The Politics of Integrity

but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. – Proverbs 11:3 (ESV)

It’s amazing that even thousands of years after it was written the Bible still has some pretty spot on remarks for today’s politicians and public figures. All this talk of expenses which has reared its head again naturally makes us decry the lack of integrity shown by some of our politicians, and recent moral failings on the part of certain sportsmen have provoked a similar response. This lack of integrity has been much derided over the past few months, rightfully so, but what on earth is integrity anyway? The popular conception of someone with integrity would probably be someone who’s got ‘good morals’, someone who’ll give you your change if you send them out for coffee, someone who can be trusted to be in the same room as your girlfriend without making a pass at them. There’s something in that, but as far as the Bible’s concerned there’s a lot more to be said. And as Christians in the political sphere it’s important we get this one right – we don’t have a monopoly on integrity, but it’s impossible to be ambassadors for Jesus, particularly somewhere as difficult as the political world, if our lives aren’t full of it.

We get the word ‘integrity’ from the same place we get the word ‘integer’. To be someone of integrity is to be a whole person – to be the same person when you’re praying on your own to when you’re bantering with your mates; as when you’re chatting to your parents to when you’re speaking to your boss. Obviously I don’t speak to my parents in the same way I speak to my boss, but just as (hopefully) I don’t lie to my parents, I don’t want to be lying to my boss either. Someone with integrity doesn’t have to put on a facade to try and convince people they’re someone they’re not, and doesn’t find themselves in situations where their actions don’t match the levity of their position in the eyes of others. They can be trusted. Integrity in our leaders, whether MPs or captain of the England football team, is, I would suggest, the quality we desire most – when expectations and reality don’t meet we get disillusionment on the scale we’re seeing at the moment. Indeed a ComRes survey for Susa published last week found that 72% of people think personal integrity is more important than party allegiance in their MP. This is such an important topic.

However, there’s a danger here in the quest for integrity. Having ‘integrity’ for integrity’s sake so it can be proclaimed as a mark of how decent a person you are is no integrity at all. The reality is that we are never going to even begin to live lives of ‘wholeness’ without God’s help. In Micah 6:8 we read

and to walk humbly with your God? – Micah 6:8 (ESV)

Justice, mercy and faithfulness as expressed here are the cornerstones of our faith. If we strive for these in our relationship with God and with others, focussing our attention on Jesus, then my hunch is that integrity will follow. To strive for integrity to boost one’s own reputation would seem to suggest that someone isn’t willing to get to the bottom of the disconnect between their private world and their public persona. And in that disconnect lies the problem.

There’s a danger that Christian politicians could be tempted to present themselves as ‘the candidate of integrity’, even using their faith to do so. This will not do. For Christians at least, integrity is the result of a life given over fully to God. It is to be observed, and not proclaimed.