So much of the current public discourse leaves me with a heavy heart, and Robert Jenrick’s recent interview with The Spectator is another depressing contribution. It might be worth reading the full thing because it provides important context for what follows but in short it tells a harsh story about deportations, “rudimentary prison” camps for asylum seekers, net emigration, and suspending both visas and foreign aid. It is a story of scarcity, suspicion and punishment. It doesn’t sound like justice, mercy, humility, love for neighbour, or hope for renewal. It doesn’t sound like good news.
And yet Jenrick makes a point of mentioning faith: “I do believe in God. But I’m not at church every Sunday. I take my children to church, my wife sometimes takes them to synagogue.” Faith here is less like the pearl of great price that Jesus spoke of, and more like a virtue signalling badge of pseudo-respectability.
What I don’t hear is a man who abides in the love of Christ.
But it left me thinking how extraordinary it might be if he did abide. If he found the treasure hidden in the field, if his politics and his life left people thinking about good news? Not out of some misguided Christian Nationalism and delight at the theocratic imposition of the ‘correct’ policies. No, because it would mean his own personal story would be of life lived to the full.
And why not have some better policy to go with it?
In previous posts on what makes us feel at home, on welcoming well and thinking Christianly about asylum policy, and on migration in Christian perspective, I have tried to sketch a different vision specifically when it comes to questions of immigration – one of hospitality, abundance and neighbourliness.
So I was minded to reimagine Jenrick’s words in the spirit of kingdœmocracy. You don’t need to have read the interview first but it might give you a frame of reference for the alternative. What would it sound like if a senior politician spoke not from fear but from faith? If his words reflected the overflow of love from his heart and were humbly shaped by joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (which is what we mean when we talk about being ‘guided by the Spirit’)?
Perhaps his interview might have sounded more like this:
On the desk in the MP’s Westminster office sits a well-thumbed Bible, open at Isaiah 32. Asked why he returns to it daily, he smiles gently:
“If I am to carry out this role faithfully, I must be rooted not in the politics of fear, but in the promises of God’s Kingdom: justice, mercy and faithfulness.”
Where once he quoted de Gaulle’s line that “treaties are like roses,” this time he turns to covenant:
“Treaties are not roses that fade; they are commitments to uphold human dignity. The ECHR and the Refugee Convention are imperfect, but they represent an attempt to honour the truth that every person is made in the image of God. We must not cast them aside lightly.”
Pressed on migration, his emphasis shifts from numbers to neighbours:
“When people cross borders, whatever their reasons, they are first and foremost my neighbours. The Gospel reminds me that my neighbour is not simply the one who looks like me, but the Samaritan who was least welcome. The question is not ‘how many can we cut?’ but ‘how can we build communities where all can flourish?’”
On the treatment of asylum seekers, he is unequivocal:
“We will not warehouse human beings in camps. The smugglers are the bandits on the road; the migrants are the wounded traveller. Our calling is to be the Samaritan, not the priest who hurries past.”
On culture and identity, he resists the rhetoric of decline:
“Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech was not prescient, it was poisonous. It sowed fear where God calls us to hospitality. British identity is not wrecked by encounter, quite the opposite, it is renewed by welcome. Every culture and language enriches our common life. If our flags are to fly with pride, let them stand for fairness, mercy and generosity.”
Where before he spoke of wielding the state to suspend visas and end foreign aid, he now reframes:
“We must not weaponise aid or visas. These are instruments of peace and justice, means of strengthening relationships. Generosity is not weakness, it is strength.”
Even his references to family and faith are transfigured:
“I take my children to church not to wear religion as a badge, but so they might learn that following Christ means loving the stranger. Our faith gives no licence to superiority; it gives us a duty of humility and compassion. My prayer is that my children grow up in a country known not for scapegoating the vulnerable, but for walking humbly with God.”
He concludes with a note of humility:
“I will make mistakes. I will fall short. But my prayer is that I never confuse political convenience with Kingdom faithfulness. My duty is not to stir up anger, but to sow peace; not to scapegoat the vulnerable, but to walk humbly with God.”
I think that’s what politics might sound like if it were shaped by the Kingdom of Heaven. Not naïve idealism, but the radical realism of the Gospel: that every person is made in the image of God, that mercy really does triumph over judgement, and that grace changes how we see others, not as threats or problems to be managed, but as neighbours, image-bearers, and fellow heirs in God’s family.
Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if our leaders fell in love with the values of the King, if they found the treasure hidden in the field, if their politics and their lives left people thinking about good news? That is the longing at the heart of kingdœmocracy: not the imposition of ‘Christian’ policies, but a vision of what could be renewed when justice, mercy, humility, and grace mark the lives of those who govern. Still trying to unpack all of this in a book but there’s a sketch at kingdomdemocracy.global.
Now, the idea of reimagining democracy and politics is obviously a bit ridiculously grandiose as an exercise (and hubristic in the extreme for the two of us to tilt at) but I think the challenge God set down prior to last year’s election was even greater.
That challenge inspired me to pray for every one of our new MPs (and repeat it for some other jurisdictions). It’s now turned into a passion for lifting up in love all those who “give their full time to governing”, and doing so on an ongoing basis. To pray that they would know more of the love of God, and that as they grow in that love their lives, their decisions, and their impact, would reflect the values of the Kingdom of Heaven and the worth of all people.
These are prayers for the men and women who serve, rooted in love for them, knowing how transformative God’s love is at a personal level, and how the ripples of that extend into loved ones, colleagues, employees, the communities they serve and the nation they cherish. It isn’t prayer for the torch of a given policy agenda, it’s prayer for the people who shoulder the responsibility of service to the hundreds and thousands of lives they steward.
PrayReps is the tool to make that easier – not only to show that love to the people who serve you locally, like Robert Jenrick, but as a global practice to support how we, the Body of Christ, engage with and respond to the men and women who govern. There are about 45,000 people serving in national governments around the world, and many more again at regional, city and neighbourhood levels.
Modelling, let alone maintaining, that complexity is gargantuan (so this is going to need to somehow become a collective endeavour) but the premise is simply to make it possible to know those people by name and pray for them: Lord, thank you for this person, thank you for all they are and all they do, would they know more and more of the love of your Kingdom in their life.
If you’d like to help me test PrayReps, and to follow along as we work out more of what kingdœmocracy might mean in practice, you can sign up to the mailing list.