Too often nations are ruled by power and fear with the beneficiaries being a few corrupt men. For people living in the comfortable West, this is often hard to grasp; too often we take our benefits for granted and give far too little thought to the history that has got us to where we are today.
Looking around at the exhibitions in Parliament and evaluating the story of democracy presented, what struck me was the total absence of any mention of Christianity as being a seedbed that gave this nation democracy. And to be blunt, this is the result of a breath-taking misreading of history. I’ve written lots about this before, but the very notion of giving power away to someone else if they win an election is a very Christian idea. Robert Mugabe – who has just died – is very instructive in this regard. Despite losing elections and by and large the support of the people of Zimbabwe, he refused to hand over power and governed using terror rather than the rule of law. And his approach is far from being an isolated incident.
The liberal elite that control all the key institutions of the United Kingdom have conveniently chosen to forget that it was the Bible that laid a foundation for so much of the stability of this land. For centuries past, Biblical instruction saturated the collective minds of people and out of it came a unique way of thinking. Doubtless patterns of thought were inspired by reflecting on the whole narrative of Scripture but as a rule of thumb and by way of example, we can say that Genesis 1 instilled the idea that we are not the centre of all things, God is (what a relief) and it is His world, we are stewards of it; Genesis 1 also informed us that human beings are made in God’s image and so deserve dignity and respect for their views of conscience; we learned from Genesis 2 that we are fallen and so when it comes to human governance, power in the hands of the few is very dangerous, it needs to be dispersed and those with it held accountable; 1 Kings 21 reminded us that there is a higher law than the law of men, in Israel even the King was under the law of God; we learned from Deuteronomy 32 that God is righteous and just and so we too must pursue righteousness and justice; we learned from Revelation 20: 11-15 that all people will be held accountable to God for their lives (no greater restraint on evil can be imagined).
Societies founded upon Biblical principles were never perfect. We must never forget the slave trade nor the treatment of children during the days of the industrial revolution, nor numerous shameful actions committed during the building of Europe’s empires. But the point is that it was when societies departed from Biblical standards that evil occurred and it was calling people back to truth, justice and righteousness – the very warp and woof of the Biblical worldview – that proved to be the remedy for these malignancies. Neglect or diminish the word of God at your peril: many people have persuasively argued that it was the widespread embrace of Biblical criticism by German society during the mid-nineteenth century that shattered the morality laid down by the reformation 300 years previously. That shattering in turn left a vacuum that paved the way for the rise of fascism and the Holocaust that ensued. The idea that somehow it was progressive humanistic thinking that overcame the horrors inflicted by religion is little more than fiction, despite being the dominant narrative in our land today.
In the week that Robert Mugabe died – and now faces the fearsome judgement of a Holy God – let us remember what happens to men and nations that neglect the Bible as the foundation of a just and righteous society. And let us also remember what the outcome for our nation will be unless we return to the roots that made a free and stable society possible in the first place. At the present time I can think of fewer things more important than that Christian believers remind our nation of its history and just how much that we take for granted is due to our Biblical heritage.
Image: Public Domain
First published on Challenging Thinking on 2019-09-07. Reproduced here in the CWT essay archive without style or semantic changes.