This week the Labour government released their first budget. Chancellor Rachel Reeves cautioned us about the scale and seriousness of the decisions being faced and set out that taking action was the responsible thing to do. But how do we decide which action to take? The assisted dying bill introduced by Kim Leadbeater MP continues to highlight this question of how we make decisions? In the Times former Bishop of Liverpool James Jones wrote,
“those wishing Parliament to change the law on assisted dying out of compassion assume the actions of the states are always benign, but the widespread and devastating ways that professionals… have patronised and harmed ordinary citizens undermine such confidence. The infected blood episodes, Hillsborough, the Gosport war Memorial Hospital, the mid Staffs Hospital, Grenfell Tower, the pandemic, the maternity care services and the post office horizon scandal raised disturbing concerns about the treatment of ordinary people by servants of the state”
A word that cuts across these economic, social, political and ethical debates, from the new budget, to the assisted dying debate, to examples highlighted by Bishop James, to any other policy issue you would care to think of, is justice. We were reminded on the William Temple Foundation blog two weeks ago by Chair of our Board Professor Simon Lee that, whilst we share a public square shaped by many different faiths and beliefs, we cannot take for granted who holds which perspective on a given issue, and how those perspectives might influence public debate and government decision making.
This kind of consideration is very much at home within the Temple Tradition. A famous quote from Christianity and Social Order is
“the art of government, in fact is the art of so ordering life, that self interest prompts what justice demands“ (Temple, 1942, p65).
Influence in this spirit can be seen in Temple’s role at the creation of the post-war “welfare state” (a phrase he coined in 1928). But the question remains how is this done? Where might we find the art Temple is referring too? We are directed to dialogue, or conversation or talking as Temple explains,
“by talking we gradually form public opinions and public opinions, if it’s strong enough, gets things done” (Temple, 1976, 114).
Temple argued that we should each speak from our own position, be open to scrutiny and challenge and seek justice in a consultative way. For those who have followed the work of the Foundation post-pandemic, they will know that we are operating in this space, but we are not arguing for applying Temple’s specific contributions from the 1940s, to public policy debates in the 2020s. We have acknowledged that we must imagine a fresh approach to seeking justice in the public square, suitable for the 21st century. This approach must address the positionality of leadership – it is no long adequate to simply defer to Archbishops in the way people did with Temple as valuable as their leadership is. Leadership must also be encouraged and welcomed from everywhere and the contributions of those from the margins of the different spaces we occupy across society must be heard. For the Foundation, this began in 2022 with gatherings in different spaces that have shaped the thinking and the tradition of Temple: Canterbury, Balliol College and Blackburn Cathedral. You will find the dialogues from each of these spaces recorded in their own publications within respectively the journal of Theology, our Temple Books collection and the Journal of Church and State. Most recently, this call for fresh approaches was offered by Simon Lee. Referring to the work of Jonathan Lear he invoked the actions of Chief Plenty Coups who in an act of radical hope set down his headdress and his coups stick as a sign of relinquishing his role and a call to action for new generations to realise the dream of those who shared his tradition.
In April 2024, colleagues and partners gathered at Liverpool Hope University to consider questions of radical hope in a time of election. Like Bishop James, we considered not just one policy issue, but began to open up deeper questions of how we seek justice in response to different crises? These range from the economic injustices which exacerbate poverty and inequality, to the personal self interest and environmental neglect that has led to the climate emergency, to the bureaucracy and deficit in leadership and governance which has plagued our public institutions. Like Temple we see it as critical to participate in processes of just decision-making, by contributing to argument and debate in the public square. This is ongoing. Public opinion, as Temple rightly pointed out, is formed through talking and listening to one another about the different things that are important to us. Since 2016, I have been exploring how we open up spaces for dialogue and debate which honours our differences and seeks to unite diverse constituencies with a sense of shared hope, through my own work Curating Spaces of Hope. I have been applying these ideas to questions of leadership and faith-based organisation and have written them up as my contribution to the Temple canon. Curating Spaces of Hope: Transformational Leadership for Uncertain Times will be available from SCM Press early next year.
In April 2025, the William Temple Foundation in partnership with Virginia Theological Seminary, and the Notre Dame Law Centre in London, will develop this thinking around radical hope, and just decision-making in the public square, by offering a conference at the Inner Temple. We will explore questions pertinent to those of all faiths and beliefs, around how we communicate with one another about what is most important to us across physical and digital spaces alike, in a manner that fosters dialogue in the public square. We will consider the challenges and opportunities that are being faced, and open up questions of how we might all contribute to just decision-making for all. For more on this agenda and the conference itself, keep an eye out for the new series of the William Temple Foundation podcast out in November via all the regular podcast channels.
Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell FRSA completed his PhD with a Temple Scholar at Goldsmiths University of London, is a Research Fellow of the William Temple Foundation, an Honorary Research Fellow at Liverpool Hope University and is a Dean’s Scholar at Virginia Theological Seminary in the USA.
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