Category: Faith

Digital Editor’s note: I’m pleased to welcome Tim Farron as our Sorted Magazine Guest Writer. Tim has been the Member of Parliament for Westmorland and Lonsdale since 2005 and served as the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party from 2015 to 2017. Tim is also the host of Premier’s ‘A Mucky Business’ podcast, which unpacks the murky world of politics and encourages believers around the UK to engage prayerfully.

Tim writes: Central London has felt an increasingly feverish place to be over the last year, and this weekend was no different. Thousands gathered in the city for three different organised groups.

The Unite the Kingdom demonstration marched in support of extreme right activist Tommy Robinson, with signs mourning the death in prison of a man who had been arrested in the Rotherham riots over the summer.

Another group organised by Stand Up to Racism marched in counter-protest to this demonstration.

And yet another group, the United Families and Friends campaign gathered in Trafalgar Square in memory of those who have died in police custody, and was attended by the family of Chris Kaba. This was after the Police Officer who shot Chris Kaba in 2022 was cleared of his murder last week. Three different groups of thousands of people, choosing to protest, all fuelled by raw emotion.

The right to protest is important, and we should consider ourself blessed to live in a country where such demonstrations – whatever we think of them – are freely permitted.

After the heat and noise of the weekend, Parliament looks this week to the budget on Wednesday. This budget is an especially long awaited event. Most new governments introduce their budget just a few days and weeks after they have been elected to power, but the new Labour government has chosen to take its time until now. Soon we will know what the government’s financial plan for the country will look like.

The passion and protest of the weekend seems a world away from the dry and complex array of numbers we will be subjected to on budget day.

Of course, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves does not have a lever to control peoples levels of satisfaction in their work, or community cohesion, or collective passion about aspects of culture. The levers available to her are taxation, public borrowing, spending on the NHS and other services and the like.

But the day-to-day decisions of government and the scrutiny of their decisions are intimately linked to the culture outside the walls of Parliament.

It is good for politicians to receive the sobering reminder occasionally that there is only so much that they can really control. Especially for a politician in government. There has been much talk in the lead up to the budget by the government of a £22bn black hole in the public finances. It is a statistic usefully employed to prepare the ground for a ‘painful’ budget of difficult decisions. It is a reminder that while it seems nearly all public services are desperate for more support – from the probate office to the prison service – that there is also precious little spare money to go around.

This all paints a bleak picture of an uncertain few years ahead. Financial uncertainty and instability creates cultural uncertainty and instability. People become afraid for their personal circumstances and for those of their families – they may then blame others for their predicament, sometimes it will be politicians who have the finger pointed at them but often it can be other groups in society who cannot reasonably be held responsible, but nevertheless find themselves the focus of people’s anger and frustration. Social and ethnic groups so often fit this bill and become scapegoats. We need to watch out for this and defend those people when this happens.

Sometimes, the best a government can do in such uncertain times is to demonstrate basic competence! A government that is responsible with what it has, is realistic about its limits, and seeks to do right by the poorest and most vulnerable in society with the resources it has is a gift of what theologians call ‘common grace’. A free gift from God that no one deserves but from which we all benefit.

The decisions made on tax and spending may or may not generate the same heat and noise as a culture war protests, but they have a far greater impact on the culture in the long run. A reckless budget, like the now infamous budget announced by Kwasi Kwarteng in Liz Truss’ short lived time in Number Ten, can cause financial shockwaves, trigger inflation and worsen the cost of living crisis. With that came an inevitable rise in cultural instability and anger.

There will be countless impossible to predict consequences from whatever decisions Rachel Reeves announces this Wednesday. The impact on small businesses, incomes, pensions savings, the price of a bus fare, or a pasty, or a pint of beer, or a litre of fuel… there are so many potential consequences that its best to wait and see and weigh things up in the days after the budget itself, no matter how tempting it may be to politicians to make assumptions now!

So we should for Rachel Reeves to carry these responsibilities well and she would act justly especially towards those who have the least and with sober and wise judgement.

Culture and politics are not disconnected. Politics shapes culture just as culture shapes politics. As my friend Andy Flannagan has pointed out, it took changing the law to enforce wearing seat belts in cars for the culture to catch up. As always, let’s remember Jesus’ parable that the wise man builds his house upon the rock of his teaching. Jesus guarantees that storms will rage and waves will rise, but that those houses built on the rock will not fall down. So lets pray for careful stewardship of the public finances and that this might also create some calm and stability in a culture that feels to be rising to a boil.

Tim Farron (pictured above) is the author of A Mucky Business: Why Christians should get involved in politics.

Photo Credits: Getty images

Live music has always held a fascination for me and this morning I was intrigued by the deep bass sound of a euphonium. I went to investigate. Three cars were parked outside our house and the occupants were already out and warming up hands and instruments. Standing next to the euphonium player was a man with a banjo, and a few yards away a man arranging his bagpipes. I have always held the greatest of admiration for bagpipe players, not because of the sound they make, but because of their skill in getting all the various bits of the instrument in the right place. It’s up there with people who can set up a deck chair at the first attempt. I was keen to hear how such an unusual combination of different instruments would blend together.

It was a bitterly cold morning; one when the weather forgot it should be spring. Within a few minutes there were cars arriving and parking in every spare bit of road and verge available. Some were more considerate than others. Clearly something was going on in the neighbourhood. Then it clicked. A neighbour had told me only a few weeks ago that a local business man who lived nearby had died. All these people had turned out to say farewell to him.

A low loader lorry which was normally seen with a crumpled car on it’s back was decked with neatly arranged floral tributes from grieving relatives. Suddenly from around the corner came the sound of music. The bag piper, in full Scottish national dress, played a haunting tune. It wasn’t the best day to be wearing a kilt. The coffin was loaded onto a glass encased carriage pulled by six horses. Each horse looked immaculately groomed and was decked in full regalia of almost royal significance, with red plumes, white socks and shiny black coats. The hearse slowly moved into the main road led by an undertaker on foot. He was more adequately dressed than the piper given the weather. A floral tribute inside the carriage read Goodbye Grandad.

Local traffic, which had already been severely impeded by the presence of cars parked everywhere, ground to a complete halt to enable the funeral cortège to move off. Immediately behind the hearse a band, comprising euphonium, clarinet, banjo and trumpet, played a trad jazz version of Just a closer walk with thee. It was a such contrast to the earlier drone of the bag pipes. I wondered what the connection was for these minstrels, and that song, with the man now lying in a coffin not more than ten feet in front of them. The low loader followed, and then relatives in the more familiar stretch limo funeral cars. And gradually the cars which had been parked slipped quietly into the procession as it made its way to the funeral ceremony at the local church.

Death always puts things in perspective. It always draws out reflection on your own life, even though the focus is supposed to be on someone else.

Tomorrow is Good Friday. A time when some remember when another man died. No stately funeral procession for him. No music, poignant or lively. But there was an air of bitter sweetness to these events too. In the hot dusty climate of Roman occupied Jerusalem, he had unjustly suffered a criminal’s death for challenging the ideas and behaviour of prominent people.

A large crowd gathered around, including his mother and brothers. Men and women from all walks of life were there. He had had a profound effect on many, despite his short life. Some were so inspired by his teaching that they had left their jobs to follow him wherever he travelled. They had given three years of their lives listening to his wise teaching and believing his promises of freedom and justice for those held captive, witnessing blind people made able to see and the lame able to walk. But their dream was now shattered. They couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t how it was all supposed to end. They lurked on the perimeter of the crowd, hiding their faces, fearful of reprisals or further unjust trials, deeply aware that they might have made the biggest mistake of their lives.

He had said things no one had dared to think before, he had made them feel important and valued, burning away years of tradition, oppression and confusion. It had all made so much more sense than all they had ever known. He had given so much hope in a hopeless world. The local power brokers were there too, smugly congratulating one another that they had rid their community of someone who challenged their control and hypocrisy, yet strangely jealous of his popularity and influence among ordinary people.

At times like this, although we may be standing in a crowd, we each stand alone in silence with our own thoughts and reflections. The weirdest of memories and emotions can surface. Life is short; death always comes at an inappropriate time; always catches us on the wrong foot. We’re never fully prepared. But, in the aftermath there comes a time when a life is celebrated rather than a loss mourned. When joy replaces sadness; when hope replaces shattered dreams; when brokenness gets restored; when emptiness becomes fullness; when water is changed to wine.

The bagpipes and the banjo, were a reminder that life can be both bitter and sweet. One day it will all make more sense.

An extract from Beyond the Banter by Bob Fraser.

Main Photo Credit: Brad Starkey via Unsplash

Funeral procession photo: Used with permission from The Good Funeral Guide.