Who rules Britain?

Some years ago when I was teaching students in London University for the BSc Sociology, the question that had caused the most difficulty in that year’s degree paper on ‘Modern Britain’ was simply three words: “Who rules Britain?”

Student answers at the time ranged from the Queen to voters. They included the Government, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, backbench MPs, the European Union, the Trade Union movement, bankers, the media, TV celebrities, political party activists, pressure groups and numerous other inventive suggestions.

Their answers revealed the complexity of our modern democracy where power is distributed over a wide range of institutions. They revealed the healthy checks and balances in our political system, but they also indicated a huge sense of powerlessness right across the nation. Nobody really has unlimited power.

The Queen has to sign whatever bills are presented to her - however much she may disagree with them. Whoever is Prime Minister continually has to look over their shoulder for those who are plotting to overthrow them. The Cabinet is there purely to do the bidding of the Prime Minister and may be summarily dismissed.

In a democracy, all political power is impermanent and transitory. Leaders exist at the whim of the public and face daily threats to their authority. The current challenges faced by both Theresa May and Donald Trump are cases in point: holding power in a democratic country is an uncertain and dangerous business!

Limits to power have been built in to our political system over centuries, but seasons of powerlessness can also be allowed by God to descend upon our national leaders.

There are limits to the exercise of power in every institution – even in dictatorships where mob rule can take over and wrest power from the hands of rulers like Mugabe as happened recently in Zimbabwe. But a sudden loss of power can also engulf leaders in a bank, or a great financial house such as Lehman Bros, or a shopping complex, or a manufacturer, or even in the Church.

Limits to power have been built in to our political system over centuries, but seasons of powerlessness and instability can also be allowed by God to descend upon our national leaders. In Britain today as the Brexit negotiations move towards deadlines, the sense of crisis is growing, but amongst both Remainers and Brexiteers there is also a growing sense of powerlessness!

This may seem like a negative thing, but it is actually a sign of great opportunity – if it is recognised by our leaders and responded to properly.

Why Powerlessness Can Be Good

Feelings of powerlessness are experienced at some point in life by all human beings. Circumstances conspire to leave us feeling unable to control and direct our lives as we would wish – and for each of us this presents a challenge: will we respond positively or negatively?

Negatively, feelings of powerlessness can lead to frustration, depression, mental illness and even suicide.

Positively, the recognition of our own powerlessness can also lead to creative thinking. Our objectives may be being frustrated, but if they are worthy we can think creatively to discover other ways of achieving them. If they are not worthy we may be forced to re-think our plans. More broadly, we might be challenged to re-evaluate who or what we serve, and in whom we are placing our trust.

This is the choice facing our political leaders in Britain today. They may well feel powerless in the face of a petulant EU, an angry electorate, divided MPs, concerned businesses and a media lynch mob. But this season in Britain’s history is nevertheless an opportunity to ask deeper, more creative questions about our future. What are we really seeking to achieve? What is in the best interests of the nation and what sort of people do we want to be? To whom, or to what, will we entrust our future?

Feelings of powerlessness are experienced at some point in life by all human beings: the question is, how will we respond?

It is not only Britain which is at a crossroads, but also the whole of Western civilisation. The General Election in Sweden last Sunday, which resulted in significant gains for the ultra-right populist Sweden Democrats, revealed public concern for the cultural threats posed by waves of mass immigration. The same concern for loss of traditional culture is to be seen in Germany, France, Hungary, Italy, Austria, the USA, Australia and Britain, where populist movements are challenging previously dominant elite groups for control over the direction of social change.

Pro-Brexit protesters outside Downing Street, last week. See Photo Credits.These are all nations whose cultures have, to some extent, been built upon Judeo-Christian foundations for centuries. It is the loss of this heritage that is now being felt keenly by ordinary citizens in these nations; although many in positions of power do not recognise this.

The Only Answer

This is where national leaders in the Church should play a major part in redirecting the values and objectives of the state – calling upon political leaders to re-examine their objectives. What do we want from Brexit? There is opportunity today to re-emphasise Judeo-Christian values of truth, integrity, faithfulness, loyalty, generosity, unselfishness and all the other biblical ethics that have proved to promote prosperity and blessing in our history.

At the same time, there is also enormous opportunity in amongst the Brexit mess for Church leaders to teach the nation a biblical lesson about our own helplessness – our spiritual inability to pursue goodness and truth without God’s help. Probably the most insightful passage in all the Apostle Paul’s writings is in Romans 7 where he writes about his own personal experience of powerlessness. He confesses, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.”

Billions of human beings today can say exactly the same thing: we don’t do the good things we want to do, but we find ourselves driven to do the very things that we hate. This is what leads to self-harm and depression among so many young people today.

Understanding and accepting our powerlessness in this ultimate spiritual battle against sin is the first step to rescue and recovery.

In answer to his own lament, the Apostle Paul points to the amazing, creative, transformative, life-giving power that came into his own life and can come to us. It comes when we cry out for help from Jesus, who through the Cross set us free from the power of both sin and death. Yes, in an instant, lives can be changed.

There is opportunity amid the Brexit mess for Church leaders to teach the nation a biblical lesson about our own helplessness – our spiritual inability to pursue goodness and truth without God’s help.

Revival?

And that goes for nations too! All that is needed now for revival to sweep across Britain is the recognition of our own powerlessness – individually and corporately - to resist the forces that are driving the nation towards devastating political and social destruction and blinding our leaders even to plain common sense.

Once we recognise that we have turned away from God’s truth and put ourselves outside his protection, and that on our own we are powerless to help ourselves, and once we cry out to God for help – his transforming power will come to our aid.

That would be revival! But revival cannot be organised. It is a sovereign act of God releasing a movement of the Holy Spirit among ordinary people like us. And right now, revival is the only hope for a better Britain. But it will not come unless believing Christians start declaring the truth and preparing the way through prayer.