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Andy Flannagan: Why Christians SHOULD Be Involved in Politics || SLP573 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Can I tell you a secret?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: But you already are polluted.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you already are corrupted.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: I could talk about the petrol in your car that's supporting some fairly shocking Middle Eastern states that are oppressing Christians and oppressing women.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: I could talk about the crystals in your mobile phone that are supporting some fairly shocking practices in slave labor and sub-Saharan Africa.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: I could talk about your broadband, I could talk about your mortgage, I could talk about your pension supporting arms trade.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we are involved, we are polluted, we are corrupted.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: So to try and create this separate little world that we can somehow stay separate from and feel a bit better about ourselves, it's just a false way of looking at it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do you make the argument to those who want Britain to be a secular society and the Christians can have their own private views, but bringing them into politics is uh completely out of court.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean I just fundamentally disagree.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you said to me, Andy, you have to have religion and politics separate.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, I just are you just going to slice down the inside of my body.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd be quite often talking to students and they say, you know, but religion and politics should be separate.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll hopefully humbly say, well, oh, by politics, do you mean things like education and healthcare?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they'll say, Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, remind me who built the first schools in the UK, and remind me who built the first hospitals, you know.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: I it's not that simple to actually separate these things.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus, including politics.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we've got Andy Flanagan on the line.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: He is the executive director of Christians in Politics.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Andy.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Glenn.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: How are you, sir?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing really well.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd start with just a really easy topic for you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so just start off at 10.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: What is politics?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Whoa, okay.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, gosh, we're I well, I think I think I should go right back then.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go, let's go right back to Genesis 1.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in the image of God created them, made in the image of God to represent his rule and reign.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: That call to Adam and Eve, to leadership, to stewardship, to responsibility in the breadth of creation, which is not just you know looking after the Sunday morning stuff, that's looking after the breadth of creation.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: That call very clearly goes out then.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, fascinatingly, that call goes out before anything goes wrong.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, before there's any dysfunction, before there's any sin in the world, that call goes out.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so that flies in the face of I think uh a convenient thought that we sometimes have these days that uh the idea of governance, the idea of politics, is just a necessary evil to constrain evil.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's that sort of thr thread of theology that goes actually, no politics, you know, it's a it's a dirty game.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: We'll just we'll outsource that to the non-believers.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: We'll we'll we'll because because it's it's just we'd rather not have to do it, but but I guess we have to because there's evil in the world, we have to do things to fix things.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um actually that's not a biblical way of looking at governance and and how we order society.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that call to good leadership, to ethical leadership, to representing being made in the image of God, to representing his rule and reign, that comes right before anything goes wrong.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it would be per, you know, it would appear that even perfection needs managed, you know.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then and you know, and actually that that is actually shown in eternity.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's promised.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Paul writes to us that we will be ruling and reigning with him, that that's our eternal occupation as well.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so this bit in between is just our chance at an apprenticeship of being involved in that responsibility to lead within the breadth of creation.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ruling, reigning, dominion language is coming in in Genesis chapter one.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's something to do with, and you said it's about representing God and his dominion over creation.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's something to do with stewarding the world, stewarding society in God-honouring ways.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: How how would we put what I think yeah, and I think I think I I I major in the word authority more than I major in the word dominion because of you know some of the ways that that leads to our our you know, human, especially our Western mind now thinking about how power structures work.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that God the whole way through scripture makes it clear that he is in ultimate authority, but he attaches himself to the underdog.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: He's the god of the underdog who uses Gideon, who uses Mary, who chooses Israel.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you have ultimate power, you have to work pretty hard to make sure you have to be sure that people aren't seeing you as that kind of despot that they're used to seeing, the sort of authority they're used to seeing.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people will say to me at the end of one of you know, at the end of a Christians in politics presentation, Andy, you've convinced us that uh that Jesus was political, you've convinced us that when he was talking to the religious leaders, they were also the political leaders, therefore, you know, he was he was speaking politically.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: You've convinced us that the temple wasn't just a place of worship, that it was more like a civic center.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: You've convinced us that Jesus was political, but you haven't convinced me that he was a politician.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um and at and at that point you sort of go, Well, yeah, oh yeah, that that is that is true, but he wasn't an airline pilot or an accountant either, you know.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so we need to be careful in how we how we follow him.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, when you have the problem of being God, when you are have ultimate power, the lack and you're wanting to show that your kingdom is not of this world and it's a different kind of kingdom, the last thing you're going to do in the incarnation is come as a politician.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think that means that his people who follow him shouldn't be involved in that rule in those roles of public leadership.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's that it's that authority piece that we are we are saying that we are sitting under his ultimate authority, that you know all things through him and for him, and therefore we represent his rule and reign.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're called to give give our opinion and give our efforts and our best guess through scripture at what he would want and how he would want to see society ordered.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But isn't that telling that when you talk about politics, instantly people want to think about politicians, um, the professional, you know, the MPs in Westminster, or or they think about punditry um and they tune into the rest of his politics podcast or whatever, or they get they get angry at Talkback Radio or that that kind of thing.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: When people hear politics, they hear politicians and kind of a professional game that's being played.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um what what do you what do you think people are hearing when they hear the word politics?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think the the problem is it it's all the little worlds, the little subsets that we exist in.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I have the privilege of working with so many politicians, and so I'm able to see that they're not a different breed of people, that they are mostly just normal people who are desperate to serve their constituents, who are desperate to serve, whether as local councillors, whether as regional assembly members, whether as members of in in parliament.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the reality is it's an incredibly difficult job to live in two separate geographical locations, to be under constant 24-hour media scrutiny, it's incredibly challenging.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact sometimes that it's that sense, it's that sacred secular divide that comes into the church sometimes where we would rather outsource that harder bureaucratic work to those who are just going to do the leg work while we'll do the Sunday morning stuff.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when we take, when we hear Jesus say, render onto Caesar, what is Caesar's, and render unto God, what is God's, we go, Oh, thank goodness, thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you, that we can separate religion and politics.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: None of those awkward dinner table conversations, you know, render on to Caesar, what is Caesar, and render onto God, what is God.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: When actually, that's our Western individualist mindset, reading something wrong into that passage.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: When Jesus stood up, what his first century Palestine people would have heard would have been, render unto Caesar, what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this small little area of delegated authority under the context of his overall supreme authority.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's what he was saying.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore, therefore, politics is just one of the ways that that authority is exercised, and it's just one of the ways, but it is a very strategic way.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you're saying that the render to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God's.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: In the West, we kind of do this, you know, and if you're just listening on the podcast, you know, we we do, you know, to the right, sorry the Caesar to the left, uh, sacred matters, uh, whereas you're you're doing concentric circles.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and and maybe and and that's not to say that what Caesar is doing is bullseye, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: At the very center of God's activity, but in the overlap of what God is doing in the world, well, he has some delegated authorities who have the authority to wield the sword.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're saying?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, and and Jesus reiterated that in the conversation, the famous conversation with Pontius Pilate.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, when Jesus said, you know, you would have no authority, but it was given you from above, we often jump on that and go, Yeah, ah, rah-rah, rah, yeah, that's Jesus winning the argument.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well done.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it's you have to stop and notice that he's actually affirming his earthly authority.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: He's affirming the fact that he's been given earthly authority, yet he's reminding him where it comes from.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess the the the most recent experience uh I saw that having real politic action in the real world was at the national prayer breakfast in in 2022.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: I had the privilege of leading worship at that, and and we were singing the wonderful hymn, Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um stood up before before we stood up to sing it, and I sort of looked down.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was quite you know, it was pretty intimidating to stand with a guitar in front of uh Keir Stormer and Boris Johnson and Justin Welby.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I really felt I really felt a nudge to say, you know, it's quite amazing to stand and sing this song in the midst of Westminster Hall.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're singing that famous last verse, Angels in the Heights adore him, ye behold him face to face.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, it's not often you can actually stand somewhere with angels looking down at you, those incredible sculpted angels in the roof of Westminster Hall.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you're saying, look, you know, they're not there by accident.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: The people who designed this place put them there on purpose so that the people who would work and walk below would be constantly reminded that ultimate authority does not lie with them, that the book does not stop there, that ultimate authority rests elsewhere.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was trying to say that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we had 190 parliamentarians in the room that morning, and you really genuinely had a sense that more people than normal were bowing the knee to that ultimate authority and stopping and taking a moment.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And there were a couple of beautiful moments in the service where you know this uh girl Lucy uh Clasper was playing cello.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: This, this you could hear a pin drop.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: I drove home shaking.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: I called my wife and said, I don't know what happened in that room, darling.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what happened, but something happened.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: It was incredible.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: You could feel the power of God in the room, and then and well, one of the things that happened, we found out at tea time was that Saji Jave resigned and said, You know, I can't with any integrity serve in this government anymore, and then stood up in the House of Commons the next morning to say that because of what he experienced after the national prayer breakfast, he was resigning.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, so so don't tell me that that authority still doesn't have an impact, you know?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's not just conceptual, it's not just theoretical.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's you know, that's that's the that's the air that we live and breathe in.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think Sajid Javid was experiencing?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you think were some of the processes?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've only heard little snatches of him mention the prayer breakfast, but what like what is that interaction of the the faith-based kind of life and and the political life?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: How how do these things move from one sphere to the other?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: After people obviously got quite excited the next day when he shared the fact that it was because of being at the prayer breakfast, but quite quickly a big war started to happen on social media where people were saying, Oh, you Christians are so naive.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Of course he's saying that because he's about to put his name forward for conservative leadership for folks who are mostly Christian and therefore he's just buttering up the Christians before he says that.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're so naive, that didn't happen.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is just political.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and at that point, I you know I sent a message back to a lot of those folks on social media saying, Well, you know, there's loads of times that I've been challenged by a really provocative sermon, um, or just by being in the presence of God, and I've been challenged, or I've heard something that's really challenged me that I know I have to action, but simultaneously my own agenda has kicked in.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that happens to me all the time.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's possible for two things to be true at the same time, and I think that's one of the real challenges of our social media environment that you you very rarely have have you got people acknowledging that two two things can be true at the same time, that there can be parallel tracks, that somebody actually has been like genuinely convicted and challenged, yet as we all do, our own selfishness our and our own agenda kicks in as well.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, having spoken to some of the folks who worked for Sajid uh during that time, um I'm I'm pretty confident that accurately that was what was both things were going on.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and it and it had uh big uh political ramifications for for Johnson's government and for the country.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um for those who don't remember that that was the first domino that meant that Boris Johnson resigned just uh two or three days later.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when when it looked like nothing would shift him.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, so yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um tell me why do you care so much about politics, Andy?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me some of some of your own story and and and why this is a burden for you.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, I mean I guess it started when I was a student.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was a medical student.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: I used to be a doctor before doing all this, and um uh I was a medical student, but I was doing a lot of stuff in the summers between uh uh term time with Tier Fund and learning a lot about the state of the world and the state of the world economic system, the state of the water cycle, the state of the WTO, um the learning a lot about debt, learning a lot about how um multinational corporations operated, sometimes uh with not the greatest ethics in various parts of the world, having the chance to go and visit sweatshops in Bangladesh and see uh you know folks stitching who were like 12, 13 years of age, stitching labels onto jeans that said made in Germany, made in the UK, but they were blatantly being made in in a garment factory in Dhaka in Bangladesh, and seeing how our affluence and our consumerism and our greed really was having a massive impact on the lives of so many people around the world.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that got me angry, got me exploring and got me researching um uh the state of the planet, and um, I started I was I've always played guitar and sung songs, so I started singing some of those songs, uh, and more and more people started listening to them.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I started to get used by some of those NGOs, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Tier Fund, uh, open doors, you know, going to Egypt to see how Christians were being persecuted in Egypt, writing songs about that, coming back here, singing them, and then increasingly being asked to sing those songs uh in parliament to politicians.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and while while they're meeting some of those politicians, started to realise, gosh, there is no magic dust here.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's nobody here operating on a higher moral, intellectual, spiritual plane.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, it kind of surprised me a little bit, I guess.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: A wizard of oz moment.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and and thought, do you know what?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: I the sort of folks I've met in the world of NGOs and and in the world um of the church, there's far better, intelligent, insightful, forward-seeking, prophetic, strategic leadership going on that could actually impact this world.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, God opened a whole set of doors to actually be able to serve into the worship and the prayer and the Bible study stuff going on at Parliament, and then and you know, to get further involved and then get involved in some policy stuff as well.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it was a gradual story of God opening doors to be able to get involved and to hopefully encourage other people.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, my job now is encouraging um other people across that bridge into the world of politics, so that as Christians, we're not just doing that classic Christian thing of shouting from the sidelines, but actually getting onto the pitch, actually encouraging people to do that, but for people to do that well, to do that in a well a way that is biblical and to do it in a way that's relational.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because um you've you've said uh a couple of times that um Jesus was political and you want Christians to to be political and to engage more, which interestingly I I often use exactly the opposite words, um, but I wonder whether we mean quite similar things.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm I'm constantly telling people can we please just lower the temperature?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Can we depoliticize?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've often said that you know our our society kind of with a massive God vacuum, everything else has to elevate to kind of occupy that highest space in our affections and our loves, and without God, well obviously politics you know goes to highest space, and then even entertainment and sports kind of gets elevated and it becomes incredibly political and everything becomes heightened.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm I'm constantly saying, can we just depoliticize?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can we just lower the temperature?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it it sounds to me like we're not saying a million miles different things.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so persuade me to start using the language of get more political, because that because my my inclination is to say depoliticize.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I think it's just the semantics of the language to some extent.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: We we're often talking about you know, get get involved.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: We need salt and light involved in the different political tribes, you know, we need people to be in the midst of it, not just shouting from a distance, but involved, because when you're involved, not only uh can you be salt and light more effectively, you have to be inside the system, inside the structures, inside the parties to have an impact.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: But also we want people to smell Jesus from us, we want people to become Christians.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just about wanting better policies and wanting more righteous leadership.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: We actually want people to get to know Jesus, and that's why, and that happens much more easily when you're actually on the inside rubbing shoulders.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we're encouraging people unashamedly to be involved in the tribes, but we're also strongly saying don't lose your identity to the tribe.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as as someone who comes from Northern Ireland, I think that's that's the process you're describing there, that actually we have allowed things that should be secondary identities, like being a Brexiteer or a Remainer or being a progressive or a conservative, we've allowed those things to become primary identities.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: So rather than our primary identity being so focused on Jesus, so rooted in Jesus, we end up because we need in the toxicity of social media and in the tough world out there, we want a sense of belonging, so we grab all the more strongly for those secondary identities, which should be secondary, tertiary, quaternary identities.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, we grab them and we and they end up actually, if we're honest, becoming our primary identity.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that and you know the Bible has a word for that, and it's idolatry when we give unthinking devotion to something.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and sadly, I I have a very as you can imagine, Glenn, I have a very broad spread in my social media feed of people like right across the political spectrum.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: But sadly, I I can observe really clearly when when folks' primary identity is shifting from Christ to their tribe.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: I can see it.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: What are the telltale signs?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's the visceral responses on social media, it's the knee-jerk tribal reaction to anything because and I say it because I know it, because it's the response of my people.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: The the Protestants of Northern Ireland, you know, I grew up in a context where um you couldn't just have an academic philosophical discussion about a red, white, and blue flag going up in a green, white, and gold area, or vice versa.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's when we've allowed the red, white, and blue to become our primary identity rather than Jesus.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's when we've allowed our green, white, and gold to become our primary identity.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when when somebody pokes your primary identity, like somebody puts the wrong flag up in an area, that's when we get violent.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's when scary things happen, that's when riots happen.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's that visceral response, that knee-jerk visceral response you see from people online when somebody is poking something that has become too close to them, that they've allowed too close in, that they've given unthinking devotion to a way of thinking, and it happens really subtly and really gradually.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it but it's happened even more during lockdown as we've spent more time online and people who previously hadn't been online with the guardrails, especially folks of the older generation, I have to say, who have suddenly got a lot of online time without the guardrails of realizing that maybe not everything I read will be true and getting sucked into various silos on online.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's and and then the anxiety levels that COVID brought, which make us all the more susceptible to a conspiracy theory or to something that will actually rile us or actually get us all the more angry.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you've mentioned a lot of things that are stirring the pots.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh earlier you mentioned Brexit and Romain.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then we think about COVID, we think about social media and its impacts um all the way along.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um we've had our second um Trump pres presidency uh beginning in January.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: How should those I mean, probably probably half uh well, there's probably about 35% of our audiences from the US and about 35% of our audiences from the UK and and the rest of the world takes up the the the remainder?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um how do you sit on this side of the Atlantic and see the ways in which social media brings to us um culture wars from another place?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: How how should Christians who are in the UK, for instance, um think through the Trump presidency and everything that all kinds of media are throwing at us surrounding the Trump Presidency?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think we just have to be really careful that we're not giving our unthinking devotion to anything, that we're not becoming that we're not allowing idols to be built.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: The interesting thing, when you talk about an idol, it's a really helpful framing for this stuff of what's happening in front of our eyes.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think we are seeing a lot of idolatry, but you've got to remember that an idol is a good thing.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we all want to paint stuff as good and bad, you know, that's the hero, that's the villain.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's so simplistic.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Idolatry happens, you know, we think about Food, think about sex, think about money.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: These are good things, these are gifts of God.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: So these particular ways of political thinking or these particular characters can be either neutral or not necessarily bad.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: But if we give unthinking devotion to them, that's when something becomes an idol.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's when something looms so large, that's when food or money looms so large, or sex looms so large in our lives that we're we're starting to get into an unhealthy place.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's why we need to be accountable and we need to be in communities as we're interacting with this stuff.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the problem with the online interaction is it's often very unaccountable.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, podcasts and online information disciple people hugely, but they're not good disciplers.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're designed to be discipled locally, and I fear that too many people, yes, we want to take uh excellent wisdom from those who write stuff that'll be from far beyond our borders, but I would say the higher percentage of our discipleship and our accountability uh to elders has to be local, has to be in the context of our own churches.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so my fear is that quite often what is happening is that people are doing their kind of personal devotion type discipleship with a local church, but then they have this almost like other this alter ego that exists online, and it's because those two worlds of discipleship haven't been joined, and we need spaces where we can do that, where we can bonnet, because these are important issues to be talking about.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like these political issues and the stuff that's happening in our world are not important.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: We've got massive issues to talk about, huge issues, um, but they need to be in the light and they need to be open to the accountability of others.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: You can go and say, I you Margaret, you know when you when you posted that the other day and you said that to that guy?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um is that really what you thought?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because because I know that guy and and you know he's not evil and he's not you know that that actually we just we need this stuff to be much more in the light.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, okay, that's that's very interesting, and therefore, um when I'm telling people you need to depoliticize, um I think you're saying something more helpful in that setting, which is um don't just turn the temperature down on on politics, turn the temperature up on Jesus, turn the temperature up on worship, turn the temperature up on local embodied discipling in the church, um, and then from that fullness, what do you have now to give into the realm of politics?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and when we and when we don't and and I wonder whether that comes naturally to you because well, you're a worship leader and and this is this is also one of the prominent hats that you wear.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're constantly thinking in in in in those sorts of terms.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I find that a really interesting integration of you know, who is Andy Flanagan?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this conversation has helped, right?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: The the worship worship leader and singer-songwriter Andy Flanagan um really does go together with Christians in politics, Andy Flanagan, bec because you are you are worshipping first and serving out of that.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something to that?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I hope so.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I'm sure I make mistakes as much as anybody else.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that it's uh you know, you know, kingdom first and tribe second.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the things we're always saying.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's kingdom first and tribe second.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we're able to share time together.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I just I just know that the folks from opposite political parties who do pray together are are the healthier people.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we put together these um these prayer triplets way back about gosh, ten years ago now.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm making sure in each prayer triplet there's like one yellow, one red, one blue, or one purple, one green, one, you know, there were there were disparate prayer triplets.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we we really hoped and prayed that the folks who got involved in those prayer triplets that that would shift their discourse publicly by being constantly connected in fellowship with somebody from the other side.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And does it?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: And boy, did boy boy has it boy has that happened.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing we didn't see coming, the beautiful thing that we didn't see coming is that it's actually made them better politicians.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because in this world where we exist now, where everybody's getting stuck by this by the algorithms of social media into their silo, and especially it's a problem with students in 20 somethings, they are brilliant at rabble rising for their own side, the broadly progressive crowd or the broadly conservative crowd.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're great at banging a drum and making a noise for their own side, but because they're not actually mostly interacting with anybody else who disagrees with them, they're just hooking up with people who they already agree with, they're actually not that good at making it making an argument.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, when you expose them to the reality of the public square, they're not good at persuading anybody of anything.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: They can just say things even more loudly, and they're often not that good at listening.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: So because these folks who have been praying together for 10 years, who have been constantly hearing the opposite argument, who've been constantly honing their own arguments, who have been learning to listen, who have sometimes even been changing their minds.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's incredible how that is actually making them.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're getting promoted far faster than they should.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're actually being given chairpersonships of committees and being elected and selected far faster than their peers, because it turns out the Kingdom Way is the way we're meant to do it.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we shouldn't be surprised.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: We put this glass ceiling on it for believers when actually the truth is we are far better tooled up for this stuff than general other members of the public.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you look at the incredible conflict resolution, public speaking, rota organization skills that we learn in the church that sets you up far better.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's that there are not numbers growing in weekly gatherings.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Apart from Weight Watchers, the church is the only place where those numbers are growing.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, nobody else can gather those sort of numbers.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: And yet, and we learn things because of being in those places.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And also, you look at the incredible community projects and social action projects that the church is involved in.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the though, you know, we are actually really well placed often to be those who best know the challenges of a community and therefore are best able to represent that community and therefore to be a local counsellor, a local magistrate, a politician.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um then and then number three, I still believe in the person of the Holy Spirit.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I constantly get emails from folks who aren't believers or Muslims or agnostics who are going like, oh, oh, your girl Susie came and campaigned with us, and gosh, people just wanted to follow her.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: There was just something about her.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: There was just something about her.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that that I'm able to go like that's the Holy Spirit.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he still makes people shine.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: And we it's it we we get so lacking in self-confidence.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: We really always want to take the victim, uh, you know, the place of the victim.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: We always want to write the story of complaint when actually we are better tooled up than most other people in society to be serving and to be involved in this realm.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so interesting.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, Augustine, you know, writing, you know, the city of God, there's a city of God and the city of man, and you know, the Greek word for city is polis, where we get politics from.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it is those who are oriented towards the city of God who are able to best serve in the city of man and to and to build a more just uh God-honouring politics.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Which reminds me of, you know, there were there was a a a bit of a Twitter spat about a month ago between J.D.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Vance, the vice president of the US, and Rory Stewart, uh, the co-host of the Rest is politics uh podcast, both of them churchgoers, and uh J.D.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Vance was saying, um, we believe in America first because we have an order of loves.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a Christian idea that you have an order of loves.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who want to check out our video on that, I I I talk about um this idea that's that's large largely through Aquinas, but uh you can find a little bit of it in in Augustine.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but J.D.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Vance sort of made his case for for an ordering of loves, and you sort of you you start with those who are closest to you and and out it goes.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then Rory Stewart on Twitter was saying, Well, don't forget about the Good Samaritan, and you know, you've you've got to love your neighbour, sure, but your neighbour could be anyone, could be the enemy.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that that debate went back and forth.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was very interested to read Graham Tomlin, Bishop Graham Tomlin, saying, Have we forgotten in this ordering of loves um that God comes first?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's not whether, you know, your own kith and kin come f come first and the immigrant comes second.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's about God comes first and everything else comes second.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was a really helpful kind of reorienting, which you're helping us to do as well, Andy, that we sort of um we we look up to God first and then serve um out of the strength that that that he supplies.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: The truth is we are we we like to be machines and we like to have a ticked list of of what you know our side believes, and that's a lot simpler but lazier than being in constant communion with the Father and knowing on any given day what he might call us to.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's so much easier to respond with the knee-jerk tribal reaction rather than go like on this situation maybe we need a progressive response, or you know, on this situation maybe we need a conservative response.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: We it's that constant communion, it's that constant communication, and I think that's why I I do have concerns in and around our our current uh our current sort of media space, because there are plenty of things that are put out there that aren't necessarily untrue, but are they actually where the heart of God is beating right now?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so you think about all the uh headlines we walk past every day in the Sun, in the Daily Mirror, in the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and you're going, maybe it's what's printed isn't necessarily untrue.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: But if there's a predominance of us being forced to think along those lines, then are we actually sitting with the priorities of God?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because again, back to Northern Ireland, we were very good at knowing God's principles, but were we always good at knowing his prophetic priorities?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: When you're sitting in a divided society, you know, we we were happily sitting isolated, not speaking to our neighbor, not loving our neighbor, in fact, hating our neighbor at times, but very happy that in our little private world we knew God's truth and we got knew God's principles, just not missing the blazingly obvious thing that we were sitting that God's priority might be for a broken land to come together for there to be healing.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's that thing about the difference between knowing God's principles, but also knowing God's priorities, and for that we need to be in constant communion with Him.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus knew God.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have to know actually God.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus did what he saw the Father doing, and when he spoke what he heard the Father calling to say, and so I think in any of these things, we need it needs to be that constant communication and that constant rootedness.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean that I write about that in in the air we breathe.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I kind of talk about these values that have been the fruit of the Jesus Revolution, and and we love the values of equality and compassion and consent, enlightenment, science, freedom, and progress.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um but in the abstract, um, divorced from Christ and divorced from one another, they become, like like you say, principles, and and I've got these principles and the other side doesn't.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there can be a pride in that, and there can be um just uh power plays in that, and there can be a lot of unforgiveness in that because we've divorced the values from from the gospel and from Christ who who gives them to us, and and and like you say, principles um become things that they become like cudgels that you beat the other guy with.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and then where where is the space for forgiveness in that?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And where is the space for admitting that I fall short of of these principles?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because if all you got is principles, you better live up to them or you're stuffed.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um you were telling me earlier about the the 80-20 rule, Andy.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: What is the 80-20 rule?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I think that's the one of the beautiful things about God is that he does know that we're going to stumble.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you look all the way through scripture, you look at Jubilee, you look at Sabbath, he knows how we're made because he's made us, and therefore, actually that sort of stuff that does level the land, that suggestion that we do have to give, you know, give give the land back, that suggestion that we do have to, you know, leave a space at the edge of the field.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's because he knows our selfishness, he knows that eventually, left to our own devices, power will trickle up.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh power and wealth will trickle upwards, not downwards.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I love that God knows us better than we know ourselves.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, that that 80-20 theory that we're I I basically I might it's my absolutely unscientific anecdotal theory that we're all 80% good, 20% nonsense.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's our job to keep each other operating out of the 80% because in this laziness of just wanting the list of everything that's right, we just want to follow a guru.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: We want, we want, we want a guru, we want somebody who will lead our tribe, who will be right about everything.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: But God, in his wisdom, has made us so that we're not right about everything, he's made us so that we need each other, and we've got different giftings, different charisms, different expertises.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so there are plenty of people who I'll listen to and think, all right, they're great.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, gosh, they've got some a lot of great stuff to say about healing or great stuff to say about the father heart of God.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: But oh my goodness, I think they're stretching outside their expertise when they start talking about politics.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but I'm able to receive the good without without necessarily having to go along with it all.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a there's a conspiracy that happens between the shepherd and the sheep, because as as shepherds, you and I could put ourselves in the bracket of shepherds who do communication, do podcasts, write books.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: We're more than happy for our people to think we're right about everything because that means we get an easier ride and it means we sell more books.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the sheep are actually really quite happy to, rather than doing the hard yards, rather than doing the critical thinking, rather than looking around, rather than getting to know other streams of thought, just think, all right, okay, I like I like how this guy looks and feels, I'll just go with this guy, or I'll just go with this girl, you know, and again, it gets away from local discipleship, it gets away from actually our major, major rootedness being in Christ, rather than putting our faith in a guru.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I see more and more people doing it, even if we don't realize we are.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is this is all great in theory, Andy, but I can uh I can imagine a listener who's thinking, okay, what about some of these hot button issues?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um so um something like um if somebody is like really reliably and vocally pro-life online, let's say, um, they put put out that messaging.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um you also come across somebody online who is very vocally um pro-refugee, um and is is worried by talk of closed borders and and that kind of stuff.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you're talking about me.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds like both those people are me.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's very rare to find that that is the same person.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why why is that rare and why should it not be rare?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think of the toxicity of social media that we're describing, whenever you stick your head above the parapet, you inevitably take a lot of arrows, you inevitably take a lot of hits, therefore you quickly realize that you need the protection of a tribe.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: But the easiest way to find that tribe is to just slink back into the broadly progressive crowd or the broadly conservative crowd.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and and and therefore we then just assume and we take on the tick-box slate of everybody on that side.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, life is so much more complex than that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, to think you know, you look at the history of the world, you look at the history of governance, and all through history things have swung from left to right, backwards and forwards, people have had different ideas, and to stop and think for a second that actually all truth resides on your side, the the the galloping leap of of uh of arrogance that it takes to think that when all through history people have had these ideas and have had those ideas, when actually surely pragmatic, sensible way to think, in the same way we think about parenting.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I see this at dinner parties when people are talking about parenting, you know, from the difference between like co-sleeping earth mother attachment parenting to like Gina Ford military discipline.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: But those discussions, because we've given too much of our identity to that, we're so insecure about our parenting.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Again, those discussions get visceral.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: But surely the pragmatic reality is that all of us, as we parent, um we pick some good ideas from there and we pick some good ideas from there.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: And there should be no problem doing that.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: We all know that's what we do.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Pragmatically, that's what we do because we're all individual.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: And in different situations, there will be a moment when a progressive response is required and a moment when a conservative response is required.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the danger is that we react so quickly via social media, um, we we make up our minds so quickly, not allowing time for wisdom, not allowing time for scripture, not allowing time for ancient wisdom, not allowing time to consult with elders.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: That we have we don't have to decide everything quickly.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the problem with social media is that you know, you know, speed trumps truth all the time.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um so sometimes we just need to take a breath.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make you a squishy centrist dad?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Andy.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that the how do you how do you respond to people who just hear you?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I sometimes I'll go conservative, sometimes I'll go progressive.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, oh okay, this is this is just vanilla centrism.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, gosh, wouldn't the world be a better place if there were more people like that who were actually engaged and involved?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I think you know, if you look at you know, if you did a slate of what I think, if you if if if we got into talking about credit creation and we got into talking about banking, uh some of your listeners will be thinking, gosh, he's he's well to the left on economics, you know, and you know, are we or we got to talking about transgender, so people think, oh well, he's a little bit further in the opposite direction.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think I think you're not looking for a missy center.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's you're not just trying to sort of create a compromise, you're trying to say that actually life is more complex.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: Life is more complex than just being in one place, and actually we're called to be constantly listening and called to be constantly learning.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we are, you know, rather than that simple tribal programming, we're called to be in constant communion, you know.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that is that is that is the reality, and we have a world that's also shifting fast.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: So anybody that's holding too tightly to any of their ideology really needs to sort of sit up and go, wow, okay, is does this does this still apply?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: And is this still where God is calling me?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Now, don't get me wrong, we absolutely are calling people at Christians politics to be involved, to be evangelistically, missionally involved in those tribes, and therefore there is some loyalty that comes.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, anybody that's even on a church leadership team knows that there are times when you're going to disagree, but uh for the sake of leadership, like say a vote on something in your church leadership team is like eight to five, when you then go and explain it to the church, nobody's going, Oh, I was I was the minority report.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: You said actually we've decided this together.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there is a place for collective leadership, and you know, and some people say, Well, Andy, wouldn't it be better if everybody in parliament was independent and not part of a party?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the whole the whip system.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that's been tried in various places, and very quickly, after a few years, the party system comes back because it's impossible to get anything done.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: You can't meaningfully go in any direction uh if everybody's independent.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: We need to come together, and it's good that we should come together, and it's good that we can compromise, and it's good that we don't, you know, it's good that we don't people often say to me, you know, Andy, I would get involved in that party, but I can't agree with 100% of their policies.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, I I sort of say, Well, you know, but there is one party that I agree with 100% of their policy, but it's called the Andy Flanagan Party.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And 20% of its nonsense.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it has only one member, and it's sadly it's me.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: But sadly, that is the you know, we paint ourselves into the corner as Christians so often until there's nowhere left to go and no one left to go with when the missional evangelistic adventure is rubbing shoulders with those who we will we won't agree with all the time, but with whom we can find common cause.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes we we paint this kind of holier than thou ivory tower when that's not the way life is.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: We say, Oh, but I couldn't stand with that.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and we say, you know, Andy, I would get involved, or I'd but I would I would get polluted, I'd get corrupted, I'd get compromised, and I'll say, Well, look, can I tell you a truth?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Can I tell you a secret that you already are polluted?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you already are corrupted.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: I could talk about the petrol in your car that's supporting some fairly shocking Middle Eastern states that are that are oppressing Christians and oppressing women.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: I could talk about the mope, you know, the crystals in your mobile phone that are supporting some fairly shocking practices in slave labor in sub-Saharan Africa.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: I could talk about your broadband, I could talk about your mortgage, I could talk about your pension supporting arms trade.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we are involved.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: We are polluted, we are corrupted.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: So to try and create this separate little world that we can somehow stay separate from and feel a bit better about ourselves, it's just a false way of looking at it.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you make the argument to those uh who want Britain to be it's a secular society, Andy?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um Christians can have their own private views, but bringing them into politics is uh completely out of court.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: This this was very prominent in the assisted dying uh kind of debates, and Polly Toynbee and The Guardian, and uh Lewis Goodall um was was writing they were writing quite vociferously that that Christians ought not to um ought not to have a view on this.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: They can have their private views about the the sanctity of life, and that that's a theological view, but it has no place in secular politics.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: What do you say to those kinds of people?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean I just fundamentally disagree.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think I I mean some of that writing was was incredibly, I guess, philosophically immature and not really registering the reality and the complexity of people's lives.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people, you know, if you say to me, Andy, you have to have religion and politics separate, I said, Well, are you just are you just going to slice down the inside of my body?
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd be quite often talking to students and they say, No, but religion and politics should be separate.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll hopefully humbly say, Well, oh, by politics do you mean things like education and healthcare?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they'll say, Yeah, yeah.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, remind me who Who built the first schools in the UK and remind me who built the first hospitals?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I you it's not that simple to actually separate these things.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and you know, the reality is that you know, I I often I I'd be often stood in a room and and say to people, well, look, uh, put your hand up if you think adultery is a bad idea.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and you usually, you know, 90% of the room put their hand up and then I'll say, Well, okay, put your hand up if you think adultery should be against the law.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then people go, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that's that's interesting.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh and and and you see you actually have to make the point that we though we strongly believe certain things and we stand on certain things in scripture, there's then a debate to be had as to how that should apply itself to legislation.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because in a country of limited resource, you know, I mean, how would you police that law about adultery?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And how would you how would you do that?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: And is that a good use of police time?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's a debate to be had, there's a translation to do.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just cut and paste from scripture into legislation.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's a discussion to be had.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: But the the but sadly, the other thing I see happening, which is the other side of the coin of the Toynbee discussion, is I see people doing what I would call not cutting and pasting, but cutting and running of even Christians, younger Christians, saying, Oh yeah, but it's not our job to impose our morality on people.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just our job to share Jesus, it's the it's the other version of Toynbee.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just our job to share Jesus with people, it's not our job to impose our morality on people.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: And at which point you say, well, look, if you're elected to be a councillor or a member of parliament, that's that's exactly your job.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's why it's not an that's why it's not a popular job.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's exactly your job to say from your worldview, from your position, what you think the best idea in this situation is for the common good.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: And inevitably, uh, for the sake of the common good, that will involve curtailing some people's rights.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we m have laws that say you should drive at 30 miles an hour and not above.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's no point just suggesting to people that they drive at 30 miles an hour, it wouldn't work.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: Law is necessarily coercive, and that's why we get into these awkward debates, and um because it's it's unpopular to stop anybody doing anything, but you restrict people's freedoms to win bigger freedoms for everybody.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: But that means we have to discuss it.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we have parliaments to discuss it.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: But so I so have little time for for these process stories on either side of people who would say, Oh no, no, don't impose your will, or polygon when we say, you know, no, but your your will is not imposable.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's it's nonsense.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: What we're doing when we make law is necessarily coercive, what we just need to have a discussion, an adult discussion about it.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm on the record.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want to impose the sanctity of life on this culture.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to impose it.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a monster like that.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think the sanctity of life is is uh a beautiful vision of human flourishing that has actually released us into um a far better society.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um but laws always teach, and they always come from some kind of theological point of view, and Polly's got a theological point of view, and so do Christians.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um perhaps it's good to be upfront about what those those views are, but that doesn't disqualify you from having a view.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and you you you put your finger on the important thing that it's not just about what happens as a result of that law, that law shapes culture.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the only thing that shapes culture, but it's a huge thing that shapes culture.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you look at um the seatbelt laws that came in in the 1980s, um, you know, back then people said, no, you can't do that, you can't impose that on people, that's nanny-statism.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: You can't, you can't, you know, you can't you can't um legislate for what goes on in the privacy of people's vehicles.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but you know, 40, 50 years later, and it's it's resulted in a massive decrease, my friends who work in casualty departments.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: The stats are absolutely clear that it's had an incredibly positive impact on society.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: You look at the smoking ban, I mean, who thought that would have started in Ireland?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: You look at the smoking ban again, people say, no, you can't do that.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Nanny state imposing your will on people, but you look at the impact that's had on uh cancer from secondary smoke, undeniable, absolutely undeniable.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: But sometimes you have to do unpopular things for the sake of the common good, and sometimes you have to coerce people, sometimes you have to nudge people, you know.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes there's a place for just nudging people in the right direction, but sometimes you have to make people go in the right direction.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, and but you can apply that, and it's interesting because that's when somebody who is strongly um advocating uh for policies that would shove people in the direction of uh green energy, you know, and I'm I'm one of those people, but I I've got no time for somebody who wants to shove people or nudge people in the direction of green energy and stuff that will actually take on our climate crisis, but actually on a moral issue, inverted commons and a social issue, oh no, we don't want to impose anything.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: That that that's where the that's where the intellectual problem falls through.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so let's be honest about the fact that law is necessarily coercive.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and the things that it teaches, um I think you know, to one of my problems with assisted dying is is you open up a class of killable person, and and part of my belief in the equality of all people is that there just is no such class of person.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're all in yeah, we're all in this sacred boat together called humanity, and we'll we'll all help each other through as best we possibly can.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, I I I would often say to people on uh on Twitter when it when it came to you know, why did I take the view that I I took, and I'd say, well, well similarly, I don't want Squid Game to be a real thing.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can go and watch it on Netflix, but I I don't think we should have a society in which people can just choose to do that to their lives because it teaches that would teach something about how the United Kingdom views human life.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: If there was a if there was a view, you know, if there was a law that permitted um you to treat your own life in in that kind of way, it actually it actually teaches something to the entire to the entire nation.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and and so law law and love are often pitted against each other, and and yet they they in in Christian history as well, law law and love have have kind of been working hand in hand with one another.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, first the church would um adopt the children who were exposed, you know, on the on the garbage dumps and uh you know adopt them into families, and they they they took that loving approach.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: But when they got the reins of power, they outlawed infanticide.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you then had a legal moral obligation to raise your offspring, you know, and and so law, law and love kind of you know kind of go hand in hand in ways that we we often divorce, do you find?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: I th I think it's I think it's why it's so important in our current context, what you're describing um of not recognizing that our neighbor is also made in the image of God, I think that often happens because we're not in constant communion and we're not realizing that we're made in the image of God.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: If we're looking in the mirror in the morning and not thinking I'm made in the image of God, then it's unlikely we're going to be looking out for it in our neighbour.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why the thread of othering, the tribal othering of people, and rather than engaging, rather than having those difficult debates and discussions of actually we'd rather those folks weren't on the scene again, back to Northern Ireland.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: We remove people from the debate, actually remove their lives from the debate sometimes, rather than have that discussion.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's why some of the language that is coming to us from uh uh across the other side of the pond uh is is at times really, really dangerous, and that we're othering other people, and often that's people of another skin tone, um other people that we don't understand, or people that come from a different background to us.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: That is that is not recognising that we're all made in the image of God, and yes, we might have a discussion to be had, and yes, there might be a discussion about conduct, and yes, there might be a discussion, and there might be some legislation that's required to make sure that we all play by the same rules, absolutely, but actually the lazy, easy job of the populist is to slam those other people, and that's that's you know, and and we follow Jesus, we follow somebody who rode in on a donkey who got a lot of populist cheering on Palm Sunday, um, and you know, and everybody's going, Great, finally we're going to overthrow the Romans, finally we're gonna get out of this, and there's a kind of a nationalistic fervor happening there, but then we get to later on in the week, and whenever he starts to say, Jesus starts to say, Well, actually, you know, the problem might be internal here, folks, the problem might be with us as well, and then everybody starts going, Oh no, we don't like that stuff so much.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: Can we have Barabbas actually?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah, and so and so you know, I think we need to be really careful with our public discourse because nationalism populist leadership is easy.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's easy because we create the easy enemy, and we need to be very, very careful.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: We need to be very careful that we're following Jesus, not the guru, uh, not the idol, and not the easy answer to blame the blame the other.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, without a proper this is why we need a proper theology of sin in the public square.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: Without a proper theology of sin, you end up having to blame people.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: You just successively blame the bankers, blame the politicians, blame the immigrants, blame the others, blame the you know, blame the blame the right wingers, blame the left wingers.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: That we just blame groups of people in a way that's so inaccurate and so ineffective, and actually we know doesn't get to the root of the problem.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Solchin Hitson, you know, the axis of evil runs right through every human heart.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we need a lot of humility, but we also, you know, we we need to be honest and vocal about the reality of this thing called sin and that we all sit under it so we can affirm the beauty of all being made in the image of God, as you said, but we're also affirming that that image in all of us gets broken and trampled and shattered and blurred, and that's a big part of the reason we are where we are.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the the nonsense in all of us.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um tell me, Andy, what are you trying to do with Christians in politics and what's exciting you about it?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, um, just last night, um just the last two nights, we've got a group of folks called the Ambassadors.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we have an ambassadors program, we have uh four cohorts of six folks um who have shown some uh you know uh skill and ability in public speaking and communication.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we're training up those folks.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, public speaking training, media interview skills training, Christian worldview training, just the normal apologetic stuff as applied to um uh the world of politics.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: Some of those folks are uh MPs already, some of those folks are uh local counselors, some of those folks who are aspiring to be local counselors and be involved in politics, to be able to act, you know, you know, really proactively and intelligently and well share their faith um as as they go about doing that.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's our ambassadors program that's running.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: If people want to be involved in that next time round, we've got a new cohort starting in September.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: Get in touch with us via the website uh Christiansandpolitics.org.uk.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's exciting me hugely.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: We've also got unashamedly plugging here.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: We've also got this thing called the influence course, which is a six-week course.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: If folks are wanting to do this but not doing it as Lone Rangers, but doing it with a group of other folks from their church, which is exactly how we're designed to do it.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: This course has been fantastic for folks in a church as they their small groups do it for six weeks in a row, all the resources are there, wonderful videos, wonderful biblical material, and great homework sessions in between the sessions.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been wonderful.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: So many questions.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: One of one of the activities is to go away and send a question to your local MP, pray and think about what question.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so many of those questions have now been asked at Prime Minister's questions over the course of the last couple of years.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, various people have actually ended up as local counsellors and have been like deeply involved in their uh local campaigning organizations because of their involvement in that course.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_02: So that's called the influence course, and you can get that all good Christian stockists and ww.influencecourse.co.uk.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it's it's a way in, it's sort of a beginner-level uh take on the biblical call to be involved in good governance and good ordering of our society, and how we can have a place, even if we never think we'll never be a candidate, we'll never be a politician, but actually we might have a role in being somebody who prays, who gives, who supports practically, um, or who gets involved in research or something like that.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: There's a place for so many people to give into being salt and light in the public square.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: And how can people keep up with you, Andy?
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: I just through um through um Christians in Politics, um www.christians in politics.org.uk.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm also uh I'm just at Andy Flanagan um on various media on YouTube and and um uh what do you call that thing?
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: Twitter.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: I call it Twitter.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: Not so much, not so much, not so much anymore.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: Not so much anymore.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but yeah, but certainly on Facebook there is Andrew Flanagan.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: Come and say hello.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to hear from you.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_02: Or just email us at info at Christiansandpolitics.org.uk.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to get we'd love to work with you.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: I could talk to you all day, Andy, but uh we've got to let you go.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh hopefully we'll be back again on the Speak Life Podcast.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: Bless you, Glenn.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: Good to see you.