Christ on his knees washing hot feet – his teaching moves fast – the king/ruler of Israel and the world – going to the centre of political rule to teach us. Rule is service, doing the common good, for the poor first and everyone before God, accountable, the servants in Westminster who die to selves and do only the politics of truth and bringing it all into the light. Law is submission to what is right and good. It is for all and the elimination of favourites, elites, riches and the worship of rulers. Herod, throwing his weight around and looking for adulation, was eaten by worms and died. Christ’s servant politics – the only hope for the whole world – insists we all die to Selves (the lifeblood of Leviathan). He walked to the conqueror’s cross, where all sin including the viciousness of empire and autocracy is held by God and forgiven. Christ holds human self-worshipping power to ridicule with the resurrection and gently turns the world upside down, or really the right way up, as some two billion people have realized one way or another. This is politics.
“Ah”, says Thatcher, “The real point about the good Samaritan was that he had the wealth to pay the innkeeper.” Do you really hear that twist? And there is “Wealth Creation” when only God creates and we receive blessings. “Wealth creation” was sacking workers and telling the others to work harder. “Wealth creation” was taking about a trillion of public assets and selling them cheap to your friends. Wealth creation was cheap labour in China and from immigrants and rewarding the south east. So, year after year the nation was brainwashed into believing in wealth. It was not just local, but worldwide as Reagan-Thatcher bestrode the world as figureheads under which the rich could grow richer. Bankers, who merely rearrange money in drawers, got massive rich. Everyone started talking about ladders, without asking what piss stupid people swaying at the top of ladders could do. Mammon had arrived as the “new” great god, and everybody was required to worship it, despite Paul’s warning that it is the root of all evil.
Mammon required Militarism, because concentrations of Wealth need defending. Enemy thinking makes money and arms companies profit round the world by selling weapons. Especially after Reagan-Thatcher, all the world was armed, so that, even after the collapse of the USSR under the weight of its militarism, when it too was handed over to rich oligarchs, the world was full of wars and rumours of wars, hollow in a culture of saying, Peace, Peace, while pursuing the opposite. The hypocrisy of militarism, from winning the Falklands War to the US posturing on the unnecessary Cold War inhabited our minds and language and dragging the world towards destructive wars in the 21st century.
The Biblical Judgement of God is often superficially understood. It is not God acting against us, but is largely being left to our own devices. I did it my way. The UK, potentially wise, was dragged into Tory greed. Blair turned out to be merely another version, more generous to the NHS, but prepared with Bush to back a war in Iraq against a disarmed foe on the basis of lies against the UN and international law which would render much of the Middle East in destructive turmoil. Then Blair was gone and our own devices were running the show.
What were our own devices? One was self-promotion and leadership. The New Testament shows us Peter’s training through failures, the slow routes to wisdom, but suddenly “iconic” Conservative leaders appeared. Cameron appears in the arctic promising the Greenest Government Ever while the great bonfire of the rich carries on. Suddenly, Eton supplies our leaders from the born rich brigade again. Now the truth, hollowed out by the Cold War and the lust for “power”, becomes mere presentation, spin and the rhetoric of Now. Truth is, Say anything and do nothing”, ready for Boris. Now the only Tory principle is keeping wealth in power and one other – Nationalism, selfish Nationalism, self-adulatory Nationalism – “We will lead the world.”
Now we are through Boris – the lying about the EU, the side of a bus, the corrupt Desmond-Jenrick deal followed by dozens more, the gravy train where the rich throw crumbs to their political puppets, the politics of Prime Minister’s Performance Time, the rubbishing and assassination of Corbyn, the purging of the older some-principles Tories, the lies, holidays, bluster, emptiness, “our nation”, never allow taxing the rich to be discussed, hollow, “we will fight them on the beaches”, Boris era, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Throughout the Boris rule, which has also marginalized Parliament further, compromised the rule of law, hidden truth, promised emptily, undermined the UN, championed militaristic nationalism and falsely presented most policy issues, we have been doing Brexit, effectively saying goodbye to Friends. Brexit does nothing.
The current leadership election by Tory MP’s and members (if it gets that far) is about their and our own devices, rhetorics constructed to win. A deep truthful examination of taxation would yield a very different discussion from the ones we have had. It is an election devoid of Christian content, principles, priorities and concern for peace and stewardship. The way of Christ is replaced by a rich spat with arguments driven by winning the next election for the rich. Naming it’s hollow content is the first step to addressing the depths of our failures.