Speeches and Articles

Martin is a member of the panel of leading Conservative thinkers who contribute regular articles for Conservative Home's online think tank CentreRight.com. Martin was asked to write regular articles on Islamic extremism and terrorism. To view Martin's articles click the icon.

To read Martin's other speeches and articles in Conservatism Magazine and The Difference Magazine - scroll down this page

(Conservative Party Conference October 2006 - featured on BBC News 24)

This summer David Cameron said that the present Labour government were not doing enough to combat Islamic extremism and terrorism at home abroad. He was right! Because Labour has been deliberately appeasing parts of the agenda of a number of Islamist organisations in the UK in an attempt to hold onto its share of the Muslim vote which has significantly haemorrhaged because of an ill considered war in Iraq.

Organisations with a significant Islamist influence within them have realised that they are not going to achieve an Islamic state in Britain overnight, so they have adopted a deliberate strategy of seeking to align British law with Islamic sharia law, either by pushing for changes to parliamentary law or by taking test cases to the courts.

The most important part of sharia is blasphemy against Muhammad. It can include any criticism of Muhammad or even the Qur'an and in many Islamic countries, such as Pakistan, where I used to work, it carries an automatic death penalty.

Now was it really pure coincidence that straight after the 2005 general election when Labour saw its share of the Muslim vote collapse from its normally rock solid 85% down to 70% largely due to an ill considered war in Iraq, when it lost safe Labour seats such as Rochdale and Hornsey and Wood Green to the Lib-Dems, not to mention George Galloway winning Bethnal Green; was it mere coincidence that immediately after that election - Labour announced incitement to religious hatred legislation - widely viewed by Islamic organisations as the 'Islamic blasphemy law' that they had been campaigning for since the Rushdie affair 18 long years before?

And when John Prescott and Ruth Kelly met with the leaders of some o these Islamic organisations immediately after the Heathrow terrorist arrests in August, they were asked for two things - Islamic festivals to become bank holidays and a partial implementation of sharia law in the UK! and Bless her naive little cotton socks - a couple pf weeks later Ruth Kelly set up a commission to look into implementing one of those!

Now I've lived in two Islamic countries - I've been an aid worker in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I've also studied Islamic theology as part of my Ph.D.- and this is what an Islamic state with Sharia law actually means. Under the traditional interpretation of Islamic law

- only Muslims can be part of the government - non Muslims can be civil servants, but not part of government.

- there is a compulsory death penalty for blasphemy against Muhammad, which can include any criticism of Muhammad or the Qur'an.

- while the death penalty exists for any Muslim who changes his religion - such as by becoming a Christian.

There is no way that this agenda is compatible with freedom and democracy - and we need to expose Labour's deliberate appeasement of parts of this Islamist agenda.

The Difference (new centre right magazine on politics, ethics and faith) 1st edition March 2007

In 1559 Elisabeth 1 promulgated an Act of Uniformity requiring everyone to assent to a particular worldview, that of the established church. It was not until 1871 that Britain attained full religious freedom with the repeal of the University Test Acts that had restricted admittance to Oxford and Cambridge universities to Anglicans. This freedom of religion is one of the defining ‘British values’ that has historically led many victims of religious persecution to find sanctuary on our shores. However, the Sexual Orientation Regulations introduced by the present Labour government effectively turn the clock back by requiring everyone in the UK to assent to a particular worldview – a secular pluralist one.

Christian adoption agencies are now not only required to set aside biblical teaching by placing children with homosexual couples: if they do not they will be considered criminals. The Catholic agencies that find homes for a third of the most difficult to place children will be criminals for continuing this work.

In a liberal democracy no government has the right to force a worldview, whether religious or secular, on its citizens.

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On Thursday Gordon Brown’s spokesman denounced Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ claim that the introduction of sharia to the UK was inevitable. However, Gordon Brown himself has been quietly seeking to appease certain aspects of the agenda of 'peaceful' Islamist groups in the UK - including what amounts to a partial implementation of sharia.

At the 2006 Conservative Party conference some of us publicly exposed the way the Labour government has been deliberately appeasing aspects of the Islamist agenda in a vain hope of shoring up Labour’s share of the Muslim vote that collapsed at the last general election due to Blair’s ill conceived war in Iraq. Within days of the Conservative conference ending Jack Straw made his famous criticism of the Muslim veil, then other members of the Labour government spoke in more critical terms of the ideas of some Islamist led organisations in the UK. Many of us hoped …and it was only hope for the sake of the country …that at last New Labour had changed.

BUT, AS SOON AS GORDON BROWN WAS APPOINTED LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY - AND A GENERAL ELECTION APPEARED IMMINENT…LABOUR UNDER GORDON BROWN AGAIN STARTED TO APPEASE PARTS OF THE AGENDA OF UK ISLAMIST GROUPS

Brown Labour’s appeasement of Islamism in the UK – including sharia

1. June 2006 – a government sponsored report on the teaching of Islam in British universities was published. Now one may well ask exactly what the Labour government was doing asking a leading member of the Islamic Foundation – the UK’s largest overtly Islamist group - to write this government sponsored report ON HIS OWN? Although we would have to say that it was Blair not Brown that commissioned this report. Amongst the reports most unacceptable recommendations was that non Muslims should be banned from teaching the main Islamic subjects in British universities! THE PRIME MINISTER THEN PUBLICLLY WELCOMED THIS REPORT (admittedly the PM then was Blair but as Brown was already elected Labour Leader and Prime Minister in waiting – it must surely been with his agreement…). WHY?

2. As soon as Brown was officially appointed as Prime Minister a few weeks later – his inner circle began whipping up talk of an imminent general election. Now at the last two general elections (2001,2005) the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) a Muslim umbrella organisation whose leadership was largely taken over by Islamists as soon as it was formed – issued a Muslim Vote Card – telling candidates of all parties to sign up to a range of Islamic issues – public funding Muslim schools, changes in UK foreign policy etc. The MCB claimed it could swing the vote in at least 20 constituencies – as the Muslim majority was greater than that of the sitting MP – who was almost always Labour. The MCB would tell Muslims to vote against candidates who did not sign up to enough of the MCB demands. A similar policy was operated in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections by the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) a UK offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In the 2005 general election Labour’s share of the Muslim vote collapsed from its normally rock solid 85% down to around 70%. It lost safe Labour seats to the Lib-Dems like Rochdale (5,650 maj), Hornsey and Wood Green (10,600 maj) – not to mention losing Bethnal Green and Bow (10,000 maj) to George Galloway – and nearly lost several other Labour seats.

a) On becoming Prime Minister in summer 2007 Gordon Brown immediately appointed David Milliband as the new Foreign Secretary – and almost the very first public statement Milliband made was to publicly praise Hamas – the Islamist terrorist group that is ideologically committed to the complete annihilation of the state of Israel – the ONLY state in the entire Middle East that even remotely resembles a liberal democracy.

b) In September 2007 Ed Balls - Gordon Brown’s chief lieutenant, and newly promoted by Brown to be Secretary of state for families, children and schools - offered state funding to Islamic schools – again part of the Muslim Vote Card agenda (However, many ordinary Muslims recognise Islamic schools as part of the Islamist agenda and won’t send their children to them. For details on the ideology behind Islamic schools see my 2 page article in September’s The Difference Magazine – also available at www.martinparsons-parliament.org/speeches_and_articles.htm).

c) Then to cap it all Des Browne, Labour’s part time Defence Secretary, told the Labour Party conference at the end of September 2007(remember Brown’s team had really seriously whipped up election fever now!) that we should negotiate with the Taliban! (Why exactly have 87 British soldiers given their lives and hundreds of others paid the ‘daily living sacrifice’ of the wounded and disabled?)

d) Des Browne ALSO told the Labour Party Conference that the future government of Afghanistan MUST include Islamic law. Actually apart from during the Taliban era, Afghanistan has since the early twentieth century had a western style constitution – with sharia courts having a much more informal, non constitutional role. As former aid worker in Afghanistan I KNOW that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the towns and cities of Afghanistan that DESPERATELY DON’T’ want government imposed Islamic law – they just want the Afghan constitution).

e) THEN – in November 2007 Treasury minister Kitty Ussher (and let’s not suppose anything significant has ever happened at the treasury since Labour came to power in 1997 - without Gordon Brown’s explicit say so!) announced a 3 month consultation on the Treasury introducing Islamic sukkuk bonds that are compliant with sharia (now if we do that - we effectively create a whole area of government and economics that can ONLY be governed by Islamic lawyers and sharia courts – and guess what..? sharia forbids any non Muslim from sitting as a judge in a sharia court. Moreover, the commercial law aspects of sharia ALWAYS favour Muslims when there is any deal between Muslims and non Muslims. In fact this is a principle of sharia because sharia fundamentally assumes that Muslims – as the people in submission to Allah – must always govern non Muslims…).

f) Then in February 2008 (yes only a week ago!) – the Department for Work and Pensions announced that where there was a ‘valid’ polygamous marriage it would pay extra benefits. Quite how a polygamous marriage in the UK could in any sense be ‘valid’ when bigamy is a criminal offence in the UK beats me…!

SO Gordon Brown has been at it all along appeasing the agenda of ‘peaceful’ Islamist groups in the UK, who reject violence, but have stated they want to see a gradual move towards an Islamic state in Britain by means of a step by step alignment of British law with sharia.

Now what’s that word for someone who criticises someone else for suggesting something that they are actually covertly doing themselves……?

Perhaps the one useful thing that may come out of this whole sorry episode is that perhaps Brown might at last stop appeasing parts of the Islamist agenda and start standing up for the victims of Islamism – like the women who don’t want to be pressured into a divorce in a sharia court; like thousands of ordinary Muslims who don’t want to send their children to Islamic schools because they see them as part of the Islamist agenda (and who will face huge social pressure in the Muslim community for them to ‘conform’ when there is a state funded Islamic school in their neighbourhood); or the 3000+ former Muslims who have embraced Christianity in the UK – and face frequent intimidation and violence – actions ‘legitimated’ by the death penalty for apostasy in Islamic law; or like the 100,000’s of people in Afghanistan who desperately don’t want the formal constitutional reintroduction of the Islamic law that they suffered under during the Taliban era; or the millions of Christians living under sharia in countries like Pakistan and Northern Nigeria who are second class citizens, subjects to huge discrimination and who often warn their children not to talk about Christianity when Muslims try to talk to them ..as any criticism of Muhammad carries the automatic death penalty in sharia – and a Muslim’s witness is equal to that of TWO non Muslims under sharia; or the Bishop of Rochester – who currently faced death threats from Islamists in his native Pakistan and now faces similar death threats here (an issue on which Gordon Brown has been extraordinarily silent) because he is seen by Islamists as criticising Islam – which implies criticism of Muhammad – which is the most serious offence in Islamic law carrying the automatic death penalty.

At least the archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t actually have the power to introduce aspects of sharia into the UK…

Conservative MPs rightly condemned Rowan Williams for his extraordinarily ill judged, naïve and wrong headed comments. BUT we must also hold Gordon Brown to account for the way he is playing fast and loose with the Islamist agenda.

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Islamic Ideology, Muslims and British Politics

Since the horrific events of the 2005 London bombings Islam and Britain’s Muslim community have been the focus of much government and public attention. Yet the reality is that relatively few British people understand what Islam is and even fewer understand its political aspirations. To understand this issue it is essential that we make a clear distinction between, on the one hand Islamic ideology and on the other hand, the perspectives of ordinary Muslims, who have varying degrees of knowledge and commitment to this ideology and interpret it in a variety of ways.

Islam as an organised religion emerged in seventh century Arabia when Muhammad, following what he believed were divine revelations, called the largely pagan Arabs of Mecca to abandon idolatry and worship the one true God. His followers endured 12 years of hostility from the pagan majority in Mecca before negotiating for Muhammad to become the ruler of nearby Medina. The Muslim community migrated to Medina where the majority of the population embraced Islam and the first Islamic government was created. Up to this point Islam had been an entirely peaceful religion. However, now Muhammad received revelations about how an Islamic state was to be administered and of the need for the entire world to submit to Islam. During the remaining 10 years of his life Muhammad sent out at least 88 military expeditions of which only a minority could be described as defensive actions. The remainder were either raiding parties or aimed at forcing other areas to submit to the Islamic government he believed God had ordained him to establish. As was common at the time, Muhammad engaged in significant acts of violence – including ordering the beheading of 700 Jewish men and boys and enslavement of women and girls for alleged disloyalty during a siege of Medina. After Muhammad’s death his revelations were recorded in the Qur’an, while accounts of his life and sayings were transmitted in canonical traditions known as Hadith. Together these constitute the Islamic scriptures. The Hadith are particularly important, as Muhammad is viewed as the perfect example of humanity, whose conduct is to be emulated.

It is obvious from this brief history that Islam has from its earliest days had a very distinct political vision for the world. However, although the Qur’an and Hadith can be seen as the root of the tree of Islam, there are many different branches that reflect different interpretations of these. Broadly these are: a) traditionalist Islam – which follows the interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith that were decided in medieval times. Historically, these included military jihad and the imposition of an Islamic state on non Muslim areas. However, Islamic leaders in India abandoned military jihad after the failure of the 1856 war of independence (‘The Indian mutiny’), resulting in a longstanding tradition of peaceful Islam among Muslims with family origins in the subcontinent; b) Islamism – which bypasses traditional interpretations of Islam by going directly to the Qur’an and Hadith to determine how a modern Islamic government should be brought about; c) liberal Islam – which seeks to make Islam compatible with western values such as democracy and freedom of speech.

Both traditionalism and Islamism aim at an Islamic state governed by Islamic law (sharia); In such a state, only Muslims are allowed to form the government, although non-Muslims may be civil servants; Christians and Jews are required to pay additional taxation (jizya) but are free to worship. They may convert to Islam, but any Muslim converting to another religion faces the death penalty for ‘apostasy’; a man’s testimony in court is equal to that of two women and a Muslim’s that of two non Muslims; the most serious legal offence is blasphemy against Muhammad, which can include any criticism of Muhammad or the Qur’an and carries a mandatory death sentence. The combination of the latter two has been the cause of the infamous blasphemy trials in Pakistan, when Christians have been sentenced to death after a Muslim has accused them of insulting Muhammad.

Both traditionalist and Islamist commentaries on the Qur’an state that non Muslim areas are to be invited to submit to Islam. If they refuse, then holy war (jihad) is to be fought until they submit to an Islamic government. When an area has once been subjected to an Islamic government – at any time in history – it is regarded as an act of ‘defence’ to wage jihad to re-impose Islamic government on that area. This is the background to groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas only accepting temporary ceasefires with Israel, and the reason why a number of British Islamic organisations which condemned the 7/7 London bombings, nevertheless support Palestinian suicide bombings.

The above discussion summarises Islam’s political aspirations in terms of the teaching of the Qur’an and Hadith and the way they have traditionally been interpreted. However, it would be quite wrong to assume that all British Muslims are even familiar with this, let alone wholeheartedly endorse it. Just as only a relatively small percentage of even practising Christians have ever read the entire Bible, so most British Muslims have never read the complete Qur’an and Hadith. Many British Muslims would be shocked to discover that the canonical collections of Hadith such as Bukhari’s contain 150 pages of traditions relating to jihad – and whilst a small number of these interpret jihad as a personal moral struggle against sin, the majority urge an aggressive war against non Muslims to impose an Islamic government. Similarly, it is questionable how many British Muslims have seriously considered what they should do with statements in the Qur’an such as Q9:29, which urges Muslims to fight those who do not believe in Islam until they submit and pay the jizya (tax imposed on non Muslims in an Islamic state). So how much of the political aspects of Islamic ideology do British Muslims actually support?

Muslim academic Ishtiaq Ahmed, who is chairman of the Bradford Council of Mosques suggests that 70% of British Muslims are traditionalists, 15% Islamists and 15% liberals. Whilst a number of Muslims from a traditionalist background do warm to the idea of sharia being implemented in Britain, for most this is probably no more than romantic idealism, with little understanding of what sharia means in practice. However, this is not the case with Islamists, who represent a new radicalised spectrum of British Islam.

The radicalisation of a minority of British Muslims largely dates back to the Rushdie affair and military interventions in Islamic countries that have occurred since 1990. Two things that almost all Muslims feel a deep emotional attachment to are the person of Muhammad and the worldwide Muslim community (ummah). Any event that Muslims perceive as an attack on either of these is likely to generate a huge amount of anger. When Salman Rushdie published what many Muslims regarded as an obscene and blasphemous parody on Muhammad, Muslims naturally expected groups such as the Commission for Racial Equality to back them. However, they were shocked to discover that the Liberal Left, that dominated such organisations, not only saw freedom of speech as the more important value at stake, but actually supported Rushdie who they regarded as one of themselves. This combination of obscene blasphemy and perceived betrayal resulted in a huge amount of anger, not merely amongst an older generation of traditionalist Muslims, but also amongst many hitherto largely secularised Muslim youth. The Rushdie affair not only generated an increasing Muslim clamour for an Islamic blasphemy law, it also kick started the radicalisation of a portion of Muslim youth. This radicalisation was exacerbated by recent British military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Only those who have seen first hand the genuine pain felt by Muslims when the West bombs a Muslim country can appreciate the depth of anger that such actions can generate in a Muslim community. Illustrative of this was a poll conducted by Muslim magazine Q-News following the western intervention in Afghanistan, 23% of readers said they would go to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban and bin Laden.

A further result of the Rushdie affair was the emergence of a range of Islamic organisations seeking to promote Islamic interests with the government. By advocating a shift of focus from ethnic identity (as Asians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis etc) to religious identity as Muslims they themselves contributed to the islamisation process. Whilst a minority of Islamic groups were overtly Islamist, others, including the umbrella group the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), quickly came under strong Islamist influence.

Muslim academic, Muhammad Raza, suggests that British Muslims have adopted one of three approaches to British society. a) assimilation – blending in and becoming almost indistinguishable from the majority culture; b) isolation – advocating non participation in British politics, a stance advocated by some Islamist groups such as Hezb ut Tahrir; c) Participating in British society in order to make Britain more Islamic, an approach taken by both traditionalist and some Islamist groups. Islamic organisations representing these groups accept that it is unrealistic to think that Britain will quickly become an Islamic state and so, as an intermediate step, campaign to bring British law into increasing alignment with sharia, either by bringing test cases before the courts or by lobbying for changes in the law. To such groups, democracy is seen as a vehicle for bringing in islamisation. In 1997, the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs, then headed by Iqbal Sacranie (later first general secretary of the MCB) suggested that there were around 20 marginal seats where a Muslim bloc vote could overturn the sitting MPs majority. In the 2001 and 2005 elections the MCB asked candidates to sign up to the MCB’s full political agenda if they wanted the Muslim vote.

The Labour government’s attitude to this islamisation has been threefold. Firstly, a significant strengthening of anti-terrorism legislation including an attempt to give Police up to 90 days to detain suspects before charging them. This generated considerable fear in the Muslim community, given that of 895 people arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 only 23 were finally convicted of such offences, while 496 were released without charge. The historic Conservative defeat of the 90 day proposal – the first ever suffered by Tony Blair - should remind the government that counter terrorism is ultimately about defending civil liberties.

Secondly, Labour’s relationship with Islamic organisations closely parallels its relationship with the unions a decade ago – it needs their support, but doesn’t want all of their agenda – so it appeases them by granting some of their demands - such as an Islamic blasphemy law. One could be forgiven for wondering whether it was entirely coincidental that the government introduced incitement to religious hatred legislation, shortly after an election when its traditional 85% share of the Muslim vote significantly haemorrhaged to the Lib-Dems, largely as a result of the Iraq war. How much the Lib-Dems are prepared to give in exchange for the Muslim vote remains to be seen.

Thirdly, instead of simply affirming that the vast majority of British Muslims follow an entirely peaceful interpretation of Islam, the government has repeatedly and quite wrongly referred to acts of violence as a ‘perverse reinterpretation of Islam’. This has led to a fundamentally flawed strategy of seeking to promote ‘mainstream Islam’ by a series of measures including providing subsidised training in Arabic and Islamic theology, measures that may actually increase radicalisation. Exactly what will happen when, encouraged by the government’s programme of subsidised Islamic education, young British Muslims start to study the 150 pages on jihad in the Hadith or the similar teaching in the traditional Qur’anic commentaries that form part of the standard curriculum followed by Islamic theological schools? Let’s just pray it’s a peaceful outcome.

Finally, let’s remember that there are very many British Muslims who are deeply peaceful, patriotically British and have little sympathy for the agenda of Islamist influenced organisations. The way to win their support is to focus on concerns that we share with them – such as promoting marriage and family values – Conservative values!

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The Difference (new centre right magazine on politics, ethics and faith) September 2007.

The mosques echoed to the sounds of angry mullahs denouncing the west for ‘attacking Islam’. No, not a visit by the Home Secretary to an east London mosque, but Delhi, 1852. Surprisingly, the issue that sparked so much anger was education. The English sponsored Delhi College was teaching the copernican system of astronomy, which put the sun at the centre of the universe - rather than the earth, as the ptolomaic system did, which had been taught in Islamic madrassas for centuries.

This early clash illustrates the two different systems of education that have existed in the Islamic world since colonial times. For centuries India has had its own ancient education systems, based on the study of Sanskrit and the Vedas for Hindus and the madrassa system for Muslims. The dars-i-nizami curriculum taught in madrassas had been established in the seventeenth century and still remains largely unchanged today. It includes study of Arabic and the traditional medieval interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith and Islamic law (sharia), as well as subjects such as mathematics.

In India western education, largely modelled on British public schools was introduced from the early nineteenth century. It was taught in a small number of government colleges to provide trained administrators for the East India Company’s employment, as well as in Christian colleges set up by missionaries.

The smouldering friction between western and Islamic education that first sparked to life in nineteenth century India produced a number of different reactions among Muslims. A few Muslims began to question Islam, with most becoming largely secularised, although some converted to Christianity. Another reaction was the birth of ‘liberal’ Islam, with Muslim academics such as Sir Sayed Ahmad Khan, founder of the western style Muslim university at Aligarh, seeking to reform Islam to make it compatible with western liberal values. The greater proportion of Muslim students who attended western style schools accepted the undoubted economic benefits of a western style education, without necessarily embracing all of its values. Nevertheless, amongst many students, the schools clearly did create a groundswell of goodwill towards both Christianity and the west that contrasted with the general antipathy displayed by many who had been educated in the Islamic educational system.

This was not always the case however, and surprising as it may seem, Islamism as a movement largely emerged among Muslims who had received a western style education. Islamism is essentially a critical approach to Islam, that seeks to bypass the medieval interpretations of traditionalist Islam and let Muslims interpret the Qur’an and Hadith for themselves. It is surely one of the greatest ironies of our times that the emphasis of western liberal education on ‘critical thinking’ provided the tools that led Islamists to rediscover the teaching in the Qur’an and Hadith on the ‘necessity’ of the whole world being subjected to Islamic government, if necessary by means of military jihad.

According to Muslim academic Ishtiaq Ahmed, today15% of British Muslims are radical Islamists, another 15% are liberals, while 70% are traditionalists. The latter two groups have largely allowed their children to attend mainstream comprehensive schools, sometimes supplemented by evening classes in Islamic studies at their local mosque. In practice, this has given many British Muslim children a broadly similar education to that experienced by their parents and grandparents in countries such as Pakistan. There most school children attend western style government schools, with a similar curriculum to British schools, albeit with the addition of Islamic studies as a compulsory subject.

However, the traditional Islamic educational system also exists in the UK. At least 40 private madrassas have been established both to provide a general Islamic education and to train imams. Whilst some focus on adult education, others take pupils from ages 13-19, where the traditional Islamic curriculum is supplemented with GCSEs and A-levels taught for part of the day. In many madrassas the Islamic curriculum is largely based on the dars-i-nizami curriculum used in the subcontinent. This should be a matter of serious concern for the government as this curriculum is based on rote learning of ancient Islamic texts, such as the Hedaya, a textbook on sharia that explicitly urges violent jihad and the imposition of an Islamic government with sharia on both Muslims and non Muslims alike. Significantly, few outside of the madrassa system have any knowledge of this and the majority of British Muslims, who are deeply peace loving, would be genuinely shocked to discover it.

Whilst only a tiny proportion of Muslims attend madrassas, the potential clash of civilisations between the two systems of education has been given added impetus by a growing radicalisation among a minority of British Muslims since the 1980s.

This has included a number of test cases claiming rights for female pupils or staff in state schools to wear more conservative Islamic dress – including the full veil. Where schools are predominantly Muslim, this islamicisation process can easily lead to non Muslim parents sending their children elsewhere. Equally, the degree of social pressure within many Muslim communities can make it very difficult for ordinary Muslims to stand out against this more conservative dress code once it is permitted. I saw this clearly in a school I visited last year in a predominantly Muslim area of Leicester. It was striking that there were almost no non Muslim children in the school, even though a significant minority lived in the area. Moreover, every single girl wore the full Islamic hijab head covering, instead of the traditional Pakistani dupatta widely seen elsewhere. The same issue of Islamic social pressure was highlighted last year by Shahid Malik MP, himself a Muslim, when a Muslim teaching assistant in Dewsbury lost her appeal for permission to wear the full veil in class. Mr Malik commented that many of his Muslim constituents would definitely not send their children to a school that allowed its classroom staff to be veiled.

There have also been demands from Islamic organisations for state funding of Muslim schools. When Labour came to power in 1997 the government began to approve the creation of Muslim schools in a similar manner to voluntary aided Anglican and Catholic schools. However, the real question that needs to be answered is whether these Islamic schools are being primarily inspired by a western liberal education system, ultimately derived from Christian values, which seeks to promote tolerance and freedom – or by an Islamic one?

The government’s relationship with Islamic organisations is of critical importance. Put simply Labour needs their votes but doesn’t want all of their agenda, so has appeased them piecemeal. For example, by announcing government subsidies for courses in Islamic theology and Arabic and considering approval for a Muslim City Academy in Bradford.

However, the events of 9/11 and more particularly the 2005 London bombings appear to be leading the Labour government into a subtle, but significant u-turn on Muslim schools. Yet, rather than targeting Muslim schools, the government has focused on all faith schools. First came an announcement that all faith schools would have to allocate 25% of their places to pupils from another faith or no faith, a proposal, which was finally dropped after a concerted campaign by the Catholic Church. Then the government legally required all schools to promote ‘community cohesion’, with school’s minister Jim Knight suggesting faith schools should twin with those of other faiths.

This attempt to create ‘community cohesion’ by targeting all faith schools instead of just Muslim ones is almost certainly driven by Labour’s desire to hold onto its share of the Muslim vote, which slumped in the 2005 general election. However, there is also a marked secularising tendency in Liberal-Left politics, coupled with an ideological assumption that the state, not churches or parents should educate children. The recent vote of the left leaning teaching union the NASUWT to oppose new faith schools well illustrates these ideological assumptions.

Yet whoever heard of voluntary aided Church of England or Catholic schools in mainland Britain creating problems of community cohesion? They don’t for two reasons. Firstly, because as part of the majority community – 72% according to the last census - voluntary aided Christian schools by definition cannot create an educational ghetto. Secondly, unlike the Islamic scriptures, the Bible does not set out a distinct political system, still less require one to be imposed on non believers. Tragically, this is a nettle that the Labour government and other members of the Liberal-Left seem unable or unwilling to grasp.

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Muslims in France - a Clash of Cultures or Politics?

The Difference (new centre right magazine on politics, ethics and faith) May 2007

October 2005 and the street of Paris literally burned with rage as thousands of Muslim immigrants living in the deprived outer suburbs of Paris rioted. The government response, personified by interior minister and later presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, was stern and unyielding. Yet was this really a riot simply about social deprivation – or was it more fundamentally a clash between two political cultures, whose aspirations were so disparate as to question their very co-existence?

The French political culture epitomised by Sarkozy assumed that France represented the highest form of civilisation – indeed to give people French language and culture was to give them civilisation itself. It was a policy that had historically been outworked in France’s relations with its colonies – reluctant to give them up and uncomprehending of independence movements. The French government had finally offered some, what it regarded as the highest possible honour – not independence, but to become an ‘overseas department’ of France.

In contrast, many of France’s largely North African Muslim population originating in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia had been influenced by a radically different political culture –an Islamic one. However scant their knowledge of the Islamic scriptures themselves – one thing that is deeply imbibed in Islamic culture is that Muslim should rule non Muslims. It is a belief that God has ordained what government should be – and that is ‘a government in submission to Allah’, which by definition means that Muslims – those ‘in submission to Allah’ should rule. Many of France’s immigrant Muslim minorities therefore experience considerable angst when, not only do they find themselves ruled by non Muslims, but also socially and economically worse off than many non Muslims.

The clash between these two seemingly incompatible political cultures is exemplified in the French government’s ban on wearing religious headscarves in schools. To the French government it is an issue of ensuring conformity to the French way of life. While to the Muslims, the headscarf is a symbol of a girl’s moral uprightness, something that in many Islamic contexts only prostitutes would do without.

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Christians Face Islamic law in Pakistan

The Difference (new centre right magazine on politics, ethics and faith) May 2007

We’ve told our children not to talk about the Gospel if Muslims ask them, my friend told me, it’s too dangerous he added, referring to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which impose a mandatory death sentence on anyone blaspheming Muhammad. My friend was no coward, he had been the national leader of a Christian organisation, but like most Pakistanis his primary concern was for his family. Who could blame him? - under sharia a Christian’s witness in court has only half the weight of a Muslim’s. A situation, which has resulted in Christians maliciously accused of blasphemy by Muslims being left with little hope of justice, with even those acquitted having their lives threatened by Islamic extremists. Despite this there are Pakistani Christians who courageously preach the Gospel and share their faith, along with hundreds who have converted from Islam. Christians, who in the words of Revelation 12:11 do not love their lives so much as to shrink from death – being fully aware of the death penalty that sharia decrees for ‘apostates’ from Islam.

These are the flashpoints where sharia most directly challenges what the Bible requires of Christians – to preach the good news of Christ’s forgiveness, making it available to everyone (Matt.28:18-20). However, sharia also heavily discriminates against Christians in the political realm. Although General Musharraf has abolished the separate parliamentary seats for non Muslims which confined them to the political margins, the constitution still requires both the president and prime minister to be a Muslims. Moreover, while Christians can be tried under Islamic law, Christian lawyers cannot appear in the federal sharia courts or sit as judges in the sharia court.

This is an outworking of the Islamic dhimmi concept – Churches are allowed to openly exist in an Islamic state and largely run themselves, provided they accept significantly lesser legal and political rights than the Muslim majority. Unjust as this situation is, there is nothing in the Bible that requires Christians as an item of faith to have political power, and this, as Christopher Catherwood argues in his article, illustrates one of the major differences between Christianity and Islam.

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Earlier this year research conducted for Halifax Home Insurance concluded that Elmbridge in Surrey had the best quality of life in the whole of the UK. It had high average earnings, high property values, low traffic flows and a healthy population. However, one suspects that had the survey included such indicators as work/life balance and time available to spend with family, Elmbridge might not have scored so highly. There are in fact, a whole variety of different ways, both quantitative and qualitative, in which quality of life can be measured.

The book of Proverbs describes quality of life as something that is gained by pursuing wisdom. The wisdom that Proverbs refers to is essentially the creator’s plan for the good ordering of his creation (Prov.8:1-36). This includes such things as hard work, rather than laziness which proverbs observes brings poverty (Prov.6:6-10) and faithfulness in marriage, unfaithfulness bringing poverty and retribution (Prov.6:20-7:27). However, the foundation stone of all of this is an acknowledgement of who God is and his ideals for society, for ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Prov.9:10).

The role of government in allowing quality of life to flourish

In an earlier edition of Conservatism Magazine, we saw that God’s ideals for society were based on a triangle of good relationships between God, our fellow men and the environment.[1] These relationships are primarily worked out in society and are not necessarily the responsibility of government. However, the Bible does point to some of the responsibilities that governments have to create a society in which these ideals can flourish.

1. A specific duty is laid on governments to ensure that their citizens have freedom both to worship God peacefully and to persuade others of the truth and rightness of their faith, because God desires all men to come to a knowledge of his truth and be saved (1 Tim.2:1-4). Those who have lived in countries without such freedom of religion appreciate all too well how vital this is to quality of life. However, even in the UK, the lurch towards political correctness has put such basic freedoms at risk. Recently, a Christian minister was arrested under the public order act for simply handing out leaflets containing Bible verses about homosexuality. Meanwhile the Labour government supported by the Lib-Dems propose to bring in such sweeping legislation against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation as to seriously jeopardise many people’s freedom of religious conscience.

2. In order to allow quality relationships between people to flourish, justice must be fairly administered and anarchy avoided. Governments are given a divinely ordained duty to ensure that wrong doers are punished. In the OT this takes the form of God decreeing specific punishments for various forms of criminal activity (Ex.21:12ff). The New Testament makes this even more explicit by describing government as ‘God’s servant’ to do society good by punishing wrongdoers. The NT not only affirms the OT institution of the death penalty for murder (Gen.9:5-6), but explicitly states that God has delegated to governments the authority to act in this way (Rom.13:1-7).

3. Freedom from political oppression. Throughout the OT we see God intervening to save the nation of Israel from foreign oppression by raising up military deliverers such as Gideon (Judges 6:1-16; Neh.9:27). Once again this is an aspect of quality of life that we too easily take for granted, but one, which those who have lived through foreign occupation and domination of their lands are all too aware of. Appeasement, or negotiation with evil is something that the Bible never condones. When the OT picture of God specifically raising up military deliverers is taken together with Paul’s affirmation of divinely delegated authority for the state to take life, a strong case exists that defence of basic freedoms by military means is a duty that God has placed on governments.

4. The Bible also highlights the importance of marriage and family life as central to quality of life. Together, they are given an incredibly important status in the OT law, to the extent that they were the only civil institution whose uniqueness was protected by specific criminal sanctions. The recent research report on family life commissioned by the Conservative Party’s social justice policy group provided strong empirical evidence corroborating this. This research clearly showed that marriage was one of the key ways of safeguarding people against both poverty and a range of other social problems, a depiction that closely corresponds with Proverbs’ depiction of the economic and social consequences of neglecting fidelity in marriage (Prov.6:20-7:27).

5. The OT similarly highlights work/life balance as central to God’s plan for human quality of life. This included not merely the concept of the Sabbath as one day off in seven, which Jesus described as having been created for the benefit of man (Mk 2:27), but even extended to such issues as a newly married man not being required to go to war for a year, but instead allowed to stay and home ‘and bring happiness to his wife’ (Deut.24:5).

This broad framework describes something of what God expects governments to do to create the conditions in which quality of life can flourish. However, the Bible sets out a much more comprehensive vision of quality of life as an ideal for society to seek to live up to, including nourishing and caring for the environment. Fundamental to the Biblical worldview’s perspective on quality of life are the twin principles of stewardship and subduing the earth.

The twin principles of stewardship and subduing the earth

The Bible makes it clear that the entire earth ultimately belongs to God, man is merely a steward of it. This is well illustrated by God’s declaration in Psalm 50:10-12 that ‘every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine… the world is mine, and all that is in it’.

This principle has profound implications for how we view quality of life – including the need for each person to have enough of the earth’s resources to live off. In OT Israel this was principle worked out by each family owning enough agricultural land to be economically independent and build a home on - the ancient equivalent of a home owning, share owning democracy…!

The principle of stewardship also has profound implications for how we should view the environment, as the earth is not ours to do whatever we want with, but a stewardship held in trust from God, to be passed onto succeeding generations. The Bible spells out several principles from this.

1. God is concerned for the welfare of all living things – including animal life. This can be seen in the way that even agricultural ethics finds a place in the OT. For example, there are admonitions that a kid should not be boiled in its own mother’s milk (Ex.23:19) and that an ox should not be being muzzled while threshing grain (Deut.25:4). God’s concern for animals is underlined still further in the NT where the apostle Paul takes the instruction about feeding oxen as a paradigm of social justice. Paul argues that if God ordained that an ox should be allowed its share of the harvest while threshing – then similarly agricultural labourers should not be deprived of their rightful wages! (1 Tim.5:18).

2. Sustainability. This is most clearly seen in the institution of the agricultural sabbatical year, allowing fields to lie fallow one year in seven (Lev.25:1-6), a principle which in at least some measure foreshadowed modern crop rotation. The OT underlines the importance of this by stating that one of the reasons for the Israelites subsequently being exiled from the promised land was to allow the land to catch up on the sabbatical fallow years that they had been neglecting (Lev.26:33-35).

3. Beauty. This is a concept that is perhaps given insufficient weight in current environmental debates. However, the Bible speaks of environmental beauty, praising the beauty of mountains and even the beauty of Jerusalem (Ps.48:2). The Psalms moreover speak of the beauty of creation as being a witness pointing to the glory of God (Ps.19:1-4), a claim that the apostle Paul reiterates in the NT (Rom.1:19-20). Giving due weight to he importance of environmental beauty will have a profound impact on the environmental debate that we are currently engaged in. When this perspective is taken, solutions to the energy crisis such as locating wind turbines in areas of outstanding natural beauty may not come out looking quite so environmentally friendly, as those using narrower definitions of environmental sometimes claim.

However, as well as setting out a principle of stewardship, the Bible also sets out a complimentary principle of man being commanded to subdue the earth. At the beginning of creation God blessed man and woman and told them to ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground’. A command which was subsequently repeated to Noah after the flood (Gen.9:1-3).

This principle of subduing the earth – does not simply mean the cultivation of the land, but also includes animals, birds and fish being specifically being given to man for food (Gen.9:2-3) and even extends to the mining of the earth’s finite resources. Illustrative of this is the blessing, which God promised to the Israelites about to enter the promised land, a blessing which included the ability to dig iron and copper out of the mountains (Deut.8:6-9). This issue perhaps highlights one of the key differences between the biblical worldview and that of some secular environmental philosophies – which is that the Bible does not assume that the earth will simply go on forever, but does assume that God has given man the resources of the earth to use.

Whilst the Bible portrays some environmental change – such as desertification as a curse (Ps.107:3-4), the principle of subduing the earth means that environmental change in itself is not necessarily to be feared – and when carefully managed may be beneficial to man. One of the clearest examples of this is seen when the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh entered the promised land and were specifically ordered to clear the forested hill country in order to settle and farm it (Joshua 17:15-18). However, this was to be mitigated by the ensuing arable farming being conducted in a sustainable way with the fallow year and so forth, environmental change – in an environmentally sustainable way. This principle has profound implications when applied to current issues such as energy supply, as even the most eco-friendly sources of energy, such as tidal power, produce significant environmental change. However, that change should not necessarily be viewed negatively, if it is managed carefully.

The key differences between the biblical worldview’s perspectives on the environment and those of many secular environmental philosophies lie in their assumptions about the nature of the earth. One of the most significant philosophical influences on recent environmental thinking has been the Gaia hypothesis developed by Professor James Lovelock. This has now gone beyond a scientific analysis of the interlinking of all aspects of the environment, to viewing the earth as a god in itself to be feared and respected – a mother nature who must be nurtured and allowed to live forever.[2] In contrast to this, the biblical worldview sees the environment as part of God’s finite creation, which he has entrusted man to act as a steward of, but also told him to subdue and use its resources.

[1] Conservatism Magazine Spring 2006 30-34.

[2] For a concise analysis of the development of the Gaia hypothesis into an environmental spirituality cf. D. Burnett Dawning of the Pagan Moon (Eastborune:MARC,1991) 93ff.

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International Development, Christianity and Politics

The origins of both international development and the NGO movement can be traced directly back to the Clapham group of leading evangelical businessmen, clergy and MPs led by William Wilberforce.

The antecedents of the modern NGO movement lie in the anti-slavery and social justice campaigns led by Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham group. In 1823 Wilberforce, then the Tory Member of Parliament for Yorkshire, together with other members of the Clapham group formed the Anti-Slavery Society, which was effectively the UK’s first NGO (Non Governmental Organisation).

The Clapham group were also involved in setting up two of the direct precursors to modern international development:

Firstly, In 1791 Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham group had founded Sierra Leone as a haven for freed slaves, based on freedom and equality for all regardless of colour, together with the promotion of commerce as an economically attractive alternative to the slave trade. Although not a great success, it was the first serious attempt to help Africa to develop its own resources. Members of the Clapham group eventually developed the policy of ‘three C’s’ – Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation as a means of developing the far flung parts of the world. Although the idea of exporting ‘Civilisation’ today sounds somewhat patronising, at the time it meant giving the best of the West to the rest of the world – government, law, economic prosperity, western education and so forth.

Secondly, Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham group were founding members and lifelong supporters of the Church Missionary Society. Although the Sierra Leone experiment had had at best only limited success in the education and social development of Africa, Christian missions were to have a far greater and much more long lasting impact. Although in an era influenced by political correctness Christian missions today lack the degree of public respect they once had, it is clear that in many cases the reception of the Christian Gospel itself had a significant effect in social transformation. For example, it was one of the major factors leading to the abandonment of cannibalism in the South Pacific islands and even Charles Darwin became a supporter of missionary work as a result of seeing the transformation that missionary work brought to places he visited on his voyages.

The missionaries who went out to Africa and India in the the nineteenth century not only sought to persuade people of the truth of the Christian Gospel, they also sought to meet pressing social needs both by political advocacy and practical action.

During Wilberforce’s parliamentary campaign against the slave trade, it was missionaries who had provided almost the only accurate and detailed information on the effects of the slave trade on Africa. During the course of the nineteenth century missionaries continued to engage in political advocacy against social injustice. In parts of Africa, such as Malawi, this included petitioning the British government to bring the region under direct British rule, in order to provide the protection of British law for the local population who were being exploited by European traders. In areas of India, which were under various forms of British administration, missionaries campaigned against practices such as suttee – the burning of Hindu widows on their husband’s funeral pyre – a practice eventually outlawed by the British in 1829.

However, it is the legacy of practical social action that has provided the most long lasting legacy of the missionary movement and it is to this that the modern NGO movement owes its most immediate origins. It was the British missionaries at Calcutta led by William Carey who were the first both to develop alphabets for many of the Indian languages and to open vernacular schools for the local population. The arrival of the Scottish missionary Alexander Duff in India in 1830 led to a parallel emphasis on English medium schools and colleges, many of which even today form a significant part of the higher education system in India and Pakistan. As many former colonies became independent it became clear that mission schools had created a deep legacy of goodwill towards the UK, with a disproportionate number of nationalist leaders having been educated at them. In Kenya for example, 10 out of 17 members of Jomo Kenyatta’s first cabinet had been educated at the Kikuyuland Alliance Mission High School.

Christian missionaries were also pioneers in medical work in Africa, Asia, Latin America and China, founding hospitals and medical schools that both aimed to provide medical care where none existed and to train nationals as doctors and nurses. Although governments also began to provide these services, the significance of missionaries pioneering the provision of educational and medical services was enormous. Even in China, which was certainly not the easiest environment for Christians missions to operate in, by 1933 six of China’s twelve medical schools were financed by missionary societies.

Similarly, where disasters such as floods and famines occurred, missionaries were often among the first to organise relief efforts, both because they were there on the ground and because their Christian faith taught them to see all people as created by God and the object of his love and care.

It was the combination of a century of Christian inspired tradition of humanitarian care with the devastating impact of two world wars that led to the emergence of the modern NGO movement in the twentieth century, Save the Children being founded in 1919 in the aftermath if the first world war, Oxfam in 1942 and Care in 1945. These NGOs themselves ultimately became the inspiration and model for the establishment of modern humanitarian organisations by other faith communities, with agencies such as Islamic Relief starting in 1984, Muslim Aid in 1985 and Muslim Hands in 1993, all being started in response to crises such as Bosnia that affected Muslim communities. However, the ultimate inspiration behind all of these NGOs, whether acknowledged or not, is the practical expressions of Christian social concern of evangelicals such as Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham group.

The latter part of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of ‘the Social Gospel’. This movement, which owed at least part of its inspiration to Christian Socialists such as F.D. Maurice, led some Christians to argue that the church should stop preaching the Gospel, particularly to adherents of other religions and instead concentrate exclusively on social activism. In reacting against this, many evangelicals abandoned social action altogether. It was not until the 1950s and 60s that evangelicals recovered their social conscience, leading to the formation of Christian NGOs such as World Vision in North America in 1950 and Tear Fund in the UK in 1968. Today, Christian NGOs play a significant role in international relief and development with 4 of the 12 aid agencies forming the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee being specifically Christian aid organisations. Whilst aid agencies set up by other faith communities have often been founded to focus on their own faith communities, international Christian development agencies have consistently sought to make their aid freely available to people of all faiths purely and solely on the basis of need.

One of the problems in discussing social justice issues within the church, is that many Christians have a tendency to uncritically assume that because the Bible teaches that Christians should care for the poor, the primary responsibility for doing so lies with the government. Consequently, whilst many Christians will score the Conservatives high for promoting marriage and family values, they uncritically tend to assume that Labour will score more highly on social justice issues. The latter assumption needs to be gently challenged.

In the last issue of Conservatism Magazine we examined the Old Testament’s teaching on social justice (Spring 2006:30-34). In this we identified a number of Biblical principles, which should underpin a Christian approach to social justice, whether in the UK or in international development:

A quick glance at these will show that almost all of these are also fundamentally Conservative approaches to Social Justice. I would suggest that a clear and consistent application of these could significantly improve the effectiveness of Britain’s international development programme at actually helping the poor at grassroots level.

Dare we ask what would happen if, instead of channelling large amounts of Britain’s aid budget through the EU (an institution aid agencies prefer not to deal with because of the huge amount of time consuming bureaucracy involved), the government matched pound for pound all donations to aid agencies? This would surely encourage an even more open hearted and generous response from the great British public to those in need. Dare we ask what would happen if loans made to developing countries were limited to amounts which could be repaid within 6-7 years, so that these countries did not become burdened with never ending debt repayments? And dare we ask what would happen if the ‘principle of relational responsibility’ was applied and Britain concentrated her long term overseas aid on countries such as those of the Commonwealth that we have the closest historic relationships with? Whilst Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s commitment at last year’s G8 summit to free primary education for all in Africa by 2010 is laudable, surely Britain has a greater responsibility to those countries where it has strongest historic ties? These include countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh whose literacy rates also happen to be significantly lower than in many African countries.

And what would happen if we applied these principles of social justice not just at government level, but also to our funding of overseas development projects at grassroots level?

I would like to share with you two examples of where that has been done – applying these biblical (and Conservative!) principles of social justice at grassroots level in international development:

The first involves relief work done by a Christian relief agency in Afghanistan during the Taliban era when there were many thousands of badly malnourished families in Kabul. Instead of just handing out food to hungry people, the TEAR FUND team concerned approached the community leaders in the district they were working in and asked them each week to select a different group of men from the poorest families in the district. These unemployed men were then put to work digging ditches to drain the area of stagnant water that malaria-carrying mosquitoes were breeding in. In payment for their work they were then given sacks of food. When another aid agency working in the area was evaluating their own relief programme, the local people told them ‘ we appreciate the free food you’ve given us – but what we really like is the way the other aid agency do it – giving us both food and work!’ It didn’t just give them food, it also gave them dignity, by helping them to help themselves.

The second example is an approach to longer term development known as ‘community development’. In this the aim is not to come in and do things ‘for’ the community, but to help the community ‘to help themselves’. This involves the aid agency helping the community to think through what the underlying causes of the problems they are facing are and how, with a bit of outside help they can solve them themselves. This may be by the aid agency providing materials or outside expertise so that the community can build their own pit latrines, dig their own wells or build their own schools. However, the most important thing is that it is the local community’s project – not the aid agency’s. Instead of the aid agency paying a salary to a teacher or village health worker, the village is encouraged to find ways of doing so themselves – perhaps by providing food in exchange for the person’s work, or spending a few hours a week working on the teacher’s fields while they are teaching their neighbour’s children. This approach not only prevents the community becoming dependent on the aid agency, it also positively builds the capacity in the local community to help itself. When the aid agency eventually leaves, the village school or other development projects they have set up don’t stop functioning because the aid agency is no longer paying salaries – they carry on. That’s good development – and it is based on principles that are both Biblical and Conservative!

Recommended Reading

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Social Justice in the Old Testament

In the Beginning was…Social Justice

The Bible tells us how God made the world and declared that it was not merely good – but very good! There was no injustice in God’s good creation. Here was a world in which man and woman dwelt together in a harmony of perfect relationships: – with God whose immediate presence they enjoyed as he walked with them in the garden; with each other in intimacy as man and wife; and even with the environment – in a beautiful uncorrupted garden, where the law of the jungle did not reign, for even the animals showed no hostility to either man or even each other (Gen.1:29-31).

The OT indicates that social justice is not simply ‘cleaning up the damage’ caused by social injustice – it is something that God positively planned into creation because it reflects his nature. Genesis tells us that God blessed the seventh day as a day of rest for mankind because he himself had rested after 6 days work. (Gen. 2:2-3).

Here, as is common in Hebrew poetry, the second and third lines expand on the first line. In other words, it is only together as male and female in harmonious relationship that humanity truly reflects the image of God. Right relationships between people reflect something of the nature of God and social justice is ultimately about reflecting the heart of God.

Sin…and the Spread of Social Injustice

Tragically, this triangle of perfect relationships between man, God and the environment was soon to be corrupted by the devastating effects of sin. The Bible describes sin as not merely man ‘stepping over a line’ or ‘falling short of the mark’, but as a powerful spiritual force unleashed on the world by man’s disobedience. It was a force that corrupted each of these relationships, not merely causing man to be alienated from God, but also corrupting man’s relationship with both the environment and with his fellow man (Rom.8:19-21). Social injustice is a direct consequence of sin.

The immediate effect of sin was seen in terms of man’s relationship with God. Instead of enjoying direct access to his presence, they were afraid and hid from him, before being banished from his immediate presence (Gen.3:8-10,23-24). Man’s relationship with the environment was also corrupted, the earth now became cursed so that food would now only be obtained by painful toil and sweat.

However, there were also devastating social consequences. The first of these was the corruption of marriage. The beautiful intimate relationship between man and woman became tarnished by embarrassment at their own sexuality and mutual blame and recrimination as God confronted them with their sin. Within seven generations the equality and mutual respect God intended between husband and wife had been degraded into polygamy (Gen.4:19).

Wider relationships were also corrupted by jealousy and violence as can be seen in the story of Cain’s anger and jealousy of his brother, which ultimately led to murder. Self seeking, greed and violence spread across the earth to such an extent that by the time of Noah, God saw that the people’s hearts were continually inclined towards evil and God was ‘grieved’ that he had made them (Gen.6:5-7).

Even after the flood, man’s sinful nature caused the human heart to have a bias towards greed and selfishness. Instead of an equitable distribution and use of the earth’s resources, those with power were tempted to take more than their fair share. In words that have a strikingly modern resonance the writer of Ecclesiastes insightfully comments that

Whoever loves money never has money enough,

Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income (Eccl. 5:10)

While Proverbs reflects on the social injustice that this attitude to wealth creates:

Ezekiel sums up the seriousness with which God views such actions when he warns Israel that it was not simply because of gross immorality that God destroyed Sodom, but because

She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy (Ezek.16:49).

What God is condemning here, is not simply a neglect of the poor, but a wrong attitude to wealth and possessions. The OT repeatedly emphasises that the whole earth belongs to God, even the cattle on the hills (Ex.19:5; Ps.50:10) while man is merely a steward placed in charge of the earth. This doesn’t mean that God is against personal property – far from it – he quite specifically promised land and wealth to Biblical characters such as Abraham and Solomon (Gen.13:14-17; 2 Chron.1:10-12). It’s just that God is the ultimate owner. Man is merely a steward who may take enough for his own needs, but has a responsibility to ensure that he does not gain his share by depriving others of what they need to live on. When man loses sight of this and regards himself as an absolute owner, injustice is an inevitable result.

God’s Plan for Society

When man corrupted God’s perfect world, God did not simply sit back and remind him how far he had fallen, God set up a rescue plan. This plan centred on Abraham to whom God promised that he would bless so that he could be a blessing to all peoples on earth (Gen.12:2-3). Abraham’s great grandchildren became the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel. Into this nation God chose to become incarnate, to be born, live and die then send his followers to all of the world’s peoples to tell of the salvation that the cross had brought.

However, there was also another way in which God intended Israel to be a blessing to the other nations. God intended her to model his ideals for society to the rest of the world. Israel’s calling was to be a light to the gentiles (Isa.42:6). This involved not only the mission of bringing salvation to the ends of the earth by calling the gentile nations to worship the one true God (Ps.96:3-10; Isa.49:6), but also that of bringing justice to the nations (Isa.42:1-4). The basis of this justice was the OT ‘law’ (Isa.42:4). Israel’s calling was not merely to proclaim the salvation of God, but to demonstrate its positive social effects by her obedience to the OT law. She was to act as a beacon of social justice to the surrounding gentile nations (Deut.4:5-8).

Sadly, OT Israel largely failed to live up to this calling. Nonetheless, the OT ‘law’ that God gave Israel sets out God’s standards for the just and righteous society that he wanted Israel to model to the other nations of the world. Economically, technologically and culturally we live in a very different world to OT Israel. However, the OT law still sets out God’s ideals for a just and righteous society, although this is not so much a model to be copied in detail as a paradigm that we need to apply in our own very different cultural setting.

OT scholar Chris Wright suggests that the OT ‘law’ is based around a series of relationships between God, people and the land. It may be helpful to think of this as being like a pyramid with each side representing a relationship.

It will be helpful to look at several different aspects of each of these relationships:

The drama of each of these relationships was worked out on a stage – the land, and it was the ownership of land that was absolutely central to social justice in the OT.

The exodus and entry into the Promised Land gave the opportunity for OT Israel to start out with an almost clean sheet of paper as far as land ownership was concerned. Joshua conducted a careful survey of the region, then divided the land up into equitable portions amongst the Israelites (Josh.13-21). This didn’t mean that everyone received exactly the same. Some people got fertile land on the plains, others the hill country or forest that had to be cleared, while others received villages in the desert (Josh. 15:21-63; 17:15-18). However, what it did mean was that everyone had enough to live on, enough good land to provide sufficient food for their family – economic viability without dependence on others.

However, the OT law recognised the reality that people might become poor and have to sell their land. The law therefore built in safeguards to ensure that land could not be permanently taken away from people, but could only be sold on a leasehold basis, with the land reverting to the original owner in the fiftieth year – which was termed the year of the jubilee (Lev.25:14-15). Moreover, the law stipulated that even this sale of land was to be avoided if at all possible with the nearest male relative – the kinsman redeemer – having a duty to step in and redeem the land for their relative (Lev.25:23-25). Although the jubilee principle allowed a certain measure of economic growth by permitting a farmer to rent extra land for a limited number of years, it prevented him permanently accumulating additional land at the expense of someone else. This is one of the most important principles of social justice in the OT.

Work

The OT views work as one of the good tasks that God has ordained for man’s fulfilment (Eccl.3:22; 5:19; 8:16) and condemns refusal to work (Prov..21:25). However, it seeks to prevent one person exploiting the work of another and insists that wages must be paid fairly and on time (Lev.29:13; Deut.24;14-15). The OT law also sought to mitigate the effects of slavery which was widespread in the ancient world, both by setting down legal restraints on the physical treatment of slaves (Ex.21:20-21,26-27) and by stipulating that an Israelite slave must be set free after six years (Ex.21:2). In effect, this meant that an Israelite slave was to be treated not as a permanent slave, but as a hired servant who had sold his labour in advance for a set number of years (Lev.15:39-43, 47-53).

Rest

Closely related to the OT laws on land and work was the principle of rest. As we earlier saw, at the very beginning of creation God ordained that man should have a day of rest each week. The OT law extended this principle of rest by making it compulsory for slaves and hired workers to be given not merely the Sabbath as a day of rest, but also to enjoy several days rest on the religious festivals that occurred throughout the year (Deut. 16:9-15). It hardly needs to be said that such actions were in radical contrast to the treatment of slaves and hired workers elsewhere in the ancient near east.

Poverty

The OT gives a twofold teaching on poverty. On the one hand it emphasised that provided everyone kept the law with all its social justice requirements – then there should be no poor, as everyone owned enough land for their own economic vitality (Deut.15:4). On the other hand, it also recognised that in reality the human heart is sinful and inclined to greed and selfishness. As such, there would always be poverty, and it exhorts those more fortunate to be generous and open handed towards the poor (15:11).

The OT law set out a number of provisions, which would enable those who fell into poverty to be able to provide for themselves, rather than being dependent on handouts from others. These included a requirement that fields should not be reaped to the very edged, so that the poor could glean there and gather sufficient for their needs (Lev.23:22); fields, olive groves and vineyards were to be left unharvested in the seventh year so that the poor could gather food from them (Ex.23:10-11), a procedure repeated in the jubilee year (Lev.25:8-17).

For those such as widows, orphans and foreign refugees who genuinely could not support themselves even with these provisions, the law also made provision for part of the tithe – the first ten percent of all produce to be given as immediate poor relief (Deut.14:23-29).

Debt

The OT law also sought to safeguard the poor from having their tragedy exploited by others and so specifically forbade the charging of interest on loans to fellow Israelites. In fact, the OT went much further than simply preventing the exploitation of the poor and actually required moneylenders to write off debts to fellow Israelites after seven years (Deut.15:1-2). Both of these requirements need to be understood in the light of a largely subsistence agricultural economy in which it would have been almost impossible for the poor to accumulate the means to pay interest, or in some instances even capital repayments, other than by either selling their land or themselves into slavery (Lev.25:35-42). As such the OT probably did not intend to prohibit interest per se and it’s specific permission to charge interest to and require repayment of loans from foreigners probably had commercial trading in view (Deut.23:19-20).

Justice

The OT specifically forbade any form of bias in the legal system (Ex.23:1-8). Interestingly, this even included a prohibition against showing favouritism to a poor person in his lawsuit (Ex.23:3). In the Bible social justice means equal treatment, positive discrimination is itself seen as a form of social injustice.

Marriage

The OT gives an enormously important status to marriage as the basic building block of family and society. There are two aspects to this, firstly, the institution of marriage itself is protected. This was done by other sexual relationships including adultery, incest and homosexuality being the subject of severe legal penalties (Lev.18:1-30). Secondly, the OT recognises that even the institution of marriage does not prevent injustice, particularly towards women. In dealing with these issues, the OT very much takes society as it found it, then seeks to mitigate its injustices. It acts against the common ancient near eastern practice of a husband treating his wife as a chattel or possession by stipulating that every wife is entitled to receive food, clothing and sexual fulfilment from her husband (Ex.21:10).

Similarly, it regulates divorce particularly in respect of safeguarding a woman’s reputation and her security (Deut.22;13-19), even though God clearly states that he hates the act of betrayal that divorce involves (Mal.2:14-16).

Both the prophet Malachi and later Jesus made clear that these regulations were primarily ways if limiting social injustice, rather than God’s ideal of an intimate life long relationship between husband and wife.

A Right View of God

As we can see from the pyramid diagram, all of these relationships were tied together by relationship with God. Israel’s relationship with God entailed the exclusive worship of YHWH, the only true God. However, it also involved reflecting the character of God in social relationships. Social justice, as we earlier observed reflects something of the very nature of God. The OT presents us with a theology that at its most simplistic level says, ‘a right understanding of what God is like leads to social justice, but a wrong or distorted view of what God is like is at some point likely to lead to social injustice’.

Applying the OT Today

One of the difficulties in seeking to apply principles of social justice from the OT is that OT Israel was both the people of God and a political nation. So how do we know whether something in the OT law should be applied to the Church or to the nation as a whole? Two factors may help us.

Firstly, we have seen that the OT both deals with God’s ideals for society and seeks to mitigate the realities of what society is actually like. This balancing act is the political reality that every Christian involved in politics faces.

Secondly, one of the most interesting things about God’s ideals for society set out in the OT ‘law’ is that much of it wasn’t actually ‘law’ - at least not in the sense in which we think of ‘law’ today. Some OT ‘laws’ spelt out how God was to be approached in worship; a relatively small number of others carried specific penalties which God expected the Israelite community to enact; while much of the rest seems to have been intended as a ‘guide’ for Israelite society as to what God’s standards were, but was never intended to be enforced with specific punishments for disobedience. These distinctions are profoundly important as they imply a distinction between what we would today term church, state and society.

We can see how these distinctions work out in practice when we look at the issue of poverty. The OT’s approach to poverty was primarily to help the poor back to a position of economic viability, where they could support themselves. Although part of the tithe – a flat rate ten percent tax given to God - was allowed to be used for the relief of immediate poverty, taxation was never used as a means of income redistribution, let alone wealth redistribution. Rather, the OT laid a duty on Israelite society to be generous and open handed to the poor in their locality. In fact, the OT concept of righteousness is an emphatically relational concept based on acting righteously towards those that one is in closest relationship with. This is a concept that is developed further in the NT , where Paul urges that the responsibility for providing for the poor lies firstly with their own families and only then with the Church who have no other means of support (1 Tim.5:8). There is surely a principle of social justice to be applied here!

Equally relevant today is the centrality of land ownership to OT social justice. In an agricultural society where people built their own houses, land ownership fulfilled a similar function to home ownership in modern Britain. Interestingly, the importance attached to this issue by the OT finds significant parallels in the work of development economists such as Robert Chambers who sees home ownership as one of the most important ways that people’s vulnerability to poverty can be reduced. Somehow the Conservative ideal of a home owning democracy seems significantly closer to Biblical ideal than the traditional socialist vision of everyone living in state owned council houses..!

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(Conservative Party Conference October 2006 - featured on BBC News 24)

Brown Labour’s appeasement of Islamism in the UK – including sharia

Islamic Ideology, Muslims and British Politics

Muslims in France - a Clash of Cultures or Politics?

Christians Face Islamic law in Pakistan

The role of government in allowing quality of life to flourish

The twin principles of stewardship and subduing the earth

International Development, Christianity and Politics

Recommended Reading

Social Justice in the Old Testament

In the Beginning was…Social Justice

Sin…and the Spread of Social Injustice

Whoever loves money never has money enough,

Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income (Eccl. 5:10)

God’s Plan for Society

Work

Rest

Poverty

Debt

Justice

Marriage

A Right View of God

Applying the OT Today