Raw politics: any room for hope?

The high stakes of Easter can confront the natural order.

Owen Gallacher

Owen is a Pastor to Postgraduate Students at St Aldates Church, Oxford.

Preisdent Putin stands behind a lectern with a gold door and Russian flag behind him.

They say Putin is not in touch with reality. But when it comes to raw fundamental political reality, maybe he is? It could well be true that all our chat about goodness and beauty and love and faith is mere decoration. That it’s just a layer of fake grass that we use to cover over the harsher, concrete facts of our existence.

Things like the basic violence of the natural ‘order’ and the raw power politics inherent in our competing systems. We even have a habit of bestowing the prefix ‘real’ on such politics.

So is this ‘real’ stuff the concrete base layer of our existence? Is it the deepest truth? Is it the uncompromising reality that is always there, even as we prefer to cover it over with the fake grass of our stories of the beautiful and sweet songs of love?

Most of the evidence points that way: The stockpiles of nukes, the cutthroat colleagues, the succession of bullies intent on becoming the next big dog in the raw struggle for power.

I remember witnessing a violent assault at the tender age of eight. And the impact of encountering this ugliness on my young heart was a new shadow of fear. Suddenly the world was a colder and darker place. Then I grew up and became a priest. Which raises the question of whether I am spending my life just “whistling in the dark” to feel better? Am I just tending to the fake grass?

The celebration of Easter does not deny the darkness. It does not cover over the concrete. It claims, instead, that the ugly concrete base has in fact been cracked open to reveal a deeper subsoil, that there is something even more ‘real’, more true, more fundamental than the brutal struggle for power we currently all suffer within.

This is the high stakes of Easter.

it could be that our intuitions of beauty and experiences of love are, gloriously, not the stuff of fake grass and psychological coping mechanism

And here lies the deep and central significance of an obscure death on a Roman cross. It is the moment in which God, who is primordial love, faces up to the violent worst of murderous evil. Not with angel -armies to crush our sorry war-torn mess under a new almighty domination, which would only serve to confirm the lasting truth of the dark concrete layer, but by contradicting it, undermining it, through a humble death followed by resurrection.

I write it out and, to be honest, it is kind of surprising to me just how many people keep believing this unlikely story to be literally and deeply and seriously true.

It could be because most of us are not prepared to be as clear sighted as Putin (and all the others). That for some reason, we remain relatively unable to cope with being so brutally in touch with the cold, dark facts of the ugly concrete.

Or it could be that our intuitions of beauty and experiences of love are, gloriously, not the stuff of fake grass and psychological coping mechanism, but actually have their roots down deep into the subsoil of an infinite beauty and an ultimate love?

If so, it could also be that the strongest counter evidence available to us, countering all the nukes and bullies and violent domination, is noticing what lifts our hearts and moves us to tears? Beauty can do that. Violence cannot.

And so I keep whistling.

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Economics

23 October 2024

1 min read

Budgeting for discontent

The Chancellor can't please everyone, but is contentment possible?

Paul Valler

Paul Valler is an executive coach and mentor. He is a former chair of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

A woman stands behind a lectern against a blue and red backdrop.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves speaks at a recent event.

HM Treasury.

As the Chancellor Rachel Reeves seeks to raise billions in this Autumn budget, the news media are all over the downsides. Poor pensioners freezing during winter and businesses complaining of the tax burden are political headlines. Tough choices must be made, but we are rarely happy when it comes to money.

Economic discontent is ironically a cultural norm in first world countries. In the west we have become used to what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill – adjusting our expectations to any new benefits and finding ourselves wanting even more, to try to maintain the same level of happiness. It’s a mentality that dooms us to discontent. Socrates said, ‘He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.’

Contentment seems to be a forgotten virtue today, and increasingly elusive in a society striving for happiness through wealth. Yet being content in life is a more valuable form of wealth than money. There is something enormously attractive about a tranquil state of mind and heart. Contentment does not mean passive acquiescence; there is a noble side to being passionately discontented about something that is unjust – especially when we are fighting for others. William Wilberforce demonstrated that with his campaign for the repeal of laws allowing slavery.

Our personal challenge is to be content in ourselves, whatever the circumstances. Oscar Wilde said, ‘True contentment is not having everything, but being satisfied with everything you have.’ Practising paying attention to what we do have and being thankful for it. That attitude of gratitude is a recognised way to lift our mood and strengthen our resilience. But thankfulness doesn’t solve every problem. Warm words may help warm hearts, but they don’t heat cold homes. Although gratitude is proven to improve our wellbeing, it’s not enough to compensate for all the problems of life. Because here’s the deal; life is tough and then you die, and there are many worse things than economic woes.

Pain, grief and loss are all too common, and they can test our resilience beyond what feels like our ability to endure. Chronic physical or mental illness for example; or being permanently disabled. Or the life-sapping effort to parent children with special needs; or caring for a parent/partner with dementia - especially when it goes on and on. Sometimes horrible events happen like violent abuse, or the deep grief of relationship breakdown or bereavement. This level of suffering pushes us to the end of ourselves, to the place where something more than psychological self-help is needed. What is the secret of contentment then?

I don’t envy the Chancellor, and I do not trivialise the very real challenges raised by having to make tough economic choices.

This is where the secular and the Christian worldview are radically different. Secular philosophers call people to show their own self-sufficiency and superior reason when enduring suffering. This can feel principled and stoic, but it lacks empathy and hope. Christianity accepts the reality of our own weakness and insufficiency, recognising that we can’t fix everything ourselves. Instead of trusting in humanity, we choose to trust God both for this life and the life to come. And this trust and hope is linked to a deeper form of contentment, which transcends pure rationality.

Of course, sceptics say this is just psychological comfort from an imaginary friend, and it doesn’t make sense, because surely any good God would not allow us to suffer in the first place. But any realist must acknowledge that a lot of human suffering comes from the damaging exercise of our own free will. Wars and slavery are examples. If God were to override our free will, we would be robbed of the authentic capacity to love, which makes us fully human. The coexistence of free will, suffering and God is a complex issue.

The experience of millions of Christ followers is that trusting God is much more than imaginary comfort. God is real and prayer changes things; the most ordinary, natural and chance experiences can be affected by it. And prayer changes us. In our vulnerability, if we choose to trust God something changes, we begin to relax, things become a bit easier to bear. In fact, the apostle Paul claimed that Christ’s power was perfected in his own weakness.

Contentment is a strange peace that comes from trusting God in the middle of difficult circumstances. One of the great old hymns was written by a man who lost his four daughters in an accident at sea, and also lost all his money in a fire. The refrain says, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’ This isn’t denial or delusion, it is the inner sense of quietness that God can give. Only an eternal perspective allows for that kind of contentment.

I don’t envy the Chancellor, and I do not trivialise the very real challenges raised by having to make tough economic choices. Britain is clearly in a place where some stringent fiscal discipline is needed, and that will inevitably cause some hardship and difficulties. But in the face of all the discontent that is so freely shared in the news, there is another way to respond. Instead of complaining about our flawed Government or moaning about our circumstances, we can change our perspective to put our trust in the ultimate Authority. And in doing so can find a peace that the world cannot give. Contentment is a treasure beyond the wealth of nations.