Majestas: May 1999

In this issue

Democracy and the Kingdom of God
Prima Vox
News
Democracy in Action
Revolution or Evolution?
Local Democracy
Michaelhouse: a Lost College
Diary
Who's Who
Publication
- Submissions for the next editions of Majestas

Democracy and the Kingdom of God

by John Barratt

John Barratt worked in Local Government for over thirty years and was Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire County Council. He is a Local Preacher on the Cambridge Methodist Circuit and occasional organist at Elsworth Parish Church.

A challenge to the citizen who is a Christian disciple is surely to merge the insights of the Kingdom with the opportunities of Democracy.

There are many suggestions for improving the effectiveness of our democratic systems, but I am taking it for granted that we do live in a real, if imperfect, democracy. Of course, we cannot all be directly involved in making all governmental decisions, but we can influence those who conduct 'government'. However inefficiently and randomly, our systems of elections do make those in power sensitive to public perceptions.

The Christian belief is that 'Heaven' - where the will of God is done - is the permanent reality, overriding the apparent reality of our self-centredly conceived immediate circumstances. The reality of this Kingdom has been opened to our understanding and 'citizenship' by that divine initiative we call the Christ. Like the Covenant people of the Old Testament we therefore seek primarily to live in a theocracy. Yet attempts to establish governmental expressions of theocracy always seem to end in abject failure. Leaving aside more modern examples of religiously dominated governments, the Old Testament prophets and the experience of Jesus affirm that human government is an inadequate basis for expressing theocracy.

We have more scope for making a critique of government than did the subjects of the Roman Empire at the time of the early Church. Yet, when he pointed out the political situation revealed by the Emperor's head on the silver coin, Jesus clearly asserted that even the repressive Roman state could have legitimate claims which were not negated by the Kingdom.

St Luke's account of St Paul shows that he was an assertive Roman citizen. Furthermore, in the first part of Romans 13, St Paul emphasised, somewhat naively some people think, Christian obligations of obedience to the state authorities and of the respectful payment of taxes to them. I have often wondered how far he was influenced in giving that response by Erastus, "the City Treasurer" (an elective office). St Paul chose to include Erastus' greetings, as a member of the Corinthian house church, at the end of the letter.

I conclude from the New Testament that claims of the state were accepted as appropriate for consideration within the life of the Kingdom - by Jesus, by St Paul and by Erastus. An open, secular democracy happens to be our state's system, and we should weigh carefully how to use it as an opportunity for realising the Kingdom.

The scope of government, the problems to be addressed, and the opportunities for involvement are very time-specific and the teachings of Jesus offer no detailed practical agenda. Nonetheless, the more I study the New Testament the more I find in the early Church's vigorous debate about the practical significance of Christ for their contemporary life, once the normative rigour of the Law had been abandoned.

In exercising our democratic responsibilities in the light of the Gospel we have to interpose our own interpretations. For example the story of the Good Samaritan, or the criteria for judgement of the sheep and the goats, has obvious relevance to the politics of 'the Welfare State/taxation', 'ethical foreign policy', 'institutional racism', or the regulation of the powerful (e.g. multinationals and bananas). How can we effectively contribute to these issues in the light of the Kingdom? Or do we, in our priestly or Levitical concerns, ignore the people affected, passing by on the other side?

I find it difficult to accept that any one '-ism', religious or political, carries an exclusive divine copyright for the Kingdom. Representations from religious groups with a predetermined agenda are rarely convincing to outsiders. Our secular democracy permits differing viewpoints to be tested by discussion. The manner of our contributions to democratic discussion, including the creativity and independence of our thinking and our openness to the views of others, is in itself an important realisation of the Kingdom.

A secular democracy enables us to extend our concerns and influence. It is an opportunity to realise the Kingdom which should be seized. Can the household of faith cope with the full potential of democracy, undogmatically assisting those who take up the challenge to work out the relevance of the apostolic faith and teaching to current affairs? There are many encouraging examples. It would be worthwhile to identify the characteristics of effective initiatives in recent years, ranging from individual to corporate and from educative information to lobbying, in the interests of the Kingdom.

Prima Vox

The Revd Prof Nicholas Sagovsky is William Leech Professor of Applied Christian Theology at Newcastle University and a member of the congregation at Great St Mary's.

Those in Britain as yet too young to vote will experience a democracy quite different from that we know today. If they live in Scotland or Wales they will vote for national assemblies. Proportional representation will figure in the election of MSAs, MWAs, MEPs and, if the recommendations of the Jenkins Commission are accepted, there will be larger British constituencies with a 'top-up' of MPs also elected by PR. The hereditary peers and some Church of England bishops will be gone from our senatorial chamber. More leaders of other faiths may be included. Who knows how the monarchy will have changed?

The issue, thankfully, is not whether Britain will continue to be a democracy, but what sort of democracy it will be: whether it will be one in which the interests of all the people are truly represented; whether it will enjoy stability and social order; whether it will promote participatory democracy elsewhere in the world; whether it will be a society that encourages well-informed and critical debate.

Christians have no monopoly of understanding how democracy should work either within or without the Church. Democracy as such is neither a Christian invention nor a specifically Christian cause. Representative democracy wins the support of Christians because it recognises the unique value of each human individual and the God-given freedom of that individual to give or withold consent in shared decision-making. Democracy in all its forms is an expression of the responsibility and rights human beings enjoy as members of a political community.

If British democracy is not to be a sham, it must entail certain social commitments: it must have institutions through which the views of the people, especially minorities, are heard, debated and acted upon; it must have the instruments that make for social order, including an accountable judiciary and police force; it must play an international rôle in support of representative democracy, primarily through the United Nations; it must invest in an education system and encourage media that promote informed, critical debate.

What is likely to be the greatest threat to representative democracy in the twenty-first century? Not state socialism, and not electoral disaffection, but the way it is funded. There is a serious contradiction between representative democracy and the global power of amoral, materialist capitalism. It is this which, time and again, subverts the institutions of democracy, rides rough-shod over the interests of minorities and the environment, suborns legal systems, stifles or trivialises debate - in the devouring interest of profit and power. The market may be a creative servant but it is a brutal lord. It rewards the rich and disenfranchises the poor, both nations and individuals. Unless we develop a democratic international order in which the power of money is properly accountable to the needs of people, the future for human freedom is bleak indeed.

News

From the Holy Mountain

Author and traveller William Dalrymple will be giving a talk in Great St Mary's on Tuesday 25th May at 8pm. William Dalrymple lived in and around India for ten years and has written three award-winning books: In Xanadu, City of Djinns and From the Holy Mountain. He has also presented a six-part series on the buildings of the Raj for Channel 4 television.

His illustrated talk will be about the journey described in From the Holy Mountain, starting from Mount Athos in Greece and following in the footsteps of a sixth-century monk, John Moschos, through the Middle East to Upper Egypt. He set out to trace Christian communities surviving from the ancient world which provide continuity with the time of the Apostles.

His talk on 25th May promises to be fascinating and spiced with humour. Admission is free.

Oxfam Walk

The Wider Concerns Committee will be organising a Great St Mary's team for the Oxfam Walk which will take place on Sunday 16th May. This year's walk starts and finishes in the grounds of Chilford Hall at Linton, with free transport to and from the city centre. The group will leave St Michael's at 12 noon.

Those who would like to join in are asked to put a note in the pigeonholes for Bridget Le Huray or Joye Rosenstiel. The event will be a good day out as well as an opportunity to raise funds for Oxfam's Education Now Campaign.

St Luke's, Gambella

Great St Mary's Easter Thank-Offering will supply clean water for the community of St Luke's at Gambella, Ethiopia. At present the people use the River Baro to wash clothes, clean lorries, water cattle, to swim and for drinking water. Any further contributions for this project will be very welcome.

Choir News

Congratulations to the members of Great St Mary's choirs who passed their Bishop's Awards examinations in Ely Cathedral in March: Robert Bourne, Rosemary Brooke, Isabel Gladwin, Alexander Miles-Dinham, David Mullen, Helen Nimmo-Smith, Rosie Parker and George Rix.

Christian Aid Week

This year's Christian Aid Week runs from Sunday 9th to Saturday 15th May. In Cambridge it will be launched by an ecumenical service held in Great St Mary's at 6.30pm on Sunday 9th May, at which the preacher will be the Revd Dr Roger Williamson, Head of Policy at Christian Aid. Please come along not only to hear about and pray for the work of Christian Aid but also to welcome members of other Cambridge churches.

There is always a need for new volunteers for the house-to-house collections made during Christian Aid Week. If you could consider helping Christina Aid's work in this way, please contact Philip Oswald (Tel: 560842).

Valete

It was with sadness that members of Great St Mary's heard of the deaths in March of two loyal and longstanding friends.

Rose Welch, a piano teacher of distinction, ran the Sunday School at Great St Mary's for many years. In recent years she courageously came to church in her wheelchair. Julia Jepps had been a soprano with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and many enjoyed her soirées. She was Church Secretary for many years while three vicars were at Great St Mary's: Stanley Booth-Clibborn, Michael Mayne and David Conner.

Democracy in Action

Robert Rhodes James on practical aspects of democracy

Sir Robert Rhodes James, DL, was MP for Cambridge from 1976 to 1992 and is a historian and biographer.

It could well be argued that the very word Democracy, and the noble ideal that it espouses, has been the most cynically abused of this terrible century. Vile and brutal dictatorial regimes have sought a veneer of respectability by incorporating the word 'democratic' in their national titles and creating 'parliaments' and 'assemblies' that bear no relationship whatever to democratically elected ones. And even in Britain I have recently seen, with deep dismay, the House of Commons too often totally ignored on matters of vital interest to the electors. There can never be complacency in a real democracy.

What is so difficult for a Member of Parliament is to gauge the realities of opinion among his or her constituents, so that their concerns can best be addressed. When I was MP for Cambridge I received a huge mail, but this in itself was only a partial guide. There were the newspapers, local and national, and radio and television. There were opinion polls. But none of these, either individually or collectively, really provided the answer, and particularly not the press or the polls.

My own method that I gradually developed was quite simple. Most Saturdays, when I was not holding a Guildhall surgery, I shopped in Cambridge in a different shopping centre each time, spoke to people and listened to them, and did the same thing in a local pub. The surgeries themselves were always instructve, sometimes alarmingly so. I also quietly visited hospitals, schools, the Jobcentre, and businesses. I listened to Church leaders, the police, young offenders, the homeless, vehement special interest groups, magistrates, city and county councillors and officials, charity workers, and indeed anyone who was prepared to tell me of their problems and ideas. There was no shortage of them! For seven years I held open-air 'soapbox' public meetings in the Market Square on Saturdays each month, which were certainly lively affairs.

Inevitably, there was an extraordinary variety of subjects and opinions pressed upon me by my constituents, but out of them emerged the two most important of my six Private Member's Bills that became Acts of Parliament - that giving grandparents the right to apply to the Courts for access to grandchildren, and the Child Abduction Act, making this a criminal offence for the first time. Both stemmed directly from Cambridge cases.

There were many individual cases that I was able to resolve quietly and satisfactorily, but, alas, too many others that I could not. Some were heart-breaking, others bizarre, and some even comical. But, in saving two Cambridge schools and the Veterinary College from closure in the teeth of officialdom, I knew not only that I was doing the right thing but that I had strong local support behind me. The closure of the Mill Road Maternity Hospital and the building of the Rosie to replace it were perhaps the most deeply satisfying achievement of all, and the most surprising. My dealings with the reclusive multi-millionaire David Robinson could form an interesting chapter in my memoirs. In brief, he promised to provide half the funding - in the event he gave much more - if the Government would provide the rest. This I was able to achieve. His principal condition was that it should be named after his mother.

These were some of my endeavours over sixteen years to serve as the democratically elected MP for Cambridge, responsible for all my constituents, regardless of party politics. I made many mistakes, but can plead in defence that at least they were honest ones. This was my personal contribution to democracy.

But I was often stumped. There was the gentleman who brought me the master-plan to remove the Cambridge traffic problem. It might possibly have done so, but it would have involved massive demolitions and the changed gradations of all roads and streets in the city. It was sheer madness, alas.

Then, there was the very grand lady from Chesterton who complained bitterly, in ringing tones of fury, that she had just discovered "that Nanny has to pay income tax". I suppose that my heart should have bled and tears of sympathy should have sprung to my eyes - but they did not. Being an active and concerned democrat is not always easy - but it can be immensely rewarding. The human condition is very perplexing, and sometimes loathsome, but the sheer goodness and decency of the great majority of people is both humbling and inspirational. To give them a voice in national debates and policy-forming is my concept of what real democracy is.

Revolution or Evolution?

The Bishop of Ely on House of Lords reform

The Rt Revd Stephen Sykes has been Bishop of Ely since 1990 and was Regius Professor of Divinity and a Fellow of St John's for the previous five years. In September he will move on to become Principal of St John's College, Durham.

Plainly no one would invent the House of Lords, given the task of writing a constitution and a clean sheet of paper. It is astonishing that it survived the reforms of the 1830s; and it is evident that the really indefensible feature of it is not just the large number of hereditary peers but the fact that 622 out of 635 of them are male.

Lady Jay, launching the Labour Party's reform initiative, remarked tellingly on the fact that the House of Lords recently chose to defeat the proposal that the eldest child, irrespective of sex, should inherit the title.

When I first arrived in the House of Lords, an ex-MP told me over lunch that the big difference between the Houses was that, whereas in the Commons the Government had to win the vote, in the Lords they had to win the argument. That strikes me as an important observation, and largely true in practice.

The reasons are complex, but one of them has precisely to do with the undemocratic character of the Lords. Everyone is aware, including the Government whips, that none of the Lords loses his or her seat when the Government falls. Pulling members of your party into line has to depend on goodwill and argument. Majorities can mysteriously evaporate when a government or opposition becomes pig-headed. Under extreme provocation a peer can simply shift to the Cross-benches, a move some Conservatives made at the sacking of Lord Cranbourne.

The evidence is that the public, which intensely dislikes mere partisanship in its politicians, values independent-mindedness in the Lords. Reform there must be, but it should not result in more strength to the rival party machines. There needs to be less opportunity for control in a genuinely revising chamber.

A further feature of the Lords one hopes can be maintained is the culture of courtesy. Because the debates are self-regulated, there has grown up a large number of conventions. Speakers (generally) observe time limits because there is no one to insist that they desist. They (generally) give way to an interrupter. There is a marvellously phrased rule against 'asperity of speech'. Speakers are regularly thanked for their contributions; maiden speeches are greeted with charming flattery.

But the main distinguishing characteristic of the House of Lords is its vast range of expertise. Academics of many kinds are generously represented; there are enough lawyers to sustain debate on the legal profession until judgment day. There are ex-soldiers and ex-policemen, medics and social workers, as well as bishops and retired bishops.

It is again strange and anomalous that only bishops of the Church of England should sit by right, 26 in all, out of a total membership of 1,167. The reason has to do with the religious allegiance of the monarch. Plainly it would be desirable for other Christian churches and other faiths to be represented. But there are difficulties. The leaders of many Protestant churches hold office for very brief periods, rarely long enough to make a meaningful contribution to the House. Roman Catholic clergy are forbidden to sit in legislatures.

My hope would be that the tradition of including bishops in the House of Lords will continue. I value it highly and it is undoubtedly a privilege to be invited to contribute to debate and the forming of opinion. It is practically quite difficult to influence legislation, other than that relating to schools, in which the churches have so considerable a stake. Successive episcopal Chairmen of the Boards of Education have contributed outstandingly, at cost to themselves and their diocese. But there are also those with other forms of knowledge or expertise. The Bishop of Bradford, for example, the only person living in his diocese to sit in the House, has first-hand experience of the Sudan. The Bishop of Lincoln has exceptional knowledge of the prison service.

Another factor, not lightly to be set aside, is the plain commitment of the bishops to the common good. My personal experience is that many other peers welcome this; indeed they rather regret that bishops find it so difficult to attend and contribute with regularity. And they welcome their presence at the meal table, where frequently one has profound and rather moving conversations.

This is a very strange, uncertain time in our constitutional life, and it is by no means certain how the reforms will turn out. But I am clear that there are good reasons why certain traditions can be defended in our second chamber, and I hope for an evolutionary not revolutionary outcome.

Local Democracy

The Mayor of Cambridge calls for more active citizenship

The Mayor of Cambridge, Councillor Peter Cowell

This country has a long tradition of democratic government. Overall, councils in the United Kingdom spend nearly £75billion each year from taxes, which is nearly a quarter of all public expenditure. The responsibilities of local government help support and shape our daily lives. Councils can point to many achievements. It is, however, when things go wrong - from family breakdown to floods - that people and communities look to local councils.

The rôle of local councils as community government rests upon their basis in representative democracy. Local councils are creatures of statute. That means they were created by Acts of Parliament, they may be abolished by Parliament and their powers are determined by Parliament. Elected representatives are chosen by, and are accountable to, the citizen.

The powers of a councillor are very different from those of an individual citizen. As citizens, people are free to do anything not specifically illegal. On the other hand, a councillor may only do what is specifically permitted by law.

Councillors can have a number of different rôles. The rôle taken will to some extent depend on whether the councillor is a representative of the party controlling the council or of the opposition, whether a back-bencher predominantly representing constituents or a front-bencher initiating policy.

It is as elected representatives that councillors exercise political judgement -that is, making lawful decisions between conflicting demands. At the heart of local government is the search for community interest. It may not be sufficient to say that local accountability just rests on periodic elections - in some cases turnout is low - but through a continuing relationship with local citizens. Public accountability can be seen as an expression of stewardship. The elected representative acts as a steward of public affairs on behalf of local citizens. This involves more than being held to account, through local elections, but providing account.

Providing account is not a one-way process. An account must be given, it will be responded to and that response must be listened to. There are different levels of accountability. There is accountability for probity, legal and financial scrutiny; accountability for process, observing procedures; accountability for performance, achieving efficiency and effectiveness; and accountability for policy. Public accountability for probity and process can be enforced by audit and ombudsmen. Public accountability for performance and policy requires continuing interaction between the council and its citizens.

Building citizenship is an important area of work for councils. It has been said that representative democracy depends on the relationship of public accountability to citizens. Through citizen involvement the elected representative has a basis for representation. More active citizenship is necessary to make representative democracy more meaningful.

To help build citizenship Cambridge City Council has in place a Citizens' Charter which asserts rights associated with being a citizen in the city. Cambridge City Council has been looking to build the habit of citizen participation by starting at the point where local people are ready to take action. Some examples include neighbourhood community planning, where local people have been investing time and effort in community concerns; a Young Citizens' Jury; a Citizens' Panel, where people have been giving views about the performance and policies of the council; and through direct democracy, such as in the recent housing transfer vote.

To strengthen local democracy is an exciting challenge that councils are faced with. Giving account to communities and building citizenship will require further innovations in democratic practice. In such ways councils can meet the challenges of our times.

Michaelhouse: a Lost College

Susanna Gregory on the setting for her novels

"Susanna Gregory" is a pseudonym. Before she earned her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge and became a research fellow, the author was a police officer in Yorkshire.

On Michaelmas Eve, 1324, a group of priests gathered in a house that belonged to a man called Roger Buttetourte. Presiding over the group was the wealthy Hervey de Stanton, Edward II's Chancellor. Stanton bought the Buttetourte house for the scholars, gave them St Michael's Church and thus founded Michaelhouse.

Michaelhouse no longer exists. Henry VIII amalgamated it with King's Hall and a number of hostels to form Trinity College in 1546. By this time, Michaelhouse had amassed itself a good deal of land in the city centre, as well as the advowsons of several churches. Although never large, Michaelhouse was unquestionably rich.

Precisely what Michaelhouse owned is debated, but we know it had houses in Garret Hostel Lane and that its main buildings were ranged along a narrow street with the colourful name of Foule Lane. An intriguing glimpse into the lives and times of the scholars who worked at Michaelhouse is provided by a 15th-century Master called John Otryngham, who painstakingly collected documents relating to Michaelhouse and copied them into a book - the Otryngham Book. These deeds tell us how the College was founded, which properties were granted to it, and the rules that governed the everyday lives of its scholars.

At quiet times of the day, it is possible to stand in Trinity's Great Court and imagine the older college that once stood there. Michaelhouse's hall was where the Essex Building now stands and was a handsome affair with an oriel window and a central hearth. There was also a dormitory range, with a gatehouse, and a courtyard to the north with kitchens, stables and laundry. So who were the people who lived in these buildings? How did they live and what were they like?

It was these questions that prompted me to write the Matthew Bartholomew books. They concern the adventures of a Michaelhouse Master of Medicine and his friend the Senior Proctor just after the Black Death, when most of Europe was reeling from the social and economic consequences of a disease that killed an estimated third of the population. In the 1350s, life could be violent, and contemporary records often mention incidents where the mutual antipathy between town and gown resulted in deaths on both sides. A good deal of this culminated in the Peasants' Revolt in the 1380s, when a woman called Margery Starre stood in the market square merrily burning University documents and chanting, "Away with the learning of the clerks, away with it!"

So, in medieval times, Cambridge was not the peaceful and picturesque haven depicted in today's tourist brochures. It was a town where the waterways were stinking open sewers, where living conditions for scholars and townsfolk alike were cramped and squalid, and where the large numbers of students resulted in a volatile cocktail of petty dislikes and bigotries. Friars from the mendicant orders argued with Benedictines and Cluniacs, students from East Anglia waged war with scholars from the north, Scotland and Wales, and everyone picked on the French and the Irish.

The Bartholomew books draw on some of this detail. A Plague on Both Your Houses deals with the contemporary fear that the Black Death might result in the suppression of the fledgling university at Cambridge in favour of the older and larger one at Oxford. It was a fear that was not wholly unjustified: the universities at Northampton (1265) and Stamford (1334) had been closed when Oxford and Cambridge told the King that their students were being poached. An Unholy Alliance centres on the rise in pagan practices that occurred when the Black Death brought about a shortage of priests to minister to the people. A Bone of Contention is about the rising trade in holy relics following the plague, and A Deadly Brew is set around the smuggling trade that flourished in the nearby Fens.

Nothing survives of Michaelhouse today, with the exception of some foundation stones under Trinity's Essex Building. But St Michael's Church still stands and is a poignant reminder of the men who were with Hervey de Stanton in the Buttetourte house on the Michaelmas Eve of 1324. To visit the simple but exquisite chancel of this lovely church, and to gaze up at the squat grey tower that looms over bustling Trinity Street, is a privilege. It seems very fitting that this ancient building, which was the focal point of the lives of Michaelhouse scholars for 222 years, should continue to serve the people of Cambridge in its rôle as community centre.

The fifth of the Matthew Bartholomew chronicles, A Wicked Deed, will be published on 3rd June.