Rector’s Reflections
Wednesday 19th June 2024
How Should a Christian Vote?
In yesterday’s reflections, I shared some thoughts on the following question: how will my individual vote relate to the Common Good? As Christians, it is not enough for us to think solely in terms of what is in our own best interests as individuals or as members of a particular group. We also need to think about what might be in the best interest of others, and in the best of interest of the whole. There are no straightforward answers when we consider such questions, but they are important questions, none the less.
When we start to think about others, and the well-being of our country as a whole, we remind ourselves that there are some people in our society who face particular challenges.
People can be vulnerable for many reasons. They may be suffering from ill-health , poverty, or poor housing conditions; indeed, they may be suffering from all of these, as ill-health, poverty and poor housing are often inter-connected. They may be victims of abusive relationships, within a family or a workplace. They may be victims of human trafficking. These are just a few of the reasons why some people in our society are more vulnerable than others.
Given this fact, what should be our response? Some people simply close their eyes to the suffering of others, perhaps because they have sufficient challenges in their own lives and there is insufficient bandwidth to deal with the problems of others. For some people, the problems faced by the most vulnerable in our society produce feelings of fear and anger. For example, some people are worried that if we are compassionate towards prisoners, this will mean that our society will lose its moral compass and that we will at the mercy of the criminals. Again, some people get angry at what they perceive as handouts given to the “underserving poor” , and assume that people who receive welfare benefits are in some sense failures or people who are deliberately milking the system for the sake of an easy life. Such feelings of fear or anger can be very easily whipped up by politicians and by the media.
The historian in me would remind us that as a society we have had a debate about the “undeserving poor” since at least the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st. Basically, since at least the 16th Century, English society has accepted that there is a general obligation to support those in poverty and need. However, there has always been a debate as to how this general principle should be put into practice. The debates about welfare which we have today are nothing new. In the main, people have debated two particular questions. To start with, should the support of the poor be left to the charitable impulses of generous individuals? Or should the State be the main provider of care for the most vulnerable? Secondly, should we care for all who are vulnerable, or only for those who are “deserving” of our care? This question is a tricky one. If we say that some people are “deserving” and some people are not, on what grounds do make this distinction? Who makes the decision? And what is the result of only caring for some people and not for others, morally and economically? Do the advantages of a targeted approach to welfare provision outweigh the disadvantages? And does much depend on our own particular circumstances and experience? For example, we are likely to have a different view on the welfare system if at some stage in our lives we ourselves have been in receipt of welfare payments. What is called the “lived experience” of poverty and powerlessness brings valuable insight to these debates.
So I suggest that the second question we should ask when we consider how we should cast our vote is this: how will my vote be of benefit to the most vulnerable in our society? There will be a variety of answers to this question, but it is a question we should ask.
This question leads into a further question, and we will look at this tomorrow.