NORTHERN STYLE NEWSWATCH No. 45 CREDO
`The visions of your prophets were false and worthless '
The British General election has come and gone - indeed it is now a dim memory in the minds of the people who voted - and left an embattled Prime Minister who now seems to have weathered the storm. At that time he promised to `listen to the people', but, flushed with success following the 2005 European Ministers' meeting, he seems to be continuing with the Government reforms which caused that distant `embattlement'! Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition - again after `listening to the people' - continue their internal tribal warfare much as before! The French and Dutch referendums on the EU Constitution produced a very loud and emphatic `Non' and `Nee', leaving the politicians of those countries to work out how, after `listening to the people', they could carry on as before! This can only lead to increasing impotence amongst the people who had cast their votes demanding that their leaders would indeed listen to them, and in listening respond to what they had heard. There is within creation, and particularly in people, a creative power, an urge to reproduce, which if not allowed to express itself because of genetic or geriatic difficulties leads to impotence, which in itself is not a passive state and leads to despair, to seeking emotional dominance over others, and in extreme cases to violent behaviour.

Within the context of our opening remarks and our comments within this Credo, we would turn our thoughts to the political and social impotence brought about through politicans and national leaders who `listen to the people' and then continue as before because the `people' cannot be trusted to understand the work of government, yet with a very mindful eye on the people's impotence being released in violent revolt. In case this is thought to be an extreme opinion, we would mention the `Poll Tax' crisis and the unrest which spread through the country not so many years ago, and more recently there was the `Farmer's Protest' over a burdensome Fuel Tax. True, these were small but were very expressive examples of potential violent social impotence. However Scripture reveals a God who not only listens to His people but One who responds to the desires and ambitions which He has placed within the hearts of all His creation, notwithstanding that those desires and ambitions have been coated over with sin and corruption. Working through the Ages, and through the machinations of worldly institutions and powers in whatever form they take, there is a determined Will and Purpose at work calling all who will respond into another Kingdom, a Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace through the acceptance of His Son Jesus. As His disciples, therefore, we need to pay heed to the events and times in which we live in order to understand what is required of us which is to faithfully proclaim that Kingdom to a people who are increasingly socially impotent through the actions of worldly leaders of whatever flavour and creed. From what we understand of the present time in the life of the `Western Democracies', such a time is surely coming when we will face a violent upheaval in the social fabric of these countries, caused by impotence in the people who have been listened to but offered placebos to quieten their grievances instead of receiving a response to their aspirations.

In past Credos we have set out a generally accepted developing form of Democratic Government which is the West's unique gift to the countries of the world who have in some variant form or other adopted this style of government. We have set out in a general way how, with hindsight, there have been distinct and identifiable Ages where these variant forms of government were seen to be in place. These distinct Ages came about through the classic form . . . the raising up of a dominant warrior leader seeking to establish a regional hegemony, leading to war. Then a Peace Treaty being accepted by the defeated people, leading to the raising up of new warrior leaders who attempted to usurp the existing order, and so into the next Age. Over the past four or five centuries we have given them historical titles of Kingly States or State Nations, and our present Nation State is even now under threat as the world undergoes yet another spasm of hegemonic rivalry. This is, of course, historical fact which can be confirmed by an afternoon at the local Library, and generally we focus our attention on the great men and women who have appeared on the world's stage for a time. These were dominant Kings and Queens, and the powerful magnates and lords who attended their courts. More latterly these have become the powerful political figures who dominate the national scene - also with their own courts and attendant followers seeking the gift of political patronage. But all too often we forget that behind these impressive historical leaders were countless members of `the people' who were often led, through violent upheavals, to call their leaders to account. Before we turn to Scripture we would briefly `look and listen' to the past `voices of the people' through whom we may hear the voice of God - which is too often eclipsed by the voice of the great institutions of State and Commerce and the custodians who uphold them!

We need only to step back some five hundred years (which is but a short time in the history of the western nations) and focus on the islands of Great Britain, although we are sure that the same pattern of events were unfolding elsewhere in the western Peninsular of Europe. Prior to that period, although there had been violent protests by the common people there had never been a collective body of the common people in such numbers as to be heard, and they were at last seeking to express their grievances and expectations through their elected representatives in a National Parliament. Our thoughts turn to the great Civil War which would finally engulf the dynastic monarchical house of the Stuarts, and we see the emergence of the `House of the commoner Cromwell' proclaiming `the Commonwealth and Free State of the British Isles'. We say this because a more correct title for this violent upheaval concerned more than England, and more correctly in this preview should be called by its Scots title `The Wars of Three Kingdoms' - the Kingdom of the Stuarts of England, Scotland and Ireland. Alarm at this point could be raised by the use of the expression the `House of Cromwell', but that indeed was a real danger as the dominant figures of Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton (and later Cromwell's son Richard, who inherited his father's title of Lord Protector) strode the stage of English history. Reverting to the `voice of the people' we shall see a continuous historical movement, a groundswell of the aspirations of the common people being thwarted and the frustration of those whose social and economic impotence would lead to a national revolt under leaders who would eventually prove false to those awakened aspirations. That is the principle seen in the title of this Credo which comes from verses of Jeremiah's Book of Lamentations.

The real governing power of the early 17th century (and indeed of much earlier times) was centered on the Court of Star Chamber, which brought together the offices of the Privy Council and the Chief Justices, giving the Star Chamber control of the Executive and Judiciary powers. The battle soon to be joined was over the Absolute Prerogative of the Crown over the authority of the High Court of Parliament (or as we would now call it, the House of Commons) for it was acknowledged that the King ruled through his royal Courts and the highest of the Royal Courts was the High Court of Parliament. In a real sense the Absolute power of the Crown was a more progressive governing system, for the High Court of Parliament was a highly conservative body of people whose mindset and ideology was still in the time of the Magna Carta - an earlier revolt of the Barons against the authority of King John. Oliver Cromwell was such a person, and he first appeared in England's history when he was elected as the MP for Huntingdon in the so-called `Long Parliament' in 1640 as the Client MP of a group of Puritan aristocrats. By 1643, at the Battle of Edgehill, he had made his mark with the Parliamentary troops, and from this time forth his military path moved ever upwards leading to the formation of the New Model Army which formed Cromwell's military base through which he came to dominate Parliament. (Although perhaps we move ahead of ourselves, by 1651 the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland were finally subjected to the will of Parliament.)

The `voice of the people' was now to be heard from within the ranks of this New Model Army who were demanding a representative voice in Parliament, and so came the emergence of `the Levellers'. From time immemorial, or as far back as the Norman Conquest, government of the country came through the Royal Courts and the powerful Barons and Magnates. There was no known body as representative governance, and even through an Act in 1429 only property owners with an estate worth 40 shillings or more were allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections. Parliament was therefore an assembly of rich and powerful land-owners, and such men were chosen for their position to represent others even more powerful who were interested in retaining their power and wealth, and to resist anyone taking it from them. The Leveller Movement sought to address this situation, both for universal suffrage and for universal representation of the people in Parliament. The reforming cry of the Levellers was, in modern-day terms, for the distribution of wealth through elected representatives in a national Parliament, and all the Movement's other demands flowed from this reforming call.

Such a `voice of the people' raised alarm and anxiety in the hearts of the Parliamentary Forces, composed of rich land-owners and landed aristocratic Members of the House of Commons, which was not in mind when they challenged the Royal Prerogative of the Crown. Equality was not in their thinking, for as one philosopher of the times said:

" The wisest of men saw it to be a great evil . . . The meanest of men, the basest and vilest of the nation, the lowest of the people have got power into their hands, trampled up the Crown, toppled and misused the Parliament, violated the laws, destroyed or suppressed the nobility and gentry of the kingdom . . . . . "

Alarm bells were indeed ringing! A remark credited to Cromwell himself was: `No man can enjoy his estates quietly unless the King has his rights'. Suddenly the winds of democracy were felt to be cold with the demise of the King, who by his presence and authority had upheld the rights of the property owners and the landed aristocrats!

The crisis was to lead to the first egalitarian representative body to be seen in English history, `The General Council of the New Model Army' - and again it would be the leaders of the Council representing the aspirations of the people who would be false to their office, for through the long debates, arguments and counter-arguments of the General Council meetings, the Leveller leaders and elected officers from the New Model Army gave way to the military leaders headed by Cromwell and Ireton with their insistence that only `propertied' interests could be represented in Parliament:

" The moment we go to take away this, we shall plainly go to take away all property and interest that any man has in either land by inheritance or in estate by possession or anything else . . . . "

The key to the collapse of the first attempt at universal suffrage by the Leveller leadership itself, those called to speak for the people, was that they themselves were not drawn from the common people. Today they would be called `middle-class', with some form of property ownership themselves - very passionate in defending the rights of the people but not so passionate about common ownership of the land! An increase in the franchise was acceptable but not a levelling, a redistribution, of their small economic power centered on property ownership. The main thrust of the military leaders' argument at the General Council was this: `If the King loses his rights, what guarantee have we for the protection of ours?'. Finally, the members of the Great Council of the New Model Army were instructed to disband, and because of factions and splits in their ranks they quietly disbanded and so ended the great Leveller Movement for 'the visions of your prophets proved false and worthless'.

We now move on some two hundred years to the mid-nineteenth century where we see again a violent groundswell breaking out among the common people - to the time of the Chartist Movement, so called because of its publication of `The People's Charter' with its call for universal suffrage and secret ballots. The Leveller Movement, which so meekly wound itself up, eventually led to the Parliamentary Party of the Whigs - who in later years would redefine themselves into the Liberal Party, the so-called reforming political Party. Parliament was still dominated by the landed gentry and aristocrats whose Pocket and Rotten Boroughs made a mockery of the much-vaunted principle of a democratic Parliament! The wording of The People's Charter came about from the wording of the Americam Declaration of Independence where it stated:

" Obedience to laws can only be justly enforced in the certainty that those who are called upon to obey have had either personally, or by their responsibilities, a power to enact, amend or repeal them. "

A Petition was incorporated into The People's Charter which set out 6 demands. These were: Equal Representation; Universal male Suffrage; Annual Parliaments; no Property Qualifications for the Members of Parliament; a Secret Ballot System of Voting in Parliament; and regular Sittings of Parliament with payment for the Members. Once again The People's Charter in 1838 released the impotent anger of the common people and caused as much alarm in the Whig Government as had the Leveller's demands in Cromwell's time. The Charter did no more than release the anger of the mass of people who had been suffering in extreme poverty for many years, and starvation and disease were rampant throughout the country. Any attempt to form Unions for common support was the object of violent reaction from the authorities and employers who were determined to smash such a fledgeling threat to their authority. To break this a Poor Law Amendment was passed through Parliament, cutting relief payment to an already starving people and setting up workhouses where the poor and starving were sent. `Prisons for the Poor' was a common title for such places and they were set up and enacted upon at the time of the reforming Whig Government of the early nineteenth century!

In such times as these the Chartist Movement came into being. The response of the authorities yet again was to smash such opposition in order to maintain the status quo of the economic power of land ownership. The country was indeed very close to violent revolution, nominally against the inheritors of the great Leveller Movement of the 17th century from whence came the Whigs. Meetings of the Chartists were held throughout the Kingdom with an unfolding purpose of electing representatives to a `General Convention of the Industrious Classes' whose purpose was to form an elected alternative to the Parliament in London which was totally unrepresentative of the common people. As history reveals it was not to be, but within the ethos of the intent was once again the impotent anger of the common people who were suppressed to the point of being totally disregarded by an elite ruling class. As in the past, an organised State system moved to destroy the Chartist Movement, which was seen as seditious and a danger to the continuity of the governing class, but the real (and succesful) danger came from within the Movement itself. The continuous `bone' fought over was the call for national strike action (or, as it was called to avoid imprisonment for the leaders, a `national holiday') and as the date for such a `holiday' drew near the Chartist leaders could not face the responsibility that such an action would unleash and so the leadership called for a committee to be set up to consider this action.

In the earlier Leveller Movement it was the calling for a Great Council that led eventually to the destruction of that revolt. Similarly, the Chartist Movement began to fall apart through the formation of a Committee - to discuss, to compromise, to find another way - thus allowing the State system to eventually destroy the Movement. Once again the leaders raised up to represent the people proved false to their calling, and the State system was quick to move into that split and destroy the challenge to their authority! The Convention duly met and voted to pull back from an all-out strike `which would lead to a revolution in blood and which would terminate in the utter subjection of the working people to the monied classes of society'. The Chartist leader's `bluff' was called, and it spelt the end of a popular uprising led by people who shirked their responsibility to the people whom they represented, leaving the authorities able to arrest and isolate leading Chartists, and revealing the formidable array of power available to the State once they no longer feared a mass uprising.

The split in the Chartists came under the title of the use of `Moral Force', that is, reasonable argument, and `Physical Force', that is, the use of strike action to enforce their aspirations. But the rounding up and arrest, the harassment and humiliation of the Chartist leaders made no such distinction, and the State left the destruction of the Movement to its leaders who denounced each other from their perspective positions of moral or physical force. All ended up in prison or were deported! Leaderless, the Movement faltered, and though there were regional outbursts of extreme violence they were repressed by equally violent force which continued for many more years. The central, indeed, pivotal, point of the Chartist Movement was - as seen in the earlier Leveller Movement - centered on universal suffrage thoroughly linked to the economic means to enforce that suffrage. Resistance to that in those days meant the retaining of land and property in the hands of an elite class who alone believed that they were intended to rule in Parliament. The State's agreement to the 6 points of `The People's Charter' would be tantamount to surrendering political power to the masses, for universal suffrage would open the floodgates of the masses into Parliament and `redistribution of wealth' would soon follow. Indecision within the Chartist Leadership, as their position became threatened, (as in Cromwell's time) led to a division over the `moral or physical force' of their cause, and once again the aspirations of the people were destroyed - `the visions of your prophets were false and worthless'!

Much of the latter part of the 19th century centered around Reform Bills and Amendments being brought before the House of Commons, and the ensuing debate centered on the fears of the ruling elite that any widening of the male franchise to those who owned no property would endanger their own economic power-base, centered as it was upon land and property. For instance, the renowned Disraeli, objecting in a debate on one such Reform Bill, said that such a widening of the franchise, as proposed, would encompass those `who were all of one class, bound together by the same entitlements and habits . . . we are conferring power on a class . . '. But such people, and there were many within and without Parliament, could not finally stem the growing power of organized Trade Unionism which was consolidating during this period and which was the major concern of such people as Disraeli. The work of the Reform League (which later reformed into the old Liberal Party) added to their fears with its Manifesto of `one man, one vote, and in 1867 their work culminated in mounting a mass demonstration in London, agitating for full male suffrage. It was the first time that an overtly political organization representing the working-class people of Great Britain was seen. The great Reform Bill of 1884, brought in by Gladstone's party, was finally given Royal Assent, extending the male franchise by nearly two million men who were, however, still largely land or tenant owners. The ruling elite were still over-concerned that in extending the franchise to unpropertied males their own properties could be endangered by Reform Bills over property rights being forced through Parliament by the representatives of these new voters. However once the Law Makers begin to `tinker' with the system the momentum becomes unstoppable and eventually brings the whole edifice down! The great mass of people had waited patiently for their voice to be heard in the Royal Court of Parliament, and when their aspirations were thwarted they began to give voice to their impotence.

The next Movement has been largely overshadowed in history by the Women's Suffragette Movement, with its well-known figures of Pankhurst and Pethick-Lawrence. Although there had been earlier Women's Movements, the dominant one was set up through a meeting in the home of Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903 and its correct title, proposed by her daughter Christabel, was the Women's Social and Political Union. The WSPU was dominated throughout by the Pankhursts and the Pethick-Lawrences who were middle-class women who were totally opposed through public action to an Act of 1870 passed through Parliament stating that the property and person of a Movement woman belonged to her husband. As the authority of the Pankhursts exerted itself there was the ususal resistence to such domination, which led to a split in the WSPU and the setting up of the Women's Freedom League. This was concerned not only with women's franchisement but with other female issues as well. However the event which finally defused the Suffragette Movement was the commencement of the Great War of 1914-1918 when the main efforts of the WSPU were directed to the support and propagation of a succesful war effort. We would suggest, therefore, that important as the Suffragette Movement was it had drawn attention away from what we have called the groundswell of impotence of the mass of the population of Great Britain which eventually included both male and female aspirations for universal social and economic representative control of their lives.

The next historical sighting of this mass groundswell has been largely overlooked. Firstly, as we have said, by the Suffragette Movement and the Great War of 1914-1918, but also because it has never been given a popluar name - such as was given to previous Movements. Eventually it became known as `The Great Unrest, and such a title expresses a general unrest centered on the Trade Union Movement which was spread over a long period culminating in a `bursting of the banks'. The Movement's title in fact came from the words of a speech by Lloyd George, in which he spoke of his concern of a growing militancy demanding universal suffrage as `a great unrest'. The unrest was being felt in many countries (the most well-known culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1917) In Great Britain the rising power of the Labour Party representing the enlarged male electorate was beginning to make itself felt as the possible Party of Opposition in Parliament. Eventually this caused the Liberal Party to seek a coalition with the Tories in order to defeat such a rise, but in the process it would destroy itself as the reforming political Party Incidentally, although we are jumping ahead of ourselves, 1918 saw the publication of the Labour Party's main objectives when it included in its Constitution what became known as Clause 4:

" To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution therefore that may be possible upon the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange . . . "

The fears of the aristocracy and the landed gentry who had dominated the Royal Court of Parliament for the past 400 years were now to be confirmed. Eventually it would lead to a `counter-revolution' in an attempt to stop the unstoppable angry impotence of the working class of Great Britain!

From 1911, when the Southampton Dock Strike quickly spread to other Ports, the country began to experience increasingly militant mass strikes, with both men and women involved. But these were curtailed by the Great War, and conscription introduced in 1916 further curtailed militant union action. The `Great Unrest' may have been curtailed but Lloyd George wrote in his `War Memoirs':

" Industrial unrest spelt a more grievous menace to our endeavours and ultimate victory than ever did the military strength of Germany. "

However it was the Great War that saw the beginning of the end of the long battle for universal suffrage, as was heard in a Commons speech in 1915 by a Tory MP, asking if the Prime Minister (Asquith) would `introduce legislation extending the franchise to every man who is at present serving his country in a naval, military or industrial capacity . . '. Delay was something the Government could certainly undertake, but in the middle of a war such a question, if not fully answered, would have dangered the outcome of a war which was already in doubt, and so the pressure continued. Finally, in 1916 the final piece of the jigsaw for full universal suffrage came into the picture in the form of a question from a Labour MP: ` . . . what are you going to do with women . .?'. The Prime Minister could only bow to the inevitable:

" The women fill our munition factories. They are doing the work which men who are fighting had to perform before. They have taken their place . . . . I say quite frankly that I cannot deny that claim. "

Deny, he could not! Delay, he certainly would! But in 1918 the Royal Assent was given to a Bill bringing 2 million more men and 6 million women onto the Electoral Register in time for the General Election in the December of that year. But that was not to be the end of the Great Unrest, for the mass of people, perhaps more far-sighted than their leaders, could see that attaining the vote - without the economic power to enhance it - did not necessarily change their circumstances, and one surprising feature of the Election was that only 57 per cent of those entitled to vote did so! This was quickly bourne out when the Liberal and Tory Parties formed a Coalition, thereby making the Labour Party's representation of the mass of people impotent!

Once in place the `counter attack' of the old elite came in 1921 in the form of the Government's decision to remove the war-time controls of the Mining Industry. This had the devastating effect of reducing the wages and conditions of a large section of the people at a time of massive unemployment following the end of the Great War which released vast numbers of men back into civilian life. The Trade Union Congress took up the challenge and the Government faced a General Strike by what was known as the Triple Alliance, which would have brought the whole of industry to a halt. The very real threat of revolution faced the country, but as with previous mass Movements of unrest the `Body Politic' is always very fragile and takes little to break apart. The past way of breaking unrest was to offer to negotiate . . further meetings . . subtle suggestions to ambitious men . . and so an `eve of strike' meeting was arranged. The Triple Alliance fell apart leaving the miners abandoned by their Union allies! Once again we are seeing the leaders proving themselves false to their calling! The next few short years saw much of the same jockeying for power with short-lived governments. This ended in 1924 with the first Labour Government in power under Ramsey MacDonald, but as political history confirms nothing was to happen to change the status quo. It was business as usual!

The Labour administration, fearful of losing a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, thereby losing its grip on power, continued with the previous government's policies of doing as little as possible to be seen as a `Radical Reforming Government' . . . Prime Minister's patronage . . . the sale of honours . . . the trappings of high office . . . financial scandals. This led to its removal from Office through another General Election. The `Great Unrest' continued as strikers and violent State intervention raised the level of unrest. 1929 saw the Labour Party once more in power, still under Ramsey MacDonald but hopefully having learned its lesson that it was in power to represent the aspirations of the working class who for so long had endured with angry impotence. They failed! Ramsey MacDonald and others resigned from political leadership and accepted honours from a past era, usually given to people who had worked to suppress the groundswell that MacDonald and his government represented. Such is the pride of men! In the election of 1931 the Labour Government fell again and gave way to a National Coalition. They were again beaten in the election of 1935, and after that defeat were said to have become `obsessed with responsibility'. This led up to the time of the Second World War when the Great Unrest was finally brought to an end. But once again the aspirations of the people were thwarted by its leadership who, once in power, sought to hold on to power by maintaining the status quo, and by attempting to link social democracy to the old economic power-base of `property capitalism' they abdicated their reponsibility into the hands of the `old elite' who used their economic power to neuter the social democratic groundswell. Political power was obtained through compromise and once again it can be seen that `the visions of your prophets were false and worthless'.

We shall now bring this brief overview of the thwarted aspirations of the `hoi polloi', the general masses, into the fourth great groundswell of popular social impotence - the Second World War period. As we have set out in a previous Credo `The Real War', the Second World War saw millions of men who were conscripted into the armed forces confronted with the possibility of free education. The Bureau of Current Affairs, staffed by the teaching profession drawn from the twilight world of academia, was now given a wider classroom than ever imagined. The people drank it in as though they sensed an opportunity through an appalling war that if not seized would be lost for ever. This desire for education was not limited to the armed forces alone for it swept through the civilian population as well, and in the mid 1900's left a people not only well-read but able to debate and articulate their aspirations and desires. Such aspirations soon found a voice in the social and political arena and many well-known political leaders were raised to prominence in Parliament and in Trade Unionism. The `hoi polloi' had once again found its mouthpiece, which in time would lead to a Labour Government led by politicians who were determined to bring in full democratic reforms that would last. We quote part of a report by one such group of politicians in 1950:

" Democracy is unstable as a political system as long as it remains a political system and nothing more, instead of being, as it should be, not only a form of government but a type of society and a manner of life which is in harmony with that type . . . . . It involves, in the second place, the conversion of economic power, now often an impossible tyrant, into a servant of society . . . "

This had been the fear of the elite governing classes: That universal suffrage would lead inevitably to their economic power - seen in earlier days as being land and property - being lost to them and their power being made `a servant of society'.

This new and more widely-educated people brought forth leaders who understood that a democratic vote was of little value unless the leaders had control of economic power in order to fulfil the aspirations of the people who had given them leadership. The post-war government set out to control that economic power and a great programme of the nationalisation of major businesses which affected the life of the country was put in hand, coupled with the National Health Service and the whole paraphernalia of the Welfare State, with its provision for life `from the cradle to the grave! The whole of the population of this country was at last moving into a full democratic form of governance, both social and economic! But it would not be long before the old elite began their `counter reformation', and their opportunity came as ideological splits appeared in the Labour Movement, uncertain of where their reforming zeal was taking them. They began to talk of `consolidation', thereby leaving the financial sector of economic power largely intact. During the years that followed, as the manufacturing power base in the country declined, the newly-burgeoning services industry, unfettered by the great reforming work of the post-war governments, became the rallying point for the old elite to work within. A reform not carried through to its conclusion will quickly lose momentum and revert to its original condition. Once wealth is given into the hands of any elite group, that group will quickly seek dominance over the `hoi polloi'!

The failure of the leaders of the post-war reforming government lay in the consolidation of their partial reforms, which quickly led to their seeking to maintain the status quo in order to enjoy their new position. This would lead to compromise with the leaders of unreformed businesses and finance - a seeking of a middle way, a third way - in which social democracy inevitably began to be separated from economic democracy and the Labour Government was driven from power by a people who clearly understood what was happening. But once back in government the old elitist ethos broke out very quickly and open conflict was once again seen in the cities and towns of Great Britain. This would lead to the destruction of the manufacturing base and thereby the destruction of the power of the Trades Union Movement, leaving the people with a powerless social democracy which was demonstrated by low political participation in National and Local elections. This counter- economic reformation was coupled with the control, the capping, of Local Council expenditure, with the sale of the national housing stock and the privatisation of national industries - which leads us into the period in which we now live.

During the late 1990's hope was once again rekindled for the mass population as a new group of zealots rose to prominence in the Labour Party, and under the title of `New Labour' it burst upon the scene with much fanfare not seen for many decades. The people gave their response, for with its representative power New Labour seemed to herald in a new dawn for full social and economic democracy. Perhaps the voters had overlooked the fact that its political leader had proposed and finally succeeded in the removal of Clause 4 from the Labour Party's Constitution, thereby removing any intention of bringing back into Public Ownership the many industries and businesses that under-pinned social democracy. The cornerstone of New Labour's ideology was a partnership between public and private ownership under government regulation, together with full social and, eventually, economic integration into the European Union, ensuring that total social and economic democracy would finally be placed into the hands of an unelected elite virtually unknown to the mass of people! Once again `the visions of your prophets were false and worthless', with modern-day Political Parties seeking to formulate policies which are attractive to all people in order to gain power. No longer is there a Political Party representing the people in the attaining of their full social and economic aspirations, but the searching for a political formulae which will be attractive to all and faithful to none!

These comments are written from an apolitical stance. We are not concerned with any Party's political ideology but seek to understand God's Will through national historical movements and events, as we have written about in earlier Credos (and in particular in Newswatch No.31 `Is not my house right with God?'). Understandably history is usually taught focussing on great historical persons, forgetting that such people rose to prominence through the mass movements of ordinary unnamed persons. But when reading such history we need to remember that a State Education System is often a `social engineering' tool in the hands of the State, and in their original beginnings Universities were established by Kings in order to produce trained bureaucrats to run the State Organs of their expanding Kingdoms. In a very simple illustration of this readers can recall their own history lessons of the early to mid 1900's when great people of the Nation State (in the form of early Kings and Queens, and heroes of naval and military battles) trampled over the enemies of the State! Not so today, where a more universal ethos is taught and the Nation State is downplayed because of the need to educate the people to accept such rising power-blocks such as the European Union - we are to become good Europeans rather than subjects of a sovereign nation! But disciples of the Lord Jesus need to be educated by the unchanging Word of God, Who works through the historical events and people of our natural world! What we are looking for is this: Is the time ripe for another mass movement of impotent people which will project another demagogue onto the stage of world history?

With that thought we can thankfully turn to Scripture. Since the time of King Solomon when, after his death, the Kingdom was rent in two through rebellion, there had been several national revivals - personified in such Kings as Josiah and Hezekiah. But such revivals were short-lived and are recorded in what we have called Probation Periods of fourty-year durations. Gradually, as the leaders of Israel began to use these moves of God for their own ends, the people increasingly began to listen to the `prophets of their imagination' rather than the Prophets of God, and apostacy crept in. Now in Jeremiah's day it was time to deal with the worsening situation in the southern Kingdom of Judah where the leaders and the people had ignored the warnings of God's Prophets and the people had listened only to their leaders who wished to maintain the status quo and enjoy their positions of influence and wealth in the King's Court. The Book of Lamentations records the devastating results that came through apostacy, and `the burden of Jeremiah' cries out through its pages as Jeremiah sees the destruction of his beloved Jerusalem and the Temple wherein the Presence of the LORD was manifest, whilst the remainder of the people who escaped the sword, together with their princes and priests, were taken into captivity in Babylon.

In the Hebrew Text this Book opens with the word `Alas'. It is a cry of despair, pain and grief, whereas our English word `How' cannot describe the depth of feeling intended. Indeed the Septuagint prefaces its version with the words, `. . . Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented this lamentation over Jerusalem . . .', thus giving a depth of feeling of a deep emotional cry, a lament, coming from the depth of his soul. The entire Book consists of five Elegies, that is, five Psalms of Lamentation, over the destruction of Jerusalem, and in the Hebrew Canon of Scripture the Book of Lamentations is placed in the Writing Section. Without wishing to repeat what has already been set out on many occasions, those who accept the significance of numbers in Scripture will instinctively see the Hand of God in the setting of this Book in the heart of the Writings of the Hebrew Canon, which is not easily understood with our `Greek intellect'. The Writing Section of the Hebrew Canon consists of eleven Books, which, in being one less than twelve speaks of `disorder' - one less than God's Governance seen in the number `twelve'. Within these eleven Books of the Writings are set five Megilloths or Scrolls intended for public readings, that is to the assembled people of God. The central Scroll, the Third, is the Book of Lamentations, which according to Rabbinical teaching is read during the month of the Fast of AV in memory of the Five Great Calamities that had engulfed Israel. Within the Fifth Month, the Fast of AV, this Book is read on the ninth day (nine being three times three) which number speaks of the `Completeness of Divine Judgement' yet has within it the implication of new life! Such is the significance of numbers within Scripture which speaks its own message of the purposes of God!

Yet there is one more implication to consider. The five Elegies of the Book of Lamentations point us to the third Elegy, which is totally different in its wording to the other four, and as has clearly been seen it lies at the Heart of the Book. This leads us to take a look at this third Elegy, which is recorded in our Bibles as chapter 3 where the historical narrative changes and becomes prophetic: (Lamentations 3:1-2 KJV)

" I am a man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. "

In his lamentation Jeremiah now takes upon himself the burden of sin of the nation and becomes representative of Israel, now under judgement, and points forward prophetically to the One who was to come who would take upon Himself the burden of sin not only for Israel but for the whole of humanity. It is here in this amazing third Elegy of the Book of Lamentations that we see God's Grace revealed - His New Life promised in the midst of the completeness of His Judgement on the disorder of a fallen world - as Jeremiah becomes representative of the sin of Israel, pointing forward to the One who was to come. Those who today seek to pick up such a burden therefore need to consider very carefully that such a One has come and all who are called into His Kingdom are called to proclaim Him who has bourne that sin once and for all time: (Lamentations 3:55-60)

" I called on Your Name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit.
You heard my plea, `Do not close Your ears to my cry for relief'.
You drew near when I called You, and You said, `Do not fear'.
O LORD, You took up my case; You redeemed my life.
You have seen, O LORD, the wrong done to me. Uphold my cause.
You have seen the depth of their vengeance, all their plots against me. "
It is a verse in the previous chapter 2 that forms the heading for this Credo, and in verse 14 we read:

" The visions of Your prophets were false and worthless;
they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity.
The oracles they gave you were false and misleading. "
We need now to consider the implications of these words and place them in the historical time in which we live, both in the worldly political system and in the religious church system. The first group we set out earlier is a brief overview of the ordinary people crying out for full representative social and economic democracy in their nation, with continuous collective spasms of public outrage against injustice throughout history, only for them to see the representative leaders of such Movements proving false to their calling. The second grouping, the religious Church system, we would limit (as space determines this) to the last great `convulsion' of the Lord's people as the Holy Spirit moved amongst them in the 1960's, giving the promise of new life and fulfillment of their aspirations to see Scripture fulfilled in their `Church' and personal lives.

But it was not long before the `leaders' began to speak of a time to `consolidate'; of the need to control excesses and to restore order to the religious system. In order to break out of the `controlling consolidation' many of the more charismatic people rose up to form their own `ministries' to the Body and so confirmed the opinions of the `Consolidators', for such actions produced elitism and factions within the Body. This weakened and almost destroyed the true unity of the Body of Christ as `churches' grouped into this or that covering Institutional Body and sought to overcome the problem by forming `Churches Together' groups (or other such contradictory titles) thus leaving some disciples open to deception as churches of different and varying `flavours' buried their doctrinal differences in the name of `unity', thereby leaving other disciples unable to outwork their Scriptural aspirations as members of the local Body of Christ as they themselves stood against error. Such individual Ministries and Covering bodies are an outward expression of the impotence of the people of God who are baptised by the Holy Spirit into One Body, Scriptually intended to be manifest in the Church in whichever town or city - together as one people proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

Such was the Response of God in the last outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the 1960's. But it was harnessed continually by the leaders for their own Ministries and Institutions, and as with the former great social convulsions of the people which we have briefly set out, God's people `voted with their feet' and quietly waited together for the next move of God or, more distressingly, they faded away in indifference! Those who watch and wait see plainly the `destruction' of what the Holy Spirit `built'. Some seek to rectify it by working with the worldly political and social systems in an attempt to return the nation to a mythical past morality. Others warn of an engulfing of the national identity by joining such Trade Blocks as the European Union. Still others warn of danger to the nation's culture and traditions from outside religions brought in by immigrants. But all such self-appointed Ministries fail to see that in the coming captivity God's Grace has been poured out! His New Life has been revealed! The burden of sin that sat so heavily on Jeremiah's shoulders has been dealt with! Those who understand the purposes of God in such a coming captivity will wait eagerly for the Holy Spirit to fall once again, and if we have understood the times in which we live, the Divinely appointed and anointed leaders of God's people will not fail Him this time:

" Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
I say to myself, `The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for Him. " Lamentations 3:22-24

POSTSCRIPT
The thoughts and prayers for this CREDO were undertaken during the late Spring of 2005, but the final publishing of it was, for many reasons, delayed until August when we found ourselves in the middle of the appalling enforced evacuation of Israelis from Gaza by Israelis during the Fast of AV, a time when observant Jews remember the Five Great Calamities that befell Israel. Surely to those Five Great Calamities there can be added this evacuation, where the leaders have once again proved themselves false to the people - a poignant end indeed to this CREDO!



* * * * * * * *

For comment or for future Newswatch letters our e-mail address is:info@northernstyletrust.com

Our telephone No. is:(01493) 441891

Return