The ten horns of Daniel’s beast vision have been and gone

Society’s basis for fairness and justice

Coronavirus, nationhood and the spiritual battle over boundaries

Historic events and upheavals point to biblical truth

Humanism: the fruit of a Greco-Roman worldview.

Boris’s deal and the prospects for regaining our independence.

What next for beleaguered Britain?

Where is the prophetic voice that is so desperately needed?

We should not be surprised at the scenes of chaos in Parliament. Each of the MPs has been voted as a representative of the people. A rebellious Parliament is a reflection of a rebellious nation. The chaotic scenes are simply a reflection of a nation in chaos. We have rejected the venerated heritage of our fathers and what we are seeing is the result of our own folly.

The House of Commons is a reflection of family life in the nation. There is hardly a family in Britain that has not been affected by breakdown. Millions of children suffer from the disruptive behaviour of their parents; they lose the security of home life and they lose their friends, their education is disrupted and their life chances lessened. Millions of children now suffer mental and emotional problems because the nation has lost its moral and spiritual compass.

The Bible that provided the basis for personal and corporate behaviour is no longer taught in our schools to all children and is absent from the vast majority of homes; so family life no longer reflects the values of truth, integrity, faithfulness and loyalty.

This is why we have a chaotic and dysfunctional Parliament. It all starts in the family! If children are brought up in loving, stable and secure families and taught biblical values at a young age, the chances are very high that they will grow up to be stable and trustworthy adults, speaking the truth and making a good contribution to the community.

The House of Commons is a reflection of family life in the nation: dysfunctional, rebellious, chaotic.

50 Years of Change

For 50 years this nation has been steadily eroding its biblical foundation that made it a great nation and what we now see in our dysfunctional, rebellious Parliament is the result. Both the Leader of the Opposition and our Prime Minister have been notorious rebels throughout their political careers. They now shout at each other across the despatch box, the world looking on with amazement to see the famous ‘Mother of Parliaments’ torn asunder by 650 rebels in utter disarray.

For the older generation who were brought up with biblical values of gentleness, respect and unselfishness – (God first, others second, self last) – it is simply excruciating to watch this generation of overgrown, unruly infants tearing the nation apart with their mindless behaviour. I can echo the words of the Prophet Ezekiel: “Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people” (Ezek 12:2).

Who is to Blame?

When everything goes wrong in the nation, the biblical principle is not to blame the politicians but to blame the religious leaders. Listen to this, also from Ezekiel: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves” (Ezek 34:10).

And from Jeremiah: “Among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen something horrible: they commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his wickedness” (Jer 23:14).

As a senior churchman who has worked alongside the last four archbishops of Canterbury (Donald Coggan, Robert Runcie, George Carey and Rowan Williams), I have been a close observer of church leadership in the nation since the mid-1970s.

I saw at first-hand what a group of unbelieving bishops did when Donald Coggan made an impassioned ‘call to the nation’ to return to biblical values in 1975. They hounded him out of office, vowing that they would oppose any other Bible-believing evangelical getting into Lambeth Palace – hence the appointment of Robert Runcie, the most liberal Archbishop we have ever had, at a time of radical social change when the prophetic voice of the Church was desperately needed.¹

When everything goes wrong in the nation, the biblical principle is not to blame the politicians but to blame the religious leaders.

No Prophetic Voice

Today we have a group of 25 Church of England bishops publishing a statement about Brexit that is full of political correctness but has no Gospel in it. It has no prophetic call to the nation to turn to God. In fact, there is no mention of God!!! No call to prayer, no call to ‘repentance’, no recognition of our departure from the word of the Lord which is why the nation is in such trouble!

The bishops reflect the same secular humanist, globalist spirit as the rest of the establishment who are defying the referendum and trying to keep Britain locked into the European Union.

Replacing Israel

If church leaders would only bother to read the Bible – the whole Bible, not just little bits of the New Testament – they would understand the nature of the spiritual battle that is raging across Britain and much of Europe today.

In their ignorance, they think that the Church has replaced Israel, so they don’t bother to study the Old Testament. Therefore, they do not understand the lessons we can learn from the history of Israel: they don’t know what the prophets refer to as the ‘deeds of the Lord’ and they don’t understand the way God is working out his purposes today – how he is shaking the nations, even sending natural disasters that we label ‘climate change’. They don’t understand why God is doing all these things – in fact they do not even recognise that God is active today in the world he created! The Church is silent at a time when the word of the Lord is desperately needed.

We are a nation under judgment - that is why there is such confusion. There are strong warnings in the Bible about the consequences of rejecting the teaching God has given to us: “The Lord will send on you...confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to…” (Deut 28:20). This is what we are seeing in our Parliament and on our city streets. The only hope is for repentance and turning to God - but when will the prophetic voice be heard? Do we have to wait until catastrophe envelops the nation?

References

1 See Clifford Hill, The Reshaping of Britain. Wilberforce Publications, 2018.

Frances Rabbitts reviews Samuel Burgess’ timely defence of Britain’s political heritage.

Mention the word ‘conservatism’ these days in the context of politics and many will automatically assume you are referring to the Conservative Party. The word may also trigger an adverse reaction, as it has gathered some negative connotations: unfettered greed, elitism, obstinate refusal to accept change.

In this timely, concise volume from Wilberforce Publications, Samuel Burgess pares away the vagaries and peculiarities of party politics from the much longer-standing (even ancient) political/philosophical tradition of conservatism, acknowledging where the former and the latter have coincided over the years, but also where they have parted company.

In so doing, Burgess ‘rediscovers’ conservatism as a rich heritage of principles and values with a huge amount to offer in modern-day Britain. His contention is that politics is a moral endeavour (being concerned with the bettering of individual, civic and national life) and that only conservatism is morally substantial enough to guide us in the days ahead.

A Valid Philosophy for Our Time

At 190 pages this is a relatively slim volume, but the prose is considered, eloquent and thought-provoking. Complex subjects are dealt with cogently, though it is by no means a light read.

Burgess starts by dispelling the myth that conservatism is just about preserving the status quo, unpacking its substantive principles, its historic roots in English common law and its debt to the ‘father’ of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, who is quoted regularly thereafter. Eight subsequent chapters consider matters of civic importance in Britain today, including the idea of the nation-state, the market, freedom under law, culture, religion, the environment and even the idea of beauty, showcasing in relation to each the virtues of a truly conservative approach.

Burgess does not provide comprehensive accounts of these subjects (or the book would be far longer than it is) but offers succinct outlines in accordance with his core argument. As such, this is a book that will start conversations more than finish them. But Burgess undoubtedly achieves his overall goal: to set conservatism back on the table as a valid philosophy for our time (and, presumably, to remind those who ally themselves with the ‘Conservative’ Party what they ought to be standing for).

Burgess ‘rediscovers’ conservatism as a rich heritage of principles and values with a huge amount to offer in modern-day Britain.

Refreshingly Constructive

In unpacking the goods of conservatism it is obviously necessary to highlight how and why other approaches have failed. Burgess strikes a good balance, not indulging in excessive debunking of philosophies like liberalism and socialism but letting the virtues of conservatism speak for themselves. As such, the book is a refreshingly constructive, uplifting read.

The beauty of conservatism, according to Burgess, is that it is not so much a grand political project as a common-sense set of principles, rooted in an objective view of reality and morality (i.e. truth really exists, as do objective standards of good and evil). These principles can be applied to the specifics of any issue or circumstance. Conservatism is therefore a creative, flexible philosophy which allows for society to develop according to the uniqueness of individual places and people – provided they remain rooted in the soil of morality. Conservatism is, according to Burgess, “a political expression of a belief in moral order” (p162).

Unlike liberalism and socialism, conservatism recognises that human nature contains both good and evil and seeks to harness this complex, messy moral reality for the betterment of society. This realism gives conservatism appeal to everyone, not just to Christians. However, throughout the book we catch glimpses of conservatism’s Christian roots – for instance its understanding that true freedom is not about license and permissiveness, but about deference to legitimate authority and flourishing within good moral boundaries.

As the chapters unfold, we discover that conservatism is a friend of gradual, organic change (rather than overnight revolution) and is innately social, recognising the importance of kinship and community. Indeed, we discover that conservatism has people and their best interests at its heart.

Because each chapter is relatively brief given the depth of the subject material, it would have been good to have some further reading recommended at chapter ends. In places, Burgess could also do more to connect his comments back into his main argument about conservatism, especially for readers without a grounding in political philosophy. But these criticisms are minor and do not detract from the overall worth of the book.

Unlike liberalism and socialism, conservatism recognises that human nature contains both good and evil and seeks to harness this complex, messy moral reality for the betterment of society.

High Stakes

Today, the stakes are high. Transnational governance threatens to supersede the nation-state, libertarian individualism is leading to community disintegration and aggressive secular liberalism is stifling freedom of speech. We desperately need to recover a more reasonable, positive, common-sense approach. More than this, we need to have the confidence to put morality and belief back at the heart of politics, recognising that this is the only route to social order and true flourishing.

These are complex issues, but Burgess provides a robust, hopeful defence of why conservatism’s framework for a flourishing society is unparalleled. Today, we seem intent on throwing away its hard-won benefits, accrued over centuries, and these will not be recouped overnight. Our challenge is not to recreate the past, however, but to learn from it and look to the future. The first step is to re-envision ourselves, strengthening our confidence in values which have been much derided and ‘deconstructed’ in recent years. In this, Burgess has done us all a great service.

Whether or not we can recover what has been lost without wholesale repentance and return to belief in God, Burgess leaves unanswered. Nevertheless, the book remains an empowering reminder that Christian beliefs birthed a rich political tradition in Britain with much to commend itself to our modern age. Conservative principles are grounded in timeless truths and will still be standing when all other ideologies have crumbled.

This book is a must-read for those in government, for anyone concerned about how to blend faith with politics and for all who seek a better understanding of how Judeo-Christianity has blessed our politics in the past and could yet do so again.

‘The Moral Case for Conservatism’ (2019, Wilberforce Publications, paperback, e-book) is available online for £10 (£5.49 on Kindle).

You may also be interested in Samuel Burgess’s first book:

‘Edmund Burke’s Battle with Liberalism’ by Samuel Burgess (2017, Wilberforce Publications)

The British people benefit from an extraordinary political heritage, but few know very much about it, or about the debt we owe to the faithful individuals who went before us and helped to create it. 18^th-Century Irish statesman Edmund Burke is one such giant, on whose shoulders we now stand.

In this, Samuel Burgess’s first book, we are treated to an in-depth look at the ‘father’ of modern conservatism and his political legacy. Edmund Burke sought to uphold a biblical approach to politics at a time when the tyranny and moral anarchy of the French Revolution were threatening to spill across the Channel into Britain, ideologically and physically.

Burke’s political defence of the realm was influential at the time, but his was also a prophetic voice. Though libertarianism was rejected in the 18^th Century as too radical, it enjoyed a resurgence in the late 20^th Century and now dominates our politics, media, language and culture, paving the way once again to coercion and authoritarianism.

Burke’s political defence of the realm was influential at the time, but his was also a prophetic voice.

In seven chapters, Burgess unpacks Burke’s Christian beliefs and how they shaped his approach to politics. As he goes, Burgess shows how unique the Christian conservative tradition is in its beliefs about humanity and the world and what it offers in an era of political turbulence and confusion.

In the latter part of the book, there is some similarity with material in ‘The Moral Case for Conservatism’, but the difference in focus between the two means that both books are still worthwhile purchases. ‘Edmund Burke’s Battle with Liberalism’ lays a good historical foundation for ‘The Moral Case for Conservatism’ and the books can be seen as companion volumes.

Burgess’s first book is perhaps a little less accessible and more academic than his second, but no less important. Apart from anything else, it is a solid encouragement that the path we tread today has been trodden before: that great men of faith have gone before us, battling the same powers, learning the same lessons and shining a light on the way forward which we would do well to heed. Edmund Burke is not a well-known name outside the realm of political theory, but it ought to be. We owe him much.

‘Edmund Burke’s Battle with Liberalism’ (180pp) is available from Amazon for £9.99 (paperback) or £4.99 (Kindle). Find out more on the Wilberforce Publications website.

What are the spiritual dynamics behind all the Brexit fury?