When I was still working, today, Easter Saturday, used to be an odd but welcome time of waiting after the hard commemoration of the death of Jesus on so called ‘good’ Friday, and and then the joyous possibilities of resurrection Sunday. Both have been for me truthful symbols of our human condition, this contrast beween despair and hope, violence and restitution, contrition and forgiveness.
Unusually the Christian religion has hit the headlines this Easter. Forty Anglican bishops and church leaders of all denominations have spoken about the growing role of food banks to feed people who are unable to afford to buy basic food for themselves and their families, and the political neglect and public scandal this reveals.I have written before abpout the Trussell Trust which works ‘ with the people that society forgets’.They are one of several organisations involved in food banks – they fed 350,000 adults and children in 2012 but in 2013/14 the numbers grew to 913,138 The need ,they say, is caused through static incomes, rising living costs, low pay, unemployment and problems incurred by harsh benefit sanctions.
Last year 5,500 people were admitted to hospital in the U.K. with malnutrition.The previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, calls it a serious crises. Convinced of its duty to talk real, the Church has gone political.
Totally ignoring the massive social need this represents, suddenly however politics has become religious. Or at least the U.K’s prime minister has. On three separate occasions in this holy week he has claimed to be a Christian believer. He is evangelical about his Christianty, he says. He wants to see a bigger role for religion in Britain as a christian country and uges ‘fellow believers’ to be more confident in spreading their views.
He insisted that the Church really matters to him. At an Easter reception at 10 Downing Street last week he said religion had brought him his greatest moments of peace and claimed that 2.000 years ago Jesus has invented the big society (one of Cameron’s catch phrases).
This unexpected revelation of personal belief has caused widespread discussion, surprise, and in some cases cynicism in the press and media. What cannot be denied is that the impoverishment which is happening to many of the most vulnerable people in the country, is a direct result of the present government’s policy. Jesus believed in a society based on justice. He is the man for others who acknowledged the poor, said to a rich man that he should sell his possessions and give to the poor, became one of the poor, called them blessed and broke bread and shared it with them.
He cannot easily be accomodated into a philosophy of neoconservatism.
Bryan
