What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Trump of Judgement for Liberals

    Back at the end of September I suddenly saw that a Trump victory was possible. Suddenly, with a horrible clarity I could see that there was a credible way for him to get to the White House. And once it was credible, it suddenly seemed inevitable.

    And for that reason, I don’t wake to a feeling of astonishment and surprise today. This American election result is not what I hoped for but it is kind of what I’ve spent large parts of the last few weeks not merely fearing but expecting.

    trump-likely-to-win

    It is rare that I wish that I had been wrong, but I do today.

    The election of Donald Trump is to be deeply regretted. However, it also needs to be understood and those who regret it most deeply need to think not merely about how to cope with the news but about what comes next.

    The true enormity of the defeat of Hilary Clinton has to be faced head on. I’m sorry for Hilary Clinton but this isn’t merely a personal defeat. It is a defeat of a whole set of liberal values that millions of us hold throughout the world. If we want to know where to go next with those values there are some tough truths that we need to face.

    • Donald Trump didn’t win the election despite being a xenophobe. He won it because he was a xenophobe.
    • Donald Trump didn’t win the election despite being sexist. He won it because he was sexist.
    • Donald Trump didn’t win the election despite being anti-LGBT. He won it because he was anti-LGBT.
    • Donald Trump didn’t win the election despite being unqualified for office. He won it because he was unqualified for office.
    • Donald Trump didn’t win the election despite being against every progressive value people like me hold. He won it because he was.

    He won it because he was.

    That’s the point.

    That’s the fact that has to be faced. The enormity of that fact has to be faced. People wanted this. A majority of people wanted this.

    It seems to me that people have used the ballot box to express a desire for change – change from a system which was not taking everyone along with it.

    I feel the frustration myself. It is the frustration of seeing the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It is the frustration of seeing people hungry in the richest economies of the world. It is the frustration of seeing young people with no hope for jobs. It is the frustration of seeing social security systems undermined. It is the frustration of seeing pensions squeezed and being told that is a price worth paying. It is the frustration of seeing financial institutions rescued whilst blue-collar jobs have been seen as expendable.

    There is much that is wrong with our world.

    And one of the things that is wrong with the world is the presumption on the part of so many of us who hold liberal views that if things get more difficult for people then those same people will automatically turn with joy and thanksgiving to the solutions of the liberal-left. The reality is far from that. People who are frightened for themselves more often turn to the right.

    This election result is a trump of judgement for those of us who are liberals. The #Brexit result was another such trump but I fear neither will be the last.

    If we want liberal democracies then we will need to work for them them and fight for them and if I’m honest I’m still thinking through what that means for me personally on this rawest of political days.

    Liberal complacency is partly to blame for the situation that we find ourselves in. Liberal values have largely kept the peace between nations in the West for 60 years. However, they have not kept everyone fed. And if you want peace, you must feed the poor.

    So what comes next?

    Somehow we need to remember to be kind to one another. And that means being kind to those with whom we disagree profoundly. Then we need to take joy in the small things. The sunrise, the love of lovers and the the light of a candle in the darkness are all unaffected by the political events of the last 24 hours.

    But then we need to pick ourselves up and do what liberals do. We need to organise, protect, witness, learn and love.

    We need to organise because that’s the way the world changes. People voted for change in this election. Let us never forget that they can vote for change again – in America, in the UK, all around the world. It is those who organise who have a head start in getting the change they hope for.

    We need to protect because right now a load of people are going to be feeling vulnerable. We need to work out how to protect and stand alongside the Muslim who has heard the call to ban Muslims from entering the greatest economic power in the free world. Or the Mexican with relatives on both sides of the wall that is already being built in Trump’s mind. Or the woman who fears bringing an accusation against an abuser. Or the LGBT teenager who hears the most powerful people in the world talking about conversion therapy. Or so many others. People need to be protected. People we know need to be protected.

    We need to witness to the fact that we believe in better values than those which have seemed to triumph today. That means taking a full part in the frightening world of public discourse that we now have. Social media can’t be put back in a bottle and bunged up only to be opened once we have learned how to deal with it. Those who wish to lead and guide need to be right in the midst of the people advocating things worth believing in and social media is right where the people are whether we like it or not. Church leaders need to note this particularly. The anodyne tweeting only of inane bible verses, where you went to bless a Mothers’ Union banner or excerpts from the Daily Office do not count as serious engagement with the modern world. Yes, the online world needs those things, and a dose of humour too, but it needs more than that. Our world needs ideas worth believing in and people who can articulate them in the prevailing culture.

    We need to learn because our ideas need to change and because some of our ideas have not been fit for purpose. Only the most arrogant could simply believe that the majority of people in America were wrong without trying to learn something themselves. I fear more than Donald Trump that liberals will not learn the lessons of this day. Prosperity must be prosperity for a far wider group in society. Do we have the courage to speak of reducing the gap between rich and poor for the sake of a greater whole? Are we prepared to advocate broader prosperity that might lead to our own pockets being lighter? Are we prepared to learn the tricks of the new media world that, so far, the political right is so perplexingly more savvy at using than the liberal left? Are we prepared to say that we’ve not yet found the answers to all that ails us? Are we prepared to face the fact that in assuming that people would turn towards collective institutions (the EU, the UN, the Climate Change agreements etc) that we were wrong. Are we prepared to educate and teach, relentlessly the values we hold to those whom we raise?

    And we need to love. There’s a whole lot of loving needed today and there’s a whole lot of loving going to be needed in the days ahead.

    I happen to believe that love wins.

    Even on days when it doesn’t feel like it.

    That’s what makes me a liberal.

    And I hear the call loud and clear to live the values I believe in.

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7 responses to “Whither the Kirk?”

  1. Pausing Place Avatar
    Pausing Place

    I missed last night’s programme, but I thought your comments were interesting.

    In a sense, perhaps it’s unsurprising if the SEC is inwardly more positive about itself than the CofS. My take is that in the recent past, at least, the SEC started from a lower common denominator, not being the “local” church in the same way as the Kirk, and so it doesn’t have to contend with others saying of it “look how the mighty have fallen” in quite the same way.

    As to the health of the Kirk (and the SEC for that matter), I think we need to reflect on our self-perception and to consider carefully the points and places in which a dying church (congregation or denomination) should be allowed to die gracefully, and the ways in which we might see new life emerge from the rubble.

    As a young(ish!), relatively new Christian I have seen examples of (both urban and rural) SEC and Kirk congregations where there are few signs of new growth, little to draw in younger (under 50 year olds, to pick a random-ish number) new folk, and much to sustain negative preconceptions of church as boring, irrelevant and so forth.

    We as a faith community need to get much better at stepping up to the mark in our creativity and engagement with our society. The sad truth is that most young adults do not know and have not heard about Jesus Christ, and unless we engage with them in ways culturally relevant to them, and which do not presuppose previous knowledge (too often taken for granted) they never will.

    It troubles me, but I do think it’s true to say that in the SEC and in the Kirk we have a church sustained by the traditions and cultural reference points taught to a previous generation. Culture has shifted radically, with the result that the same will not be able to be said in 20 years time.

    Our challenge is clear. Whether the Kirk and the SEC can step up to the mark to address what it means to live out the Great Commission in the 21st century is less so.

    Reply
  2. Cal Avatar
    Cal

    I didn’t really understand who this programme was aimed at, or even what its aim was.

    Yes, numbers have fallen, but perhaps the small number of people who remain are there because they actually want to be, not because it’s the done thing on a Sunday morning.

    And personally, I rather like the idea of a church “sustained by traditions”. Clearly the church has to be relevant to modern society, but in abandoning the traditions of worship then you lose the centre of why the church exists in the first place.

    There was something very Presbyterian about the programme with its “we’re doomed” mentality. I find the SEC generally more positive in outlook.

    Reply
  3. John Avatar
    John

    The only book the presenter seemed to have used in his research was ‘The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000’ By Callum G Brown – indeed Callum Brown was one of the speakers. The thesis of this well argued sociological study is that “quite suddenly in 1963 something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significance”. That something he identifies as new media, new gender roles and a moral revolution which has dramatically ended people’s conception that they lived Christian lives.” It could be said to have happened as “sex began” between the end of the Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP as the poet Philip Larkin so famously put it.”
    To balance this statistical decline the programme flagged up some of the “church without walls ” iniatives in a lame sort of way. All in all a most unsatisfactory programme that only told half the story.

    Reply
  4. Kenny Avatar
    Kenny

    Good crit Kelvin. My reflection at the end of the programme was, “Lord, we visited this stuff over 30 years ago, and have come out of it stronger and better Church in the SEC.” Hopefully, we stopped longing for ‘the good old days’ a long time ago!

    Reply
  5. MartinRitchie Avatar
    MartinRitchie

    I thinking “Pausing Place” makes a good point about needing to creatively engage with society. From my own experience of working with a CofS congregation, this creative engagement is a weak spot for many.

    As a counterpoint to the programme, interesting to note in the latest “Life and Work” a very positive article about a growing CofS congregation in Stornoway – and I mean really growing! So not all doom and gloom, and I’m sure there are many more examples of bright spots, just as there are in the SEC!

    Reply
  6. Graham Vahey Avatar
    Graham Vahey

    If the C of S disappeared completely we would be at a loss. During the dark and bleak years of Thatcher’s reign she refused to visit Scotland for 5 years. When she did she expressed shock that we had Royal Regalia and ordered it to be removed immediately for safe-keeping to England. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ is now historical for its condescension to the Scots. She was none too pleased to be handed two reports on poverty in Scotland by the powerful Church and Nation Committee. Indeed, it was to this Committee that the population turned to for a moral lead during Thatcherism. When James VI (‘Jamie the Saxt’) became James I in England, the population turned to senior Scottish earls for a moral lead. Unfortunately, the Piskie Church does not give a moral lead in Scotland, apart from the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the recent past. The RC Church does pronounce on moral issues. Could it not be conceivable that all the major Churches could unite in a Committee to pronounce for Scotland on moral issues as the Church & Nation Committee once did?

    Reply
  7. Aldous N. Gaiters Avatar
    Aldous N. Gaiters

    Speaking as a Nonjuror myself I am sure the SEC has a right to a moral voice in Scotland. Taking the US daughter church of the SEC as a model you could see where the fissures would appear. There is room for a modern liberal Christian voice, but even I an old Liberal myself, would have to fear that such a voice might appeal to only a select few.

    Reply

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