In a reflection on Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain, (The Times, 14 September 2010), Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks give a remarkable endorsement of the Pope’s message to Britain which he expresses in the questions: ‘Can a society survive for long without some kind of religious base? When a nation loses faith in God can it sustain faith in itself? Does Britain, or Europe as a whole, have faith in itself any more? Does it know what it is and why?’
To make his point, he gives sobering statistics which highlight the ‘breakdown of families and communities and the loss of trust and social capital.’ He ascribes the underlying cause as one of ‘culture and the lack of a shared moral code’. Having lost much of its Christian heritage, he writes, ‘Britain does not seem to have found a satisfying substitute’.
He observes that these are probably symptoms of a natural progression in the rise and eventual degeneration of civilisations, but argues that decline is not inevitable. As an example, he cites a process which ‘re-moralized’ 19th century Britain, and in which John Henry Newman - the man the Pope beatified during his visit - played a significant part.
In recent years I have had the privilege of working with people whose countries have collapsed through civil war or occupation. They have given their all to lay a foundation of values on which a stable society could be built so that future generations would not have to go through what they had gone through. It has helped me understand why my father, on leaving the army in 1946, gave his ‘demob allowance’ to a fund to buy a London theatre which was dedicated to broadcasting the values he believed in.
He was part of the Moral Re-Armament movement before, during and after the Second World War, and a ‘shared moral code’ and a ‘remoralized’ society would be good descriptions of what they were trying to achieve. Through plays, films, conferences and mass meetings, they were promoting ‘absolute’ standards of ‘honesty, purity, unselfishness and love’, underpinned by a daily morning quiet time to seek ‘the guidance of God’ and liberal doses of forgiveness. Some of the slogans they used were: ‘If you want to see the world different, you have to start with yourself’, and ‘You can’t make a good omelette out of rotten eggs’.
As I have reflected on why my father and his associates chose those standards in particular, I have realised that that they were precisely-targeted antidotes to certain ‘diseases’ that could fatally undermine the stability of a society. Honesty was the antidote to corruption which undermines financial systems and generates deep divisions. Purity, the antidote to sexual unfaithfulness which destabilises family life, the basic building block of a society. Unselfishness, the antidote to unbridled individualism and economic inequality. And love was the antidote to hatred and division across the fault-lines of class, ethnicity or religion. If they could get people to incorporate these values into their personal and collective behaviour, the result they believed would be what is referred to today as a ‘high trust’ society.
In retrospect, I think they and like-minded others of their generation did a remarkable job. Of course they built on the work of those who had gone before, but to different degrees those values have become embedded as norms in national life. They are expressed in social and healthcare institutions which seek to protect the most vulnerable, and justice systems which ensure that no one is above the law. Financial, political and other scandals may suggest that these values are being eroded, but as long as such behaviours provoke reactions and legal sanctions it will be clear that they are considered abnormal.
Generations (like mine) which have not experienced war and which have grown up with the benefits of stability can become complacent. We do not deeply understand the values that underpin that stability, or the price previous generations paid to establish them. This, along with the inevitable shortcomings of those proposing such high standards, goes some way to explaining why there has been active hostility to moral values in recent decades. At university in the ‘70s, the word ‘moral’ was a taboo – it seemed to represent the ‘prison’ from which everyone had just escaped! There has been a steady rehabilitation of the word, but still quite an active hostility to anything which might limit our personal freedom to act as we wish. Perhaps it is only a shock, such as the near-collapse of the financial system, that causes a generation to discover for itself what values are indeed essential.
During the ‘70s and ‘80s, my parents’ convictions drew them to work in south-east London to build relationships between the newly-arriving immigrants from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. The new discovery of those post war years was that people of different faith and belief traditions recognised those same values. In working together for the moral and spiritual renewal of themselves and their communities, they could talk through the relational tensions that inevitably existed.
As we move ever deeper into a society where many faith and belief traditions mingle, and realise the need to agree a ‘shared moral code’, those four standards may be as good a place to start as any.
Peter Riddell has worked with IofC since 1974, focussing mainly on how a common commitment to IofC's values can be the basis for trust-building between those of Muslim and other faith traditions.
NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.
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