The church and The Big Society (Part 1): Is there a place for the church?

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I believe that when a society tries to meet every human need through the state there will eventually be a major failure of community. When no one needs to meet the needs of their neighbours, their sense of responsibility to their neighbours is lost: “Why do I need to help you? Go and see department X and they will sort you out.” Or worse: “I pay excessive amounts of tax to pay for a state that helps everyone when they need it, go see someone trained to help you.” I have seen both of these many times at the local level. I have also seen the dependency on loved ones being extinguished as people are encouraged to demand that the state meets all their needs rather than friends and family.

But the problem is not solely one of big government. The capital markets too have let communities down and broken the social fabric. Their high risk taking has lead to a massive failure in the jobs market, and public services will now be cut as tax revenues go on debt repayments rather than social needs.

How did we get to The Big Society?

Throughout the 1980's and 1990's the discussion of “more state” or “more market” dominated. The last Labour government began to change this, offering a new force – real people – and many Christian groups and churches were empowered in a new way to meet the needs they saw around them.

Whilst Labour bloated the states responsibility to meet almost every human need it could think of, it relied on powerful market forces to bring in the money to pay it. Yet Labour got one thing right that previous governments had missed, it acknowledged that a mix of the big state and the big market were not still enough. Thus it drafted in local citizens and volunteer groups to assist it further. The new thinking coming from the so-called Progressive Left currently dubbed The Good Society is a contination of this thinking and can be seen debated with The Big Society at ResPublica.

Working for many years as I have at the heart of extremely deprived communities, I was naturally a great advocate of any initiative that brought in social entrepreneurs from the local community to assist in crime reduction. Whilst I co-opted many different people to local authority and police initiatives, I was mostly involved in drawing in the church, Street Pastors being one of my favourite examples, but there are many more.

The church and The Big Society?

The Big Society, the governments flagship social program that encourages communitys to meet there own needs rather than rely on big government, moves Labours social agenda forward a further step.  It gives all citizens and community groups the oppotunity to look after their neighbourhood and have greater decision making powers over them without having to be co-opted into local government iniaitves, meeting local government objectives, or be held back by excessive red tape.

So for churches and Christian groups The Big Society offers them more power to organise themselves and meet the needs that they have identified, prayed about, and experienced. Christians in The Big Society find themselves with an enormous responsibility because of there locations in the centre of almost every community in the country, and the enormous resources and capabilities they can bring to bare - "to whom much is given, much is required" (Luke 12:48). In my next post I will offer two ways that churches and Christian groups can identify needs that they can address.

What does it mean for the church after Christendom?

As much as it is a practical activity for the church, The Big Society allows churches to challenge the power and idolatry of both the state and the market to meet the needs of real people. As there is a church at the centre of every community with important resources such as buildings, car parks, kitchens, people, and love, (etc.) it once again brings the churches front and centre into society. But it does so in service rather than dominance. My Church Engagement Zone model (see the downloadable pdf) defines how this occurs. The church transcends party political affiliations. It operates around the political centre ground demanding the civic involvement of real people in co-operation with other powers of state and market. It criticises those who put too much trust in any one power (articulated by both the left and the right) as a form of idolatry, and brings Christians from both the right and the left together in a common purpose, i.e. the needs of those around them.