A few years ago, during the witching hours, I was standing outside a city club with a couple of Royal Navel Provost and some doormen. The doorman I was chatting with was no stereotype. He was bright, articulate, patient and trying to earn living doing what he did well. Our small-talk was suddenly interrupted as he and his colleagues ran into the club. As usual you never quite know what they are going to bring out. Peering through the flashing lights and sweaty body’s, into the club, I saw a man swinging his arms wildly, and shouting drunken threats to everyone and no-one. I knew that once he was dragged outside he would be coming with me. Cameras were just beginning to become popular on mobile phones then, and I saw for the first time phones being flipped out around me as revellers hoped to catch the action. There was no time to worry about it; “this guys gonna be a handful” I thought. The navy police, my doorman friend, and myself, instinctive from years of experience, each grabbed a limb and safety pulled the man to the floor. I gave him the obligatory commands to “calm down” but they were lost in the techno-beats of club anthems, and the shouts from my prisoner. He was about six-foot-five tall with a muscular build, lying on his front but refusing to bring his hands around his back so I could apply the handcuffs. His adrenaline and angry strength conspired against all our best efforts to force his hands around. Realising his left hand was closest I open-palm stuck the muscle-mass in his left shoulder, careful not to injure him, but forceful enough to break the strength in his arm and get the first hand cuffed. My navy college grabbed a right hand and began trying to drag it around too, but he was having the same problem. I started to hit the arm muscle attached to the hand to break the strength, and it loosened. As I started to cuff it my doorman friend shouted, “that’s my arm, that’s my arm!” and started to laugh. The comedy was not lost on us and we all descended into laughter whilst still trying to detain the male. I grabbed the prisoners real right hand and by now he had tired. He was safely cuffed and booked into custody. Later I checked the CCTV in case it was needed for evidence. It showed a single male being jumped on by the four of us, pinned down, and me repeatedly hitting him in, what appeared from the grainy image and an arm blocking the cameras view, to be his face. We all then laugh heartily. It could have been filmed by the Libyan police during a crackdown, but this was me, and it was England. At that moment I realised the danger of the public filming us without the full context being shown on video. I knew that whilst a court trial with all the facts would find in my favour, I wasn't so confident that I would survive a trial by Youtube.

Police Complaints

I want a robust police complaints system so that I can have confidence that I serve a just and honourable organisation. I want a victim to feel secure that I won't drop an investigation because of a bribe from a suspect. If I arrest a member of someone’s family, it's important for me that they know I won't beat their loved one up on the way to the station. Moreover, I don't mind being asked to justify why I sprayed someone with my CS, or kicked a door in, or searched a pedestrian. I don't want to turn a blind eye if a colleague gives a prisoner a kicking around the corner, or doesn't book in all the stolen property but keeps some back for themselves. I did not join that kind of organisation, and whilst there are a few bad apples, because of our internal and independent checks & balances, they are very rare indeed.

I regularly hear two accusations levelled at police: Firstly, the public have no confidence in the police complaints system because they do not see officers prosecuted when the news reports violent footage. Secondly, the complaints against officers are up so officer behaviour must be getting worse.

Lets deal with the first one: The reality is that serious complaints (especially those that hit the news) are investigated as thoroughly as normal criminal ones I.e. objectively, and evidence based. Now I won't comment on any particular case but, I believe, unlike some journalists in The Guardian or The Indy, that police officers should be considered innocent until proven guilty just like anyone else. Trial by media, bloggers, or the twitterarti, simply will not do in a democracy.

The second accusation, that complaints are up, suggests that contrary to the first accusation, public confidence must also be high or they would not bother complaining. This indeed was the case not so long ago. What most people do not realise however is that many officers are terrified of the complaints system as it is so badly abused by malicious complainers. Too often I have witnessed officers grey with worry because someone has made a malicious complaint (usually of a violent or sexual nature). Officers are regularly suspended and even arrested on these basis and it causes health problems and damages entire families because of the stress. Remember we deal with some pretty hostile people every day who are happy to abuse these system.

The answer to both of these accusations is the same. Don't just count the number of complaints and prosecutions, but check the quality of the complaints being received when judging how the police manage their complaints system.

“Pre-crime” Arrests

I don't want to get drawn into commenting on operational decisions made during public protest events such as March for the Alternative, or the Royal Wedding, as I was not there. However I have heard many complaints about police arresting protesters before they had even committed an offence. The offence they most refer to is Breach Of The Peace. Allusions have been made to the movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise is a sort of time-cop who travels back in time to just before an offence is about to take place, and detains the would-be offender. They are then charged with the offence they were about to commit. The difference which is missed by those who make this allusion, is that with Breach Of The Peace, no-one is charged with the offence they were potentially about to commit. In fact they are often not charged with anything but simply released once the threat of the offence taking place has passed. But the criticisms do not stop there. Some are suggesting that the very power to arrest for “pre-crime” offences is undemocratic. The logic being; “if I’ve not done anything wrong, then what right do you have to detain me?” Let me try to explain why I think that this logic is flawed.

Not so long ago I was deployed to an incident where I child had called 999 informing us that “daddy is hitting mummy.” We “blue-lighted” it to the address where the suspect had left the scene and the mother and her daughter were beside themselves with fear. The child’s mum had no visible injuries, and was clear that she had not been assaulted. Her and her husband had simply had a drunken row. She was however scared that her husband might hit her if we left. The child said that she did not see what happened as she was in bed, she just heard scary shouting and banging. Now, you can't arrest two people for having a noisy row, however we could not leave it there and needed to find the male. After about twenty minutes of looking by torchlight, a cigarette lit up in the field behind the house and a very drunk male staggered out. He was extremely aggressive, making angry accusations against his wife, threatening us, and calling the child a liar. Clearly we could not leave him at the address as he constituted a threat to his wife. We tried to calm him down but it did not work. We told him he had to leave but he refused. We tried to help him find somewhere to go, but he said he wasn't going anywhere. We warned him he would be arrested, his reply? “Arrest me then.” So we did although he still put up a fight. Had he committed a crime? No. Was he threat to his family? – you bet! So he had to come into custody to prevent a crime (a Breach Of The Peace) from taking place.

My point is that so called “pre-crime” arrests are not signs of an undemocratic society. On the contrary, the public not only demand that police investigate and detect crime, but they demand that we prevent it from happening in the first place. No one wants to be a victim before the police step in. A functioning democracy protects people, it doesn't simply pick up the pieces after they have been harmed.

The same is true for protests. Communities do not want shops smashed, fires burning, and roads blockaded. So if police receive viable intelligence that members of a protest are about to engage in unlawful activity, then we are forced to be proactive. This might mean searches, or even arrests. Some will complain that they are lawful and peaceful protesters so the police are wrong to stop them. But if they are part of a larger group, some of whom we have reason to believe are about to engage in public disorder, then how do we know who the suspects are? I appreciate that this is not entirely fair, and it doesn't always go according to plan, but the police are not mind readers and the alternative is allowing public disorder to take place. The people to blame then are not the police, but those people committed to unlawful methods of protest and violence who we need to stop. It is their activity that spoil an otherwise peaceful & lawful protest for everyone else.

Conspiracy Theory’s

The wonderful thing about social media, is not simply the ability for the individual citizen to

publicise their own content, but for individuals from different backgrounds to connect. Whilst I have found some protesters I have interacted with on Twitter and the blogger-sphere thought provoking and challenging, too many are peddling conspiracy theory’s about the police that would make Donald Trump blush. And its not just random protesters, often it is respected journalists. I have heard complaints such people being arrested for filming police officers on their I-phones which is impossible as there is no offence for this. I have been told that police have been ordered to take political prisoners which is nonsense. Some are comparing the 'boys-in-blue' to the SS, or the police repelling Arab protesters in the Middle East which is crazy in a democratic society with accountable institutions. I have even read protester bloggers referring to themselves as “prisoners of conscience” because they were arrested for unlawfully flash-mobbing a department store. I always thought such labels were given in honour by groups such as Amnesty to activists imprisoned by dangerous regimes. It is not a label one gives oneself for being detained in the UK under twenty four hours, and with the Human Rights Act protecting every minute of their stay. Sure custody is not the Ritz, its smelly, it's boring, and the food is terrible, but the way some protesters describe it, it sounds like they had been detained in Guantanamo Bay. These embellished stories may glamorises the bloggers who write them, and reinforce the anger of their readership, but the reality is that UK custody suites never offer protesters the pseudo-brutal experiences they hope for. Sorry folks, we're just the organisation you need us to be!

Your police service believes in protest too

I want the police to be accountable, I did not join to beat people up, or prevent people from speaking truth-to-power. And I do not know any officer who did. Nor have I ever been briefed to commit an unlawful arrest or a political one. There is a lot to protest about today with a savaged economy, a huge active war machine, and an environment being destroyed. I support the right protest. In 2008 I marched with 25,000 of my colleges in London because the then Home secretary lied about cutting our pay. I believe that we were an example of how to protest. We caught massive media attention, not one officer committed an offence, there was plenty of cups of tea but no kettles required, and our point was well made. All I ask then of protesters is not to re-enforce the anti-police narrative simply because you read a negative blog-post, or saw a dodgy looking Youtube clip. And before you get involved in a protest which you know might end up messy, consider what the police might be forced to do before you attend because of the actions of a minority of other protesters.

The new wave of global protest

We have all been electrified watching Arabs and Persians across the Middle East protesting against their tyrannical leaders and re-drawing the political map of the region. We have also watched in horror as Islamists in Afghanistan hacked to death UN workers in protest against Koran burning by a Florida pastor. His own irresponsible action was itself a protest against people of the Muslim faith. At home, our coalition government is experiencing large scale protests of its own as it commits to a massive reduction in public spending. Ugly clashes between police and protesters have again soured the public image of our “thin blue line.” Anger and protests are on the rise, and we are all effected.

There is much in the world to be angry about and protest offers people, particularly those who suffer, the hope of improving an unjust situation. Because Christians are required by God to care deeply about justice, many of us can be found within these grass roots movements. As a Christian police officer I have managed protests where Christians were involved. I admit to sometimes finding this very challenging. I have occasionally been forced to intervene when their conduct has become unlawful, and I have been saddened by followers of Jesus who have treated me as an enemy because of this. But I have also been a protester myself. In 2008 I was one of 25,000 officers peacefully marching in London to protest against cuts to our pay. These experiences have forced me to think deeply about how Christians should protest. My journey has lead in a direction I did not expect. Today I believe that protest is a vital and yet underrated part of our Christian witness. Our Lord Himself was a protester and He has provided His Kingdom with the tools to follow in His steps. But His way of protest is not the way that the world protests.

A religion of protest

From the beginning Judaism and Christianity were religions that rejected injustice. The ancient Hebrews were elected by God to bare witness to the nations around them His justice and peace. When they lost site of this responsibility, God sent prophets who protested against the injustice within their own land. It was into both of these contexts that 1^st century Israel received Jesus' message of salvation. He publicly criticised the religious leaders for excluding from God's presence the prostitutes, the criminals, the tax collectors, and the terrorists (the Zealots). Whilst God's plan was to draw outcasts closer to Himself through healing and forgiveness, the religious leaders felt spiritually contaminated by their unholy lives. But Jesus was critical of Rome too. It was a pagan empire oppressing the people of God. His claim to be a divine king was in direct conflict with the rule of Caesar Augustus and appeared so subversive that they crucified him.

Throughout its history, the church has at many times protested against injustice. Indeed those of us who are Protestants take our name from the word “protester” so called because of the 16^th century Reformers rejection of Roman Catholic authority. Today Christian protest remains influential such as the recent Make Poverty History campaign.

Jesus protesting in the temple.

I have often wondered if I would have arrested Jesus when He was turning tables and whipping the money changers in the temple. Clearly He was causing criminal damage, creating public disorder, carrying an offensive weapon, and assaulting members of the public. If He were any other man He would be coming with me. Some Christian protesters today are using Jesus' actions in the temple to legitimise unlawful forms of protest. They argue that our nations laws are so unjust, and that economic forces are so dis-empowering, that they can only force change through public disruption. Recent examples of this can be seen during the “March for the Alternative” demonstration in London. Whilst most protesters behaved well, some decided to block roads, whilst others stormed a department store en masse. There was a sense of self-righteousness amongst the protesters when the police arrested them. They claimed that they were “political prisoners” or “prisoners of conscience.” They were “non-violent,” so what had they done wrong? For the Christians amongst them, if Jesus was prepared to break the law over issues of financial injustice, then so were they.

I was not there, but I am not sure their actions have the theological legitimacy they claim. In the temple Jesus was neither critiquing commercialisation, nor was he establishing a new way to protest against unjust social systems. The temple system of sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins had become redundant by the corruption within it. His words and actions spoke clearly to the religious leaders that He considered the temple itself to be under divine judgement. Scandalously Jesus was to adopt the role of the temple Himself. His actions were unique and obvious to the people in His day, and they were never replicated by his disciples

Lawful & unlawful Christian protest

Not only do they lack biblical legitimacy, but I believe Christian protesters who behave unlawfully have forgotten how seriously the early church took good citizenship. The Apostle Peter instructs Christians to remain good citizens of the state (1 Peter 2:11-17). Paul is clear that Christians in Rome were to remain subject to the governing authorities and were not to rebel (Romans 13:1). Of course both men knew that good citizenship did not mean compromising their devotion to the authority of God. Indeed, like Jesus, they were finally martyred as political subversives. But the early church continued their commitment. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) for example challenged the Romans to investigate rumours of Christian subversion. He was clear that when the facts were established, Christians would be found to be “moral, upright, and law-abiding citizens who are the empires best allies in securing good order.”

Christians refused to cheat in business, steel, or brawl, and they were honest in paying their taxes. But more importantly to the Roman rulers, they refused to rebel. The Roman empire was a far more unjust system than we live under today and it experienced many rebellions. Yet a unique feature of the people of God was that, whilst they met the needs of those whom the empire oppressed, and they were clear that Jesus was their king, not Caesar, they also refused any form of disorderly conduct. They certainly never blocked Roman roads, flash-mobbed financial institutions, or deliberately incited the Praetorian Guard.

The kingdom and the powers

I believe that the early church has a lot to teach us about how to protest as Christians. They show us how we can live with the permanent tension of being good citizens of the state whilst remaining good, and uncompromising, citizens of God's kingdom. They never justified provocative acts of civil disobedience, yet they understood that His Kingdom is to manifest God's peace and justice to the world around it. I agree that lawful marching or picketing can be helpful and we are not wrong to join in. But God's opposition to injustice is never communicated by chaining oneself to permanent objects in the street, or setting fire to business you don't agree with. God's protest is a curious mix of meeting the needs of victims of injustice, whilst at the same time genuinely loving its perpetrators. This protest is as counter-intuitive as it is contradictory, and results in a potent confusion in the minds of those we protest against. Protest then must beam through the everyday lives of God's people, and through the daily witness of our churches. It is a far more powerful, radical, and challenging way to protest than any unlawful method of protest can ever achieve. To be a Christian, then, is to be a Holy protester, not a worldly one. It is a responsibility that began when God first called a people to Himself, and it will continue until the day that His Son returns and recreates a world filled with perfect justice and peace.

CQ involves observing the ways the people interacting in front of you differ from those in your home culture, and yet are similar to one another. Once the conduct you are observing begins to settle into patterns you can safely start to anticipate how these people will react in the next situation. Any inferences you make should then be free from stereotyping. This is crucial because one critical element of CQ is the necessity to suspend judgement and think before acting.

Advocates of CQ surprisingly acknowledge that, people who are a little detached from their own culture can sometimes adopt the traits and body language of unfamiliar cultures more easily than people who are more socially successful. This is because socially successful people have a tendancy to fully embody the habits and norms of their native culture and will therefore have the greatest difficulty making sense of, and then being accepted by, cultural strangers. On the other hand, those used to being cultural observers and making a conscious effort to fit in, are more adaptable to culturally sensitive situations.

I hope that understanding culture from a strategic planing point of view, as well as a personal development perspective will enhance understanding a little in the interfaith dialgogue process.

During a visit to China a couple of years ago on an MBA field trip, we attended a very prestigious business school to hear a lecture on cross-cultural communication. We arrived by bus and the dean of the school drove up to us in his chauffeur driven limo. He met with our lecturers, themselves very esteemed academics at a top ranked business school, and I watched as they exchanged business cards in the customary Chinese fashion. Each would present their own card with both hands, receiving the other persons card in the same way, and stare at it in appreciation. The longer the stare, the more honour you give to the person whose card you're holding. To do otherwise would be to dishonour the person you have just met. I was always quite proud that my card got a longer stare the Chinese business executives who we met because, where as my colleagues came from business, mine read PC 21299 Dan Stork Banks and had the name of my police force. It was so confusing to our hosts trying to figure out who I was and where I came from that I was greatly honoured with an extra long stare!

I felt quite offended however when my lecturers returned to the bus and the dean whisked off in his limo without them. We all met a few minutes later at the b-school reception building. After a tour and a meal, which in China included of the heads and feet of various birds & fish, we sat in the lecture theatre. Around us were indigenous MBA students, the future champions of Chinese industry and politics. As the lecturer proceeded to teach us how to engage across cultural barriers effectively, I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable how he we was belittling our own culture. When he finally referred to one of our lecturers, with a twinkle in his eye, as “the pretty lady”, believing it to be a complement (her face told otherwise), I realised that this lecture was ironically an example of how not to engage across cultures. Next, to my horror, my own economics professor then stood up and lectured the Chinese students on their anti-Japanese xenophobia and why China must let go of any claims on Taiwan. This awakened the government spooks in the room who started started scribbling furiously and the dean became increasingly redder in the face with outrage. By now I was wondering if I was going to be arrested before leaving the China. Both schools had created an uncomfortable PR disaster. They knew the theories behind cross-cultural communication, but they had failed to examine each others culture sufficiently before meeting. The consequences were that it irreparably damaged the relationship between the two premier institutions.

Culture and interfaith understanding

In this post I want to look at how understanding cross-cultural communication strategically is vital to both successful interfaith dialogue, or for organisations, such as the police, who wish to engage with hard to reach religious groups. Culture can be a difficult term to pin down and I do not propose to do so here. Most people have an internal sense of what it means anyway. But if it helps, my favourite description of culture is “the way we do things around here.”

Most religious people have conducted interfaith dialogue at sometime in their lives. This might have been with a work colleague of another religion, between religious student bodies at university, or maybe even between different denominations of the same religion. Interfaith dialog can be both person-to-person, between organisations, and even between religious countries. No matter what level it is conducted at, culture has a massive influence on the success or failure of the discussions. What people are willing to acknowledge, give up, change their mind on, offer, agree & disagree over etc. is deeply culturally dependant.

The Strategic Level

When getting involved in interfaith dialogue, the cross cultural element must be identified at the strategic level. Johnson & Scholes (1999) helpfully break down the antecedents of culture so that negotiators can have a fuller understanding of who they will be working with. I have adapted their model to be useful to faith based groups:

1. The Paradigm: is the set of assumptions about the religious group which is held in common and taken for granted in your organisation.

2. Control Systems: the ways that the religion and its institutions are controlled. These might be theological, financial, operational, and rewards systems (spiritual and temporal) etc.

3. Organisational Structures: this includes both the structure defined by the organisation, and the unwritten power-lines that indicate whose contributions are most valued e.g. religious leaders, trustees, or national governments etc..

4. Power Structures: The pockets of real power in the religion such as pressure groups, influential congregational members, & scriptural interpreters etc.

5. Symbols: the visible representation of the religion and the particular institution including art, dress codes, architecture etc. and includes both the formal and the informal.

6. Rituals & Routines: The daily behaviour and action of people that signal acceptable behaviour. This determines what is expected to happen in given situations, and what is valued by its leaders.

7. Stories & Myths: The past events people talk about inside the religion. Who and what the religion chooses to immortalise says a great deal about what it values and perceives as great behaviour.

Breaking down the culture of your opposite number into its component parts allows risks to be identified early on and the sources of problems to be identified. But this is not a one way examination, seeing your own culture in this way also helps to get a handle on how you will be perceived by those you negotiate with.

However during engagement of this type, high level analysis is not enough. In my next post I will examine Cultural Intelligence as a means of relating at the personal level.

Jewish/Roman Catholic dialogue has been going on for many years with mixed results. Within much academic protestant theology there has also been this dialogue particularly from post-war German theologians. The reason is simple, very few Christian leaders were prepared to speak out against the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews.

Why we need dialogue

Dairmaid MacCulloch, my favourite church historian, has made a startling accusation when speaking from the death camp at Auschwitz:

“This place is an offence against the Christian gospel. I mean it is an offence at an obvious level, it offends against mercy, pity, truth, love, but at a more profound Christian level. It offends against the fact that, at its basic level, Christianity is a story about a person. A person who is both human and divine. This place was designed to rob people of their personality, to make them less than human. It will not do to say that the Nazi's were anti-Christian, it will not even do to say that Jews died for racial reasons. And not because of their religion. Nazi's were able to do their evil destructive work because they were so good at playing on myths, the myths that lurk in peoples minds. And this myth was that the Jews were the killers of Christ, [so they were] the enemies of Christian civilisation. In that sense Christianity is implicated fatally in the murder of the Jews”

Right across Europe today there are growing movements that play on the myths in peoples minds about Muslims. They are (to use examples from my country), both political such as the British National Party, and grass roots such as the English Defence League. Likewise, within many Muslim communities there also exist those who perpetuate dangerous myths about Western civilisation. It is these myths that are leading people to commit to dangerous forms of Islam.

I was pleased therefore to recently hear that the Jewish/RC dialogue was looking to include Muslims as well. The Abrahamic faith groups have a unique role to play in European peacemaking because they have the propensity to understand each other both as monotheists, and as people of sacred texts. This understanding can then trickle down through the rest of our populations. The greatest enemy to negative stereotypes and politically toxic myths is relationship and dialogue becasue they lead to understanding and social cohesion.

Getting our attitudes right

Having been involved in interfaith dialogue at the local level for a number of years (and having got it drastically wrong as well as right) I have become convinced that the work is 10 parts attitude, to 1 part methodology. Therefore I want to use the rest of this post to discuss the attitudes that interfaithers need. For this there is no better person to listen to than Krister Stendahl. Stendahl (1921-2008) was a professor at Harvard Divinity School as well as being the chair of the World Council of Churches' Consultation on the Church and the Jewish People. Most people know him for his highly influential paper 'The Apostle Paul and the introspective conscious of the West', which changed the direction of modern New Testament scholarship, influencing current theologians such as N T Wright. For me, what he calls, “Stendahl's three rules of religious understanding,” sum up the attitude that the interfaither must take to the table:

1. When you are trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies.

2. Don't compare your best to their worst.

3. Leave room for "holy envy." in other words be willing to recognise elements in the other religious tradition or faith that you admire and wish could, in some way, be reflected in your own religious tradition or faith.

I would want to add to this, simply, that a forgiving attitude towards those you are in dialogue with is vital as everyone will make mistakes, and everyone will risk causing offence at some time. My experince of interfaith dialogue is that, whilst you need to take others seriously you need to chill out a bit yourself.

Further posts will examine some methodological approaches from the business world that can assist in managing interfaith relationships. 

When the idea of The Big Society was first born and promoted it was during a time of economic prosperity, so it cannot be accused of simply being a rouse to cover the damage of the government's spending cuts. In fact in its early years of development the current government promised to match the previous government's level of spending. But here we are today, witnessing brutal funding cuts in every sector of welfare provision. The importance of The Big Society (and the concepts of The Good Society) are therefore greater than ever.

Let me make the scope of the deficit clear. Our country faces a debt burden of over £1 trillion so there are no more coffers in the tin to pay for the services that we used to pay for. These cuts are not ideological, they are simply unavoidable. Those fighting against these cuts (usually in the name of “the poor”) forget very quickly that much of the money used to pay for our old levels of welfare was not ours. The UK was not earning enough money to pay for them so it was borrowing from China, India, and the Middle East. Poorer countrys which had inadequate public service infrastructures themselves, and an enormous inequality of wealth, were funding our demands for a public sector leviathan. Whilst the poor were funding the rich I did not hear the left or the right, or the church, calling this asymmetrical relationship to account. Oh, and by the way, that £1 trillion we owe today, is owed to poor countrys who have propped up our economy. Not out of love, but in fear that if we have no money to purchase their exports, they will go bust as well.

But it is not just the irresponsible politicians who are to blame, the proverbial “rich bankers” are also taking a lot of heat for causing the crises - and it is well deserved. We rightly blame them for their high risk investments and their easy credit to the poor. But there is a third guilty party little talked about as it makes us uncomfortable – ourselves. Politicians and bankers didn't do this alone, all of us who are in debt (including the poor), who paid too much for our houses, who borrowed too much for our cars and holidays abroad, who enjoyed the fruit of our credit cards, stand guilty of crunching the cogs in the great credit machine.

So my question is, where were the Christian leaders prophetically calling this lending culture to account? Where indeed was I? St. Paul's lament that “all men are sinners of who I am the worst” comes to mind. For years we self-righteously demanded that our politicians keep spending, soothing our rational senses that we were creating a more equal society, but now the gap between rich a poor will increase at speed. Rather than taxing us we allowed them to lighten up on banking regulation, creating easy money and a blind eye to risk. As individuals we took the credit that the banks were offering, thanking them heartily for our new kitchens and expensive engagement rings. And now the bubble has burst and we are all paying the price - and yes the poor the hardest. We will now have the welfare state we deserve, with higher taxes, reduced job security, and a colossal debt burden for our children to repay. Rich and poor alike we sowed the wind and now we are reaping the whirlwind.

The reason why such concepts as The Big Society and The Good Society are important is because it gives us all an opportunity to try and restore some of what has been lost. At its core, The Big Society is not about ideology, or government targets on poverty reduction, it's about the individual and small group rolling up their sleeves to help their neighbours. Its an attempt to galvanise a national grass roots movement of neighbourly responsibility. Those who are criticising the cuts by slinging mud at The Big Society (as if they are linked ideologically rather than circumstantially) are simply unwilling for this country to take responsibility for its behaviour. Poorer countrys will only prop-up our economy for so long. If we continue to borrow, to avoid the cuts, they may decide that the risks of lending to us are too great and the tap will be shut off. Then we will go the way of Iceland, Greece, and Ireland.

The church often finds itself in a position where it has to challenge the corruption that power can bring, and economic power must be no exception. It is perverse that rich countrys are being funded by poorer ones, and perverse for it to continue if we can stop it. No politicians will articulate the cuts in terms of repentance, they will try to sweeten the pill with management speak offering more for less. Nevertheless we must accept that the cuts are of our own making, and The Big Society offers us some penance. We may not be able to rely on the state to provide us with as much care as we are used to, so now we must rely on each other. The Big Society offers this, and Christians are unwise to sling mud at it. Love it or hate it, The Big Society is penance for all our sins.

See also part 1 and part 2 of this series.

Disclaimer: this is a slightly more complex post than I would normally write as it is very prescriptive, trying to help churches and Christian organisations (indeed anyone) get involved in The Big Society. Apologies to those who do not find it helpful.

The Big Society is Creative Destruction

There have been complaints on the left that The Big Society is in fact the Creative Destruction of the State's responsibilities to meet the needs of society. Creative Destruction is in an economic theory that suggests that growth is sustained by the innovation of entrepreneurs that defeats companys that are industry leaders despite the fact that it also destroys the value of established companies and creates unemployment in (often large) dying industries where demand for traditional skills become obsolete.- please stay with me on this.

I think that the point these critics are making is that as social innovation grows by civil groups, it will replace many mainline public services thus destroying the welfare state which serves society particularity the poorest. Now what these critics forget is that Creative Destruction was conceived as a positive theory of social development in that it is expected to increase the overall standard of living through finding better ways of doing things that create new jobs, and reduce cost and waste. In The Big Society, I agree, some form of Creative Destruction in our public services will continue, but it will be by abandoning the lower end of their responsibilities to entrepreneurial ventures both saving money, elimnating waste, and increasing social capital.

I think that Creative Destruction will occur by the church idenitfying two sorts of local needs:

Identification Method 1: Church as a source of Disruptive Innovation

Another theory linked to Creative Destruction, not yet mentioned but very relevant is that of Disruptive Innovation. It is the first method I would suggest that the church uses to idenitfy needs that it can meet.

Disruptive innovation is about motivation. Public service leaders in every industry have vast resources at their disposal. If a charity or, church, or voluntary group trys to take on a piece of work where the established services are already providing the best service possible, these services will be motivated to keep doing what they are doing. Churches trying to usurp this work will fail.

Churches and Christians charities need instead to craft a strategy that takes advantage of areas where public services are doing the job but might be motivated to move aside and let the church do it better. Most Disruptive Innovations are technically simpler and cheaper than that provided by established leaders. To identify disruptive opportunities means you need to be very observant to what people need. If you can facilitate what they really need, and your innovation is simpler or cheaper than what the state can offer, your disruption has a better chance of success. An example of a Disruptive Innovation is the Near Neighbours charity that is taking on much of the work that The Prevent Agenda was doing. The pdf offers (click here) a model that conceptualises Disruptive Innovation more clearly.

Identification Method 2: Identifying needs not yet being met by the state

Of course it is not simply about doing what is already being done, but it can be about doing something entirely new. Therefore another way to identify a need that your church or organsiation can meet, is to identify gaps in public service provision and set up your organisation to meet them.

Managing the identification process

When looking within you local community for needs you can meet, it is vital that you understand whether you have the resources and capabilities to achieve your goal. My Big Society Needs Identification Model (click here) brings together all the practical requirements when choosing either a Disruptive Innovation or a gap in current provision. It is based very loosely on the Collis and Rukstad Sweet Spot Analysis)

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. 

Who is Not Ashamed?

The organisation running Not Ashamed is called Christian Concern, and they are the political arm of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship. They have been stoking up fear and anger of Christian persecution for most of the last decade whilst supporting Christians being “persecution” by courts and tribunals. Their leader Andrea Minichiello Williams works very closely with Conservative Party Member of Parliament Nadine Dorries who together are determined to (in their own words) “reclaim this country for Christ.” The Conservative Christian Fellowship which is the official Christian group in the Conservative Party (and enjoys many government ministers as members) is run by the former head of the Lawyers Christians Fellowship. I don't mean to over-blow this point but no one should underestimate how deep Not Ashamed potentially reaches into government.

Persecution?...err, I don't think so

Clearly changes are taking place in Britain that are negatively effecting some Christians. Whilst, unlike the US, this country has a form of Christianity as its official religion, most people are not Christians by conviction, and a growing amount of the population are from other religions or of no religion at all. With so many beliefs, lifestyles, traditions, and behaviours, it is no wonder that citizens rights are coming into conflict. The privileged position given to conservative religious beliefs in law and culture is no longer considered fair or even moral in many quarters of society. Certainly the treatment of many Conservative Evangelicals, traditionalists, and Roman Catholics is absurd...but persecution it ain't. Persecution is taking place in Iraq where Christians are being hunted down causing them to flee the country in their millions. Persecution is the plight of the Christian woman in Pakistan who is about to be stoned for telling Muslim neighbours about her belief in the Lordship of Jesus. Persecution is not being stopped from wearing a cross on a neck chain when the company policy is "no jewelry".

Rather what we are seeing in Britain is a society disrupted by new democratically legitimate beliefs an agendas, and is struggling to forge a new identity. The old moral certainties are disappearing as people are demanding new rights, not traditionally Christian. Christians certainly need to be part of this discussion, but the framing of the problem by Christian Concern as being a problem of persecution rather than political and legal philosophy makes it entirely the wrong organisation for this task. Christians with more conservative beliefs do not need to roll-back laws that give freedom to others different from themselves in order to feel safe again. Instead Christians ought to be offering a new way through the polarizing "my rights verses your rights” conflict that currently exists.

Its the war itself, not just what they fight for, thats the problem here

Christians who defend their cause using the language of persecution look unreasonable in light of the real persecution that goes on in other parts of the word. A more sensible approach would be to argue for a new national understanding of how we should discuss what personal rights are and refusing the current “mine verses yours” spirit. Why are these churches and organisations not suggesting that although different people have different moral boundaries, we can all be respectful enough not to cross the rights of our neighbour if we understand their needs and they understand ours better? Why are they not behaving as an example of what is possible, rather than trying to roll-back the last 50 years of legal decisions? OK, maybe I have over-simplified this point (and I have avoided examples so as not to get into trouble), but I get fed up with those who criticize yet offer no solution at all.

The current discussion is leading to a lot of pain and anger from both sides who are deploying bigger legal and political weapons against each other to win the war. Maybe it is the war over rights that is the problem, not that there is a discussion itself. We all need rights, sometimes they will collide, but I will be respectful of yours when they do, even at the expense of my own.