Our Voice in the Community

In the Art Group, I wrote about a picture that we owned. Louisa Oakes and her husband gave it to my in-laws. They were Quakers and she was a well-known governor and Chingford councilor. Margaret has a number of memories of her, mainly as a simple and dedicated Christian. She remembers her coming to school presentation evenings with her pinny tied with string and wearing sandals. She had absolutely no personal vanity. Among other things that she did to serve the people of the area was to bequeath her house to the people of Chingford. For many years it was used as a centre for adult education.
To their shame, the local authority has now found a way to break the covenant and is selling it to party pay for refurbishing the Assembly Hall. The breaking of covenants is something that I have seen many times over many years. I have heard officers and councilors boasting how easy it is. It certainly doesn’t matter which party is in control; they all behave as badly. There is an arrogant assumption that they know better than the people who elect them or pay their salaries. One frequent reason given for their actions is sheer laziness. It is far easier to overcome the wishes of someone who is dead and can’t argue, rather than find a proper way to fund any plans they propose.
No, why should Christians be interested? It isn’t necessarily our role to be involved in party politics but moral and ethical issues in public life must always be our concern, It is also our concern that generous gifts to the people will not happen in the future if the wishes and intentions of the donors are likely to be deliberately ignored.
Christians have always led the opposition to abuses of authority. Stephen Langton led the barons in forcing King John to sign Magna Carta. Men like Beckett and More died for what they believed. The non-conformist element led the Parliamentary opposition to Charles the First, and every reform movement from the 18th century onwards was led by Christians. Any stand that we make against local and national government comes from a long tradition based on sound Biblical authority.
Only recently in my local church, the plight of asylum seekers in our community was brought to our attention. It is not necessarily our business to decide the exact methods that government use to control either immigration or asylum applications. However, it is our business to ensure those methods are humane and do not infringe the applicants’ human rights. What we find is another example of the laziness of officialdom. Having failed to provide a fast and efficient system, it has proved easier to try and drive the applicants away by denying them basic human rights. The right to work, shelter, health care and legal representation. This is morally indefensible and we must always stand where Christ would have stood – alongside the weak and abused.