For the whole of my lifetime, it’s been true that for the most part there has been a fair measure of agreement across the main political parties in this and nearly all western democracies, regarding what one might call with a small “l” a liberal world-view. Thus, to take one example, Mr Cameron’s government, though Conservative and of the right, legalised gay marriage, and was able to find majority support for this quite widely across the political spectrum, the media and to a degree society in general. I say “to a degree” because what I call the liberal consensus makes it quite difficult for anyone to speak openly against it; there is a general view that (quote) “this is how the world should be, this is progress, and though you may find it uncomfortable, you need simply to accept that this is what ought to happen.”
This liberal consensus is breaking down. Maybe the silent majority has found its voice; maybe the new dimension that is social media - Facebook, Twitter and all the rest - is beginning to make a decisive difference in politics. Mr Trump may become cuddly, inclusive and even sensible once in the White House - but the forces that put him there have been released from their dormancy. In the UK any vote taken in Parliament would overwhelmingly have been in favour of remaining in the European Union; the voting population, or enough of them to matter, begged to differ. And the drift is to the left as well as to the right: most Labour MP’s wanted Mr Corbyn gone - but not the members of his party.
Why all this political stuff, you may be asking - and what relevance has it to Remembrance Sunday? For me, just this: that extremist forces and movements are growing in our world, and I for one no longer feel as safe or as certain about the future as I once did. Those we honour and remember today fought to preserve our freedom, and they fought with the hope in their hearts of peace, and a new beginning, and a better world. Many of them died with those hopes unfulfilled - but, for the most part, for all the mistakes that have been made, our history since those two great wars of the last century has been one of progress, greater understanding, shared prosperity and freedom.
These things are precious. They don’t just happen; they cost lives, lives we remember today. Freedom: that includes the freedom to believe different things, to express contrasting opinions, to vote in different directions. When the iron curtain was dismantled at the end of the 1980’s, the whole continent of Europe was able to share - for the first time - the standards of freedom, free speech and democracy that was so much at risk in 1939, and continued to be suppressed in the east under the sway of Stalin and his successors.
What worries me now is the rise of movements and tides of opinion that are anti-democratic, that are extremist in the sense that they permit no debate; the “I am right, therefore you are wrong” mentality. The political philosophy that in Hitler’s Germany became, “I am right, and if you don’t agree with me then you will have to be dealt with.” The German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, imprisoned by the government of Adolf Hitler in 1937, famously said: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The greatest threat to a free and just and participative society is intolerance. We see it of course in militant Islam, and especially in the appalling crimes of the ISIS movement, which frankly bear no relation to the true teachings of the prophet Mohammed - but which continue to seduce and persuade young people from our own and other free western countries. Why that should happen is a question for another time, perhaps, but it’s clear that the people who recruit them are looking out for those who are disaffected, vulnerable, and idealistic, people whose minds can be twisted.
How do we fight intolerance, in the new and dangerous forms it takes today? The temptation is to become less and less tolerant ourselves, and perhaps that is what’s happening. But freedom and tolerance are what makes our society special; this is what the people we remember today fought to defend, to preserve and to build. It could be that by defending some spurious idea of national identity and wellbeing, we end up damaging and even destroying the real thing.
But why is any of this a topic for Christian sermonising, within a church service? I think because peace is a special word in the Bible, and in the teaching of Jesus; and peace in scripture is never just the fact that people aren’t fighting. Peace is about safety, about belonging, about justice, about family. Every man under his vine and his fig tree; swords beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Not peacekeepers - often that’s what our armed forces are required to do, to hold people apart, to keep the peace when anger and tension are simmering away underneath. And it’s a fine and important job, and we commend those who are doing that difficult and dangerous work today. But peacemaking is something that we’re to do all the time, not only when there is a threat or promise of war. It’s about building the values that hold us together, than celebrate diversity, that promote compassion and care.
When you look at the beatitudes, those verses at the beginning of chapter 5 in Matthew’s Gospel that begin with Jesus saying “Blessed” - “Blessed are the pure in heart . . .” and so forth - Jesus pronounces a blessing on those who live with others in mind, those who don’t grab for themselves but make room for others, which is what humility and meekness are all about.
What they are not about, though, is letting those who are intolerant and have selfish or evil intent just walk all over us. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail; blessed are the peacemakers - those who are working and campaigning for a society built on foundations of justice - which in the Bible is never the blind justice of the law courts, but always a special care for those in most need of it - the poor, the marginalised, those who need support.
Though I’ve been a couple of times in some fairly scary places, I have never fought in a war. Neither have most of us here. I’m grateful for that. Not everything is well with the world I live in, but it is for the most part still a world where more good things happen than bad things, and where I can live in peace and know that my neighbours do too. Thank God for those whose sacrifice, not least on the field of battle, preserved and helped build that world. God preserve me from ever taking that world and its peace and freedom for granted. And God give me the vision and the courage not to leave the ongoing task of peacemaking to others or to defer it till tomorrow, but to accept my responsibility here and now and where I am to play my part in building kingdom values. To quote from the famous song written by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller in 1955: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
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