God, apparently, takes a keen interest in welfare reform. Spokespeople for the Lord of hosts have already put forward a successful House of Lords amendment, intended to water down government proposals to impose a £26,000 household benefit cap. The Bishop of York warned that the cap would have ‘a deleterious and chilling effect on children’, making it 'harder for parents to carry out their God-given responsibility'.
The Almighty has now clarified His position on the issue, via another of His representatives, former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, who has told the Daily Mail that the £26,000 benefit cap is a Good and Virtuous measure, reforming a welfare system that robs 'hard-working, hard-pressed churchgoers' and 'rewards fecklessness and irresponsibility'.
So there you have it. There is, we are being told, a God who tales a special interest in humankind and offers clear moral guidance on specific issues via His representatives on earth. We can find out a lot about the nature of God by listening carefully to what His spokespeople are telling us.
His pronouncements on welfare reform tell us that God is a liberal, Guardian-reading type who always believes the best of the despised, the rejected, the poor and the needy, an interventionist, who believes in social justice and a strong welfare state. He is also a judgemental authoritarian, who believes in personal responsibility. He is an admirer of the hard-working squeezed middle classes and isn't afraid to castigate the the feckless and undeserving poor.
God's guidance on the subject of welfare reform, as reported by the people who claim to know him best, sounds inconsistent, even schizophrenic. Perhaps it's because mere mortals are incapable of appreciating the subtlety of His messages (He does, allegedly, move in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform), or maybe our minds must be too highly trained, or something like that.
I prefer the obvious, simple explanation that Man* created God in his own image and that the "will of God" is no more than the beliefs, cultural assumptions, priorities and prejudices of the individual citing it, given spurious authority by being attributed to an invisible, but all-seeing and all-wise entity. In political debate, coming out and saying 'I believe in x', is fine. 'I believe in x because [insert reasoned argument to support x]' is better. But 'I believe in x and so does my invisible friend, God' doesn't bring anything to the party.
You can debate the moral and practical pros and cons of any issue perfectly sensibly without any reference to God. Bringing God into an issue is just adding an unnecessary complicating factor. Without God, you can at least argue about the facts of the case and the merits or otherwise of what you intend to do about it. If you add 'and God thinks so, too', you are inviting at least three types of completely unhelpful response that take the debate away from the issue at hand, namely:
I always thought that Alastair Campbell, Director of Communications and Strategy in the Blair government and cynical corrupter of youth in Jamie's Dream School. was a vile bully, and I haven't seen anything to make me revise my opinion, but he does deserve a tiny bit of kudos for one glorious sound bite. If only a few more people in public life (including his former boss) would just stick to the issues and say 'we don't do God'. Keep God out of politics, I say, (at least until He can come up with a consistent message and stick to it).
*The sexist language is deliberate - the Abrahamic religions show every sign of having originated with a set of rules imposed by high-status males to establish stability (and cement their own authority) within a tribal society.
The Almighty has now clarified His position on the issue, via another of His representatives, former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, who has told the Daily Mail that the £26,000 benefit cap is a Good and Virtuous measure, reforming a welfare system that robs 'hard-working, hard-pressed churchgoers' and 'rewards fecklessness and irresponsibility'.
So there you have it. There is, we are being told, a God who tales a special interest in humankind and offers clear moral guidance on specific issues via His representatives on earth. We can find out a lot about the nature of God by listening carefully to what His spokespeople are telling us.
His pronouncements on welfare reform tell us that God is a liberal, Guardian-reading type who always believes the best of the despised, the rejected, the poor and the needy, an interventionist, who believes in social justice and a strong welfare state. He is also a judgemental authoritarian, who believes in personal responsibility. He is an admirer of the hard-working squeezed middle classes and isn't afraid to castigate the the feckless and undeserving poor.
God's guidance on the subject of welfare reform, as reported by the people who claim to know him best, sounds inconsistent, even schizophrenic. Perhaps it's because mere mortals are incapable of appreciating the subtlety of His messages (He does, allegedly, move in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform), or maybe our minds must be too highly trained, or something like that.
I prefer the obvious, simple explanation that Man* created God in his own image and that the "will of God" is no more than the beliefs, cultural assumptions, priorities and prejudices of the individual citing it, given spurious authority by being attributed to an invisible, but all-seeing and all-wise entity. In political debate, coming out and saying 'I believe in x', is fine. 'I believe in x because [insert reasoned argument to support x]' is better. But 'I believe in x and so does my invisible friend, God' doesn't bring anything to the party.
You can debate the moral and practical pros and cons of any issue perfectly sensibly without any reference to God. Bringing God into an issue is just adding an unnecessary complicating factor. Without God, you can at least argue about the facts of the case and the merits or otherwise of what you intend to do about it. If you add 'and God thinks so, too', you are inviting at least three types of completely unhelpful response that take the debate away from the issue at hand, namely:
- 'Gosh, I'd never thought of that. I believe in God, too, so what you're saying must be right'.
- 'I disagree with what you're saying and I happen to know that God disagrees, too, because He told me so Himself'.
- 'I don't believe there is a God, so your argument is invalid' [either agree to differ or waste potentially endless time arguing about an unprovable / undisprovable assertion about a supernatural being, rather than the issue that God has been cited as being for or against]
I always thought that Alastair Campbell, Director of Communications and Strategy in the Blair government and cynical corrupter of youth in Jamie's Dream School. was a vile bully, and I haven't seen anything to make me revise my opinion, but he does deserve a tiny bit of kudos for one glorious sound bite. If only a few more people in public life (including his former boss) would just stick to the issues and say 'we don't do God'. Keep God out of politics, I say, (at least until He can come up with a consistent message and stick to it).
*The sexist language is deliberate - the Abrahamic religions show every sign of having originated with a set of rules imposed by high-status males to establish stability (and cement their own authority) within a tribal society.
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