Steve Chalke on the 'Big Society'

CT: What are your initial thoughts on the concept of the ‘Big Society’?

SC: This is what the church has always been about so there are enormous opportunities for churches in all of this – not because they are delivered by a coalition government but because this has always been what the church believes. The church should be the hub of its local community, that’s its task. The great thing is that that’s acknowledged.

Eric Pickles said the other day that any discrimination of faith groups is over. That’s all really helpful. What the church needs to say is that we want to cooperate with the government and work alongside it. We don’t want to be co-opted by it – we are the church. We are not the Conservative Party or the Lib Dem Party or any other party.

We want a relationship of strength and we will serve as part of a Big Society because that’s what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years as we run churches, schools, and projects with people in need. We will continue to do what we are doing and we will redouble our efforts.


CT: Do you think that with the Government launching this initiative, it means that the church hasn’t done enough to get the message out about serving others and serving our communities?

SC: I think the church has been on a huge journey. I remember some years ago being told by an evangelical leader, when I wanted to do a series of seminars on community, that community was a boring word and that we shouldn’t talk about it.

We’ve come a long, long way and now everyone is clamouring to talk about. The question is still: can churches deliver and can they deliver well and deliver unconditionally?

We’ve got to serve everyone because we want to serve everyone. One of the problems is that people suspect that churches are only interested in them because they want to get their bum on a pew and over the doorstep on Sundays.

We’re not always serving people unconditionally but because of what we can get out of it and there’s a big challenge for us there and that will be tested.

Governments, be they local or national, if they are to provide a health or educational or care service, any money that is available needs to be used to provide that and not other things. A transparency is needed from churches.


CT: There has been some cynicism towards the Government because they are asking charities to do more precisely at a time when they are cutting the funds that can enable them to do that. Do you think it is harder for the country to rise up to this new challenge?

SC: I think it is hard for people to rise to the challenge but what I do think is that we’ve lived in a fantasy world for the last 60 or so years because since the welfare state was set up we’ve slowly come to believe that democracy is about voting. Democracy is about whose name I place my cross beside on polling day and then I expect them to deliver. You hear people saying ‘that’s what I pay my taxes for’. We pay our taxes so that our streets will be looked after and our children will be cared for and the elderly will be cared for. That’s quite a modern idea that has come with the welfare state.

We get the kind of community we vote for but not vote for by putting a cross on a piece of paper but vote for by rolling our sleeves up and getting on with it. We need participatory democracy not representative democracy. Representative democracy is what you get when you vote for someone to go to parliament for you but participatory democracy is what we get when we realise that democracy is more about volunteering than voting.


CT: And there’s an opportunity for the church there in terms of motivating society to do more.

SC: There are huge opportunities. The reason the church should be involved in society is because Jesus said to love God and love your neighbour as you love yourself. Nothing else matters. Jesus said what you do to the least of these you do it to me, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile. Not because all of a sudden it’s government policy.

Because what happens when it’s not government policy? What happens when the government decides to centralise things more? What happens when the money isn’t available? Where’s the church then? The church doesn’t do these things at the behest of the government. The church does these things because it is in our DNA.


CT: You must be quite pleased at least that the Government is sounding this tune?

SC: Oh yes, it’s really positive. The last Government did as well though - people have got short memories! It is all announced like it is some great new thing. The last Government talked about localism all the time. Oasis set up 12 academies under the last Government. So there were lots of opportunities last time and there will be different opportunities this time but it’s up to churches to stand them and take them. What’s important is that the church does it whether it is in fashion or out of fashion, government policy or not.

But it is great that the Government is speaking this way because it’s the only sensible way forward. We need communities where everyone gets involved, not because we haven’t got enough money to go around but because it is the only way of doing community sensibly.