How many verses from Proverbs do you know by heart? And how many from the Authorised Version in particular? But here’s one that we all know: ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ (Pr 29:18a) Last Monday’s Hustings brought this verse to mind. And not in a good way.

 

All the candidates (with one possible exception) were stymied by the seeming collapse of the New Labour Dream. It was remarkable to see former ministers of state raking through the ashes of the last government as if its demise was a mystery in which they had no part. Whether Blairites, Brownites or old fashioned socialists, there was one consensus – economics had taken precedence over politics. A new vision was needed. Occasionally the audience murmured and applauded gently: a very polite revival meeting. But no-one delivered the rousing sermon. There was no vision. Are we still perishing?

 

The Tories have a clear and comprehensive vision for society. And ironically, this vision has been formed by Christians. Iain Duncan Smith had a conversion experience of sorts, ministered by one of the most inspiring Christian Socialists in the UK, Bob Holman. IDS’s Centre for Social Justice, led by former church leader Phillippa Stroud, has energised Conservative Central Office in the social arena in a way unseen in my lifetime. They have us on the back foot, and it’s a biblical vision that is driving them. All the leadership candidates reached out tentatively for a left-wing equivalent, but it eluded them.

 

The reason we use the AV translation of Proverbs 29:18 is because newer translations are more accurate, and don’t say quite what we want them to say. The NIV puts it this way: ‘Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.’ Politicians are not big fans of revelations. Either they appear in the Telegraph and lead to early retirement, or they come from the mouths of crazy fundamentalists and lead to things much worse than ‘scandals’.

 

Christians have something special to offer the labour movement: we are not afraid of a big story. We are happy to talk about the future of the universe, even as we are making a cup of tea for our neighbour. But our confidence comes from God. It is a revelation, a ‘prophecy’ (ESV), a vision from the heart of Yahweh, not created on a flipchart in an airless office. This God-vision, says the writer of Proverbs, has a remarkable effect. People no longer wrestle with the law, they obey it willingly. They are not passively obedient, they are actively engaged in Shalom-mongery. But it’s hard. It costs. Socialists know this instinctively, Christians Socialists particularly. We know that the gospel is alays a blessing and a challenge.

 

We live in an age in which ‘casting off restraint’ has become the ultimate virtue, rather than the ultimate vice. That is why Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ will fail: it is fundamentally at odds with the demon of individualism let loose in 1979. The labour movement must offer a vision of society, of community, of collective action, that will present the UK with an alternate reality; what Brueggemann calls ‘prophetic imagination.’ What is it that will get people off their sofas? A different manipulation of the tax system? It continues to be our responsibility to plant, feed and grow a vision that can energise the kind of collective community action that some of the candidates were hoping for. Buts let’s not make it up – we need revelation.

 

The most memorable moment of the Hustings was Andy Flannagan’s choice to open up the meeting with a brief reflection. It felt as if a doorway to heaven had creaked open an inch and the Spirit was sneaking into the room. It is our duty to keep that door open; indeed, to fling it wide.