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Gordon Brown: 'More than a Market Place'
I have always believed that the public square is more than a marketplace. Our common realm is not and cannot be stripped of values – can never be merely a place for calculation, contract and exchange. So I do not subscribe to the view that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life – that you can ask people to leave their faith at the door when they enter a Town Hall or the Commons’ chamber.
The Christian contribution to British politics, and to the Labour Party in particular, is immense. For more than 50 years the Christian Socialist Movement has been a prophetic voice to both the Party and the church. Congregations and the Christian charities have been Britain’s conscience on issues from debt cancellation to child poverty to the good stewardship of the Earth. Each of these great campaigns mounted by the churches is rooted in the idea that we are each our brother’s or sister’s keeper. It is that ideal which inspired the Labour Government as we trebled aid and cancelled debt, lifted half a million children out of poverty and signed the world’s first ever Climate Change Act.
The financial crisis was perhaps the toughest test yet of our progressive resolve. During the most tumultuous days of the recession, I kept returning to something I first learned in my father's church as a child. In this most modern of crises I was drawn to the most ancient of truths; wherever there is hardship, wherever there is suffering, people of good conscience cannot pass by on the other side.
The lessons of the gospels need not be kept separate from political life. If Christians engage with politics, we can together build a society where wealth helps more than the wealthy, good fortune serves more than the fortunate and riches enrich not just some of us but all. That is why I entered politics, and the vision which inspires me still.
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Gordon Brown, 19/02/2010 |
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