Waiting on Parliament and on God

I've been following events in Parliament closely this past few days and will do for the rest of this critical week in European politics. I follow just as closely what media reports and the commentariat have to say about it. It's hard to know which group is the more worrying of the two. 

For ages it's seemed to me that MPs are dimly aware or ill informed on all the consequences of decisions they are required to take, often less interested in the common good than in preserving self-interests. Journalists and interviewers often seem poorly briefed, not quite up to date, and utterly devoted to over-simplifying every issue, and enforcing binary options to which an instant response is required from their unfortunate victim. 

I find myself reluctant to trust the majority of public voices, whether elected or employed in the media, to speak the whole truth in the service of all citizens. It's argued that all this disagreement, division and harsh debate about the way forward for the country is what democracy is about. What I see is elite groups struggling for control, not for a unifying consensus, setting a bad example that exacerbates existing social division in the population. It's recipe for civil strife if many on both sides of the brexit debate feel their voices are unheard and don't get what they thought they wanted from the outcome of this agonising process. 

Britain is no longer a society in which Christian moral values and spiritual influence set the tone or give a lead in nurturing a more just and equal society. We have become to a much greater extent a multi-faith and plural culture, tolerant in some respects, but overly lax and permissive in others. The total proportion of people of any faith who practice their religion and apply its teaching is perhaps a quarter of the population. To have a secular environment in which all believers enjoy equal respect and treatment can be beneficial to the common good, but at what price? To have secularism as a dominant ideology fostering individualism, striving to discredit and exclude religious thought and influence from the public debate, poses a grave danger. 

It's all too easy for cultured despisers of religion to dismiss the faith perspective on the grounds of differences in beliefs and the awful conflicts these have generated, and ignore elements of different religious paths on which believers do unite in pursuit of truth justice, equality and goodness. The idea of Christendom is a lost cause, but the spiritual reality of God's kingdom, and human beings as God's children transcends culture and religion. I believe it can and should be worked towards by all people of faith, thinking and working together for the common good, regardless of differences. And to make any fresh impact on the wider world, every household of faith has to set its own house in order, purge itself of deceit, corruption and exploitation. Believers in God have lost so much of their credibility, it's easier said than done to restore it, maybe beyond us humans, but not beyond God. So, it's a matter of watching and waiting on God for the kingdom to break through - yet again.