Tony Blair last week announced his Respect Action Plan, the latest package of tougher measures designed to reverse Britain’s ever increasing anti-social behaviour problem. The plan’s greatest shortcoming, however, is in failing to recognise that the problem is a deeply spiritual problem and therefore requires a spiritual answer.
Tony Blair said he is not searching for a “golden age” of civility. But then what is he searching for? What is the vision of the Government for the UK one year from now, ten years from now, one hundred years from now?The vision of the Government cannot simply be some vague, staid world where we just ‘respect’ one another. ‘Respect’ is not something that can simply be bandied about in such a detached and mechanical way, as if you can just respect on its own i.e. the concept of respect cannot be detached from its spiritual dimension, without which any attempt to re-instil respect will fail to have a very deep impact on the people it is designed to change.
On the bottom line, respect is not a new concept. Even the people who are anti-social know what it means to respect: it is not that people need to be told to respect; rather it is that they need to be shown how to respect, and also why it is good to respect.
Turning around the growing problem of anti-social behaviour in the UK needs to be a long-term plan in which many people and families are mentored and set a good example. Children follow the example of their parents, but in reality we never stop learning by example, as the power of the celebrity culture in Britain demonstrates. Christians have a responsibility to set that good example more than anyone else.
Tony Blair also said that poverty was not to blame for anti-social behaviour and I would agree. It is not physical poverty that lies at the heart of the problem of anti-social behaviour, but rather a spiritual poverty that can only be overcome with policies that have some spiritual dimension.The place to begin developing a coherent plan for instilling respect in people has to begin with looking precisely at what respect is; with developing a basic understanding of where respect comes from. In a nutshell, respect comes from love and fear.
People must learn how to fear each other once again. This fear is not to be confused with the fear of being mugged on the street or the fear of having your house vandalised. The fear here is the fear that comes from love. In order for one person to respect another then there must be an element of fear of the person. When I love someone I fear hurting that person, I fear saying the wrong thing, I fear offending them, I fear bringing harm to them.
The limit of any government is its inability to speak of love, which lies at the heart of every single human being. The Church, however, can say plenty on this issue and that is why the churches should not be sitting back on the issue of respect but should become the leading voice in the country on this issue.
The UK must restore itself to a country that loves: only then can we truly respect one another because respect comes from love. Indeed, Britain’s churches should be seizing this growing opportunity of providing the concrete vision for a realisable world of respect in love once again and leading the country in fulfilling this vision.
The churches of the UK should be telling people first of love; of the love of God; of the love of Christ; because it is this that people truly need to hear, to receive, to know about, and it is this that can truly change this country. It is the job of the churches across the UK to teach this message again.
