Why are we often so different?

In response to Linda Louis-vanReed’s recent article ‘The War on Trump’, Jock Stein muses on the contrasts between American and British attitudes to life and liberty.

In earlier life I had an American colleague who, domiciled in Scotland, heroically adopted three children from Devon. The oldest had an inherited genetic condition and suffered from depression as an adult. Last year, living on his own in California, he took his own life – but not before seeking help from three hospitals who all refused him admission because he had an insurance card called ‘Obama Care’.

The hospitals all refused to use the Obama Care card because they had been purchased by large hospital conglomerates, who wished to pursue more expensive insurance options.

American Christians have a record second to none in dedicated missionary and humanitarian engagement. But it has always puzzled me why their attitudes to healthcare provision, as well as to other political issues, are often so different from ours in Britain. If it were a matter of Christians thinking differently from others, I would expect and understand that – but my impression is that these attitudes represent the majority of Christians as well as Americans in general.

This article is an attempt to explain why this may be the case; it draws upon conversations with Americans as well as past reading, but I am open to correction.

1 Separation of Church and State

The Declaration of Independence is premised on belief in God. But because the American colonies saw church affiliation as directed by the attitude of the reigning monarch (rather than based on theological principles) they decided to allow for a separation of Church and State, hoping that this would make differences between denominations less problematic. Indeed, America was big enough to allow what missionaries called a ‘principle of comity’, with some States being mainly Presbyterian, others Baptist and so on.

Those who signed the Declaration never intended this separation to rule God out of public life. They just wanted to avoid the ‘establishment’ model being replicated in America, so that Christians (especially Non-conformists) would have a freedom they had not enjoyed in Britain. This has resulted in thousands of denominations freely proliferating.

On the one hand, this has allowed a freedom of theological inquiry which is non-aligned to political identity. On the other hand, it has inevitably led to the emergence of ‘tribal’ political identities, with politicians courting ‘the Christian vote’, just as Britain has had ‘the Non-conformist vote’ and ‘the Catholic vote’.

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence never intended the separation of church from state to rule God out of public life.

Since the Constitution does not actually name God, in the 20^th Century atheists began to argue more strongly not just to keep church out of state business, but to keep God and the Bible out of it too. Abortion and religious education in schools became crunch issues. While much the same kind of situation has now been reached in Britain by a different route, nevertheless here there is not the same stark gap between faith and public life that exists in the USA.

For example, take the polarisation between Christianity and science. In the USA, believing scientists such as Francis Collins (who cracked the human genome) have to tread very carefully around this issue when they write (as Collins does in his latest book The Language of God, which includes his testimony), despite the fact that 70% of US scientists across the full spectrum of disciplines identify as being ‘people of faith’ (Christian or otherwise). In the UK, there has been a far greater historic acceptance of faith and science rubbing along together.

This modern American attitude to separation – keep faith out of public life – seems to have embraced aspects of service also, feeding the arguments (outlined below) that welfare and healthcare are private matters - the responsibilities of individuals and churches, rather than the state.

2 The Formation of American Identity

The century leading up to the First World War did a lot to found American values. It was a Cowboys-and-Indians century in which Americans drove the frontier westward, with a belief (parallel to the spirit of British Empire) that the United States had a destiny to subdue the entire continent in the name of God.

A nation of self-made people was in the process of forming its own identity, especially after the Civil War, which left the country shaken and wounded. During this century, the steel magnate and self-made multi-millionaire Andrew Carnegie wrote a book called The Gospel of Wealth. In it, he argued that economic inequalities then emerging in American society should be tackled by the wealthy upper class, who should put their hard-earned millions to good use, engaging in thoughtful, responsible philanthropy.

A sense of individual responsibility came to characterise white American society and its Christianity.

This sense of individual responsibility came to characterise white American society and its Christianity, while it was black people who began to identify the Gospel communally – i.e. with a people and a race.¹ This contrast between individual and communal aspects of Christianity is expanded later.

Both Britain and the US have struggled to work through their race issues, but in Britain the work of those like ‘the Clapham Sect’ extended far beyond slavery into other social issues, and eventually Christians and non-Christians formed a consensus to support ‘the welfare state’ after the Second World War, which included the provision of social care. The same did not happen in USA.²

3 Individual and Social Provision of Care

The Old Testament teaches that God’s justice and care for the poor does require some social provision, not just individual charity (e.g. Lev 25). Similarly, the New Testament teaches that equity cannot be left simply to the goodwill of individuals (e.g. 2 Cor 8:13-14). This has often been reflected in the teaching of Christian leaders – for example, Calvin’s concern for his neighbour led him to support low interest rates and a city-sponsored job creation programme.

The theological underpinning of this comes from the biblical idea that each individual human being is made in the image of God (Gen 1:26) and is in need of rescue from sin through the coming of Christ and his sacrifice (John 1: 14, 29). But we also see (e.g. in Hebrews 2:5-10) a social or corporate focus – Jesus taking on humankind as a whole and dying, once for all, on the cross.

That is why the early Church Fathers described the incarnation as having both an individual side - the Lord coming to earth as a specific individual (enhypostasia in Greek) – and a corporate side - the Son identifying with humanity by taking on human nature (anhypostasia). And it is why the illustration of the Church as the Body of Christ – one body with many parts – is so powerful.

In other words, both the social and the individual matter when it comes to salvation, and this affects how we see the Gospel impacting society. My impression is that Christians in Europe, perhaps more influenced by Calvin, have taken on both these aspects of our salvation, the corporate aspect which lends itself to socialism, and the individual aspect, favourable to capitalism. This has led (all told) to a centrist economic position incorporating aspects of both in the provision of social welfare, but without the exclusion of charity.

Both the communal and the individual matter when it comes to salvation – and this affects how we see the Gospel impacting society.

In the US, it is the individual emphasis which has largely prevailed, while socialism has often been identified with communism (seen as the great rival of the American way of life, especially since the McCarthy era), and so rejected.³

In Britain the founder of the Labour Party (Keir Hardy) was a Christian; and early Trade Union branches, especially in Wales, were known as ‘chapels’. While of course many Christians held other political views, socialism was respected in Britain and found political expression in a way that did not occur in the States. The US Democratic Party had very different roots.

Final Thought: How Far is Grace ‘Unconditional’?

Healthcare is expensive, and understandably all governments struggle to put a cap on cost in one way or another, especially in ageing societies like Britain and the US. Both countries continue to debate this.

Although the contexts are very different, there is one question about attitudes which both societies face: do you help the poor regardless, or only the ‘deserving’ poor? And – to pick up the story I began with – do people really have to be wealthy enough to afford a certain level of health insurance before they qualify for assistance?

In other words, should the State set ‘conditions’ for the receipt of benefits, and if so, what conditions should it set? This may be directed by cost, but it is also a moral dilemma. Responses on each side of the pond will, at least in part, reflect the cultural differences outlined above.

Christians face this with regard to their own giving: do you help the poor, whether they deserve it or not - whether they belong to your group or not? Or do you limit generosity to ‘those and such as those’? In Roman times, the Emperor Julian used to complain how Christians supported pagan poor as well as their own, even though they would also have known Paul’s priority expressed in Galatians 6:10. And beyond the Church, is ‘charity’ only a private and individual concern, or is taxation and welfare a proper concern of ‘charity’?

In the days of the New Testament, Christians had to work out these issues within a minority group of believers – and in many respects we are now back where they were then. But the laws of Western nations were drawn up when Christians were at least nominally in a majority.⁴ Our social and political witness does, I think, require us to put these questions on a wider canvas, while we still retain the freedom to do so.

References

1 The formation of this ‘evangelical identity’ is well documented (see for example George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 1980, OUP).

2 A recent interesting book which explores the history of these ideas is by the American writer Marilynne Robinson, The Givenness of Things (2016, Picador).

3 See Bob Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress: a Diagnosis of Western Society (1979, Wedge Pub. Foundation).

4 See The Evolution of the West, by Nick Spencer (2016, SPCK), Research Director of Theos.

Today’s community problems through a historical lens.

This week has seen the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the great American civil rights campaigner. His famous speech ‘I have a dream’ the day before his death is one of the iconic moments in American history. Dr King’s dream of equality that would be enjoyed by his children has not yet come true, despite great strides of progress that brought a black President to power in the USA.

In those days, I was involved in race and community relations at an international level and I was jointly responsible with the late Canon John Collins for organising a Memorial Service in St Paul’s Cathedral at which Coretta King, MLK’s widow, gave a passionate and moving address. It seems ironic that 50 years later more people have died violent deaths on the streets of London already this year than in New York and many of these have been linked with London’s black minority population.

Why is this? I have lived and worked in the ethnically mixed areas of London throughout my working life and I’m well aware of the complexities of social issues linked with poverty, deprivation, family breakdown, fatherlessness, gang life, poor education, low employment expectations and many other factors.

Anti-knife/gun protests in Hackney, Thursday 5 April 2018. See Photo Credits.

I understand the frustration and anger that brought residents out onto the street yesterday in Hackney with their demands for major policy changes to make the streets safe for their children – seven more people were stabbed in London last night!

But there is one outstanding factor that no politician and few social reformers want to touch. That is the legacy of slavery – especially to be found in communities with links to the Caribbean islands which suffered centuries of extreme cruelty under British colonial rule.

A Stain on British History

A new revelation in the past month has thrown fresh light on this subject, thanks to a Guardian article published just last week. It referred to a Treasury tweet (since withdrawn!) showing that when slavery in the British Caribbean was abolished in 1833 the British Government took out a huge loan to raise the £20 million required to accomplish the abolition.

That huge sum - £300 billion in today’s money - was needed to pay compensation: not to the slaves who had been captured in Africa, transported across the Atlantic and forced to work on the sugar plantations of the Caribbean islands, suffering indescribable cruelty, but to the owners of the slaves. Thousands of people in Britain were paid from this fund for the loss of their ‘property’, but not a penny was paid to the slaves themselves.

50 years on from Martin Luther King’s death, more people are dying on the streets of London than in New York.

That colossal injustice, a stain on our national history, has never been acknowledged in Britain. As a nation, for 200 years we have either ignored or carefully hidden our involvement in the slave trade and the extent to which British prosperity was built upon the proceeds of slavery. 

In 1800, seven years before the abolition of the slave trade, some two thirds of the British economy was said to be in some way linked with slavery and it undoubtedly fuelled the growth of the Industrial Revolution that prospered great cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and London.

Generations of children in British schools, right up until 2007, were taught nothing about the slave trade. Any mention of slavery was usually taught in the context of the USA and slavery in the cornfields of the southern states of America, but never any mention of Barbados or Jamaica or Trinidad or the other Caribbean islands.

But the zenith of British hypocrisy and injustice has only just come to light.

The Price of Injustice

The great conspiracy of silence of our Government has only just been revealed in the Treasury tweet. It is that the massive loan raised to pay compensation to the people who owned slaves or shares in a slave plantation has taken nearly 200 years to be paid off and was only cleared three years ago, in 2015! And it was paid off by the Treasury using British taxpayers’ money!

This means that millions of people in Britain today have been paying to reward people who trafficked and abused thousands of human lives.

Millions of modern Brits have been paying to reward people who trafficked and abused thousands of human lives.

It is therefore an historical fact that the African Caribbeans who first began coming to Britain on the Empire Windrush in 1948 as ex-soldiers who had fought for Britain in the Second World War and were invited to come to help re-build our cities after the Blitz, have actually been paying for the freedom of their forebears.

A replica slave ship was sailed up the Thames to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, 2007.Generations of tax-paying Caribbeans in Britain have been contributing to paying off the money that was paid to white people in Britain who prospered from the suffering of their great-grandparents (who were not actually given their freedom until 1838, five years after the Act of Emancipation in Westminster).

This is the legacy of slavery that hangs over the Caribbean islands and the Caribbean community in Britain today. In 1838 slaves were given their freedom but there was no attempt to give them any compensation for their suffering or even any help to make a living! In all the years since then there has been no attempt to invest in schools or industry or community development, or any other means to stimulate prosperity for the people.

They have just been left to themselves to build their economies and to shape their societies by whatever means they could find in the modern, competitive, international world.

Quiet Cover-Up

This colossal injustice is part of the legacy of slavery that has been quietly covered by successive British governments and has only now become known through an accidental tweet from the Treasury.

It was actually in 2015, when the loan was finally cleared, that the British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Jamaica and promised to help – what was his promise? – to build a prison! No promise of help with economic or community development or educational grants – and of course, no mention of an apology for 300 years of enslavement!

This is the one great thing that our politicians will not do – say sorry! To say how much we, as a nation, deeply regret that period in our history when we enslaved our fellow human beings from Africa.

The one thing that our politicians will not do is say sorry!

 Let Justice Roll On!

One of the great truths that is revealed through the prophets in the Bible is that God hates injustice. The Prophet Amos thunders against those who despise the truth, who trample the poor, who oppress the righteous and take bribes, who deprive the poor of justice in the courts. He says: “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24).

The time has surely come not only to recognise the injustices of the past, but to do something in the present day: to see what measures can be taken to stimulate prosperity and well-being in the Caribbean islands and, most importantly, to consult community and church leaders in the Caribbean communities in Britain, to say how sorry we are as a nation for the injustices of the past, to listen to them and to take positive measures to deal with the complex social issues they face.

It is not enough to condemn knife crime or to bemoan the killings in London. We have to do something to deal with the real issues that no politician has so far had the courage to face.

Read The Guardian’s article here.

Issachar Ministries, our parent charity, is involved in a budding work to address the issues outlined in the article above, called the ‘Movement for Justice and Reconciliation’, or MJR. Click here to find out about the work that MJR is doing.

Linda Louis-vanReed reports.

As most of you in the UK may by now be aware, the 'Day of Rage' supposedly planned by the group Anonymous in conjunction with Black Lives Matter did not materialise.

During the week beginning 11 July, 37 cities across the United States were put on alert in response to rumours that protests were to occur on Friday 15 July. Although 'Black Lives Matter' events can be peaceful, it has not been uncommon for people to attempt to use them as opportunities to create an atmosphere of physical violence and chaos.

As we remember all too well from the early days of Ferguson, these attempts often succeed, with disastrous results.

Peace Reigned

By the morning of Saturday 16 July, however, news reports all across the country confirmed that there had been little to no notable activity.

In Washington DC, a few protesters turned up outside the White House, peacefully holding signs, enjoying the lovely weather. In New York City, close to 30 LGBT activists rallied outside The Stonewall Inn (the first national monument dedicated to LGBT rights), then marched to the LGBT community centre on 13th Street.

In Dallas, where just days before five policemen had been killed in a sniper attack, no activity took place. In New Orleans, rumours that protests were to take place at famed Lafayette Square caused businesses to shut down early. Officers were instructed to respond only if there was trouble. But the evening came and went peacefully.

In St Louis police monitored specific high-traffic areas for activity, but only a scant few protesters showed up outside St Louis City Hall. In Ferguson, peace and quiet reigned.

The only activists who claimed to respond directly to the call for a 'Day of Rage' gathered in Oakland, California. As a group of 10 activists swelled to between 100 and 150, they impeded traffic at several downtown intersections. Attempts to obstruct on- and off-ramps along Interstate 880 were thwarted by the California Highway Patrol. No citations were given out during the protests.

In San Francisco a group of protesters gathered near the Mission Police Station, several of whom assaulted a news crew. Three people were arrested on suspicion of battery and resisting arrest. Garbage was thrown into the street and lit on fire, but police quickly extinguished the flames.

The News No-one Reported

The one story that the US press did not hear was that of the thousands of committed, involved Christians who, every day leading up to protest day, petitioned our Father that hearts and minds might be changed, that these plans might be confounded and come to nothing, that his hand would be on our nation and its people.

God heard us, friends, and God heard all of you in the UK who were also moved to respond in prayer for the United States. The eventual peace was, in no small part, a Divine response to our collective intercession. Thank you.