The Issue

I want to raise a question in your minds.

Cast your thoughts back to the days preceding March, 2020.

I’m sure we can all recall moments of trouble as well as rejoicing, but life in general appeared to be moving along in a direction that, most of the time, made a great deal of sense.

I was looking back this week over my regular correspondence with others between 2014 and 2018, and there was a great deal of commendable activity and at least the possibility that things would continue to flourish in to the future - yes, there were social and spiritual troubles, but there was still in evidence a sense of hopeful possibilities for what was to come.

Something has clearly changed.

Yes, we may want to disagree about exactly what has happened, when it did, and why, but the very fact that we’ve lived through a moment when our nation decided that keeping Gyms and Casinos open whilst churches were shut so tight that even the clergy were not allowed to enter these premises should deeply ring a profound statement of concern in every one of us.

I would say that the implementations we witnessed in 2020 wrote large the ‘mission statement’ of our nation, and it was not a healthy one.

That brings me to today.

After a month and a half of the most extraordinary events, we witnessed the swearing in of a leader that within that same time frame had already been rejected by the very same party who have now made him leader. He is aided by a Chancellor who has already rescinded the cardinal policies of the prior short-lived administration, bar one - the country’s new allegiance to PESCO (take a look for yourself into the ramifications of that), but his securing office wasn’t the story which speaks loudest today - for that, we have to look toward a much older relationship between our country and its ancient shores.

Back in the 9th century, the part of the world where I live became defined as a buffeted realm which sought to establish and promote a domain of common civil law in the face of the arrival of those wanting to bring only chaos and violence to the country’s shores. The leader who forged this order over his lifetime was Alfred, and he found the way to do so through the deep convictions of his Christian faith which became the cornerstone of his rule.

In the town of Dover today - on the day we were introduced to a leader who was sworn into office not upon those sacred scriptures so cherished by Alfred and his heirs, but upon the pages of a non-Christian religious text, people arriving illegally in the country broke into the houses of pensioners and others and robbed them of their goods before ‘evaporating’ into the area. No doubt, as happened in another Kent town a few days ago, a large number of these assailants will be apprehended at some point, but these incidents speak to the loss of the respect and dignity people should show to one another, and the dissolving of the basic moral codes, the consequences of which are beginning to regularly impinge upon the much larger canvas of our society.

I am very aware that there are various related social and ethical issues in this present malady, but it is imperative for us to understand that many of our greatest woes are being injected into our culture from the top down.

When will we recognise the utter redundancy of where our nation has reached?

How much worse, over this coming season, will things have to become before we consider the times aright and ask ourselves…

What can be done about this?

The channels are open for further thoughts, and I hope this will stimulate many prayers.