When the fourth invitation in a week to an event to discuss the churches response to the Big Society hit my in-box it became clear that anxiety levels were reaching fever pitch among church leaders. So what should the churches response to the Big Society be?
The first thing to say is that this is the wrong question. The Big Society is the fruit of a conversation within the Tory Party in which Christians played a catalytic role. Former Anglican theologian, Philip Blond, is often portrayed as the key figure behind the Big Society vision. It is certainly true to say he played and continues to play an important role in its development. But he also influenced its development in another way. When Philip burst upon the political scene his Red Tory thesis put the boundary of what could constitute ‘Conservative’ thinking much further left. In the process, having previously marked the boundary of Conservatism, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) suddenly appeared mild and mainstream. Far more than Philip, and not withstanding the crucial influence of David Cameron’s director of strategy, Steve Hilton, it was the slow, patient work of the Roman Catholic Ian Duncan-Smith and the evangelical Phillippa Stroud at the CSJ that formed the ground out of which the Big Society vision grew. And it is another evangelical, Lord Wei, who is charged with implementing the Big Society as a policy agenda across all government departments. So the first thing for churches to realise is that the Big Society is as much an intra-mural discussion within the church as it is an external policy agenda to be responded to.
The second thing for churches to realise is that, whether the churches like it or not, in the eyes of the Coalition government, churches are already enacting the Big Society policy agenda. There are four basic components to this emerging agenda, particularly as it relates to public sector reform: the localization and democratization of governance; the co-production and delivery of services between users and providers; supporting and strengthening the capacity for social enterprises and charities to be independent of government; and the harnessing of self-organizing networks (both off-line and on-line) and new technologies in the governance, production and ultimately financing of services. Church affiliated projects are either cited or will be co-opted as exemplars of each of these components.
For example, community organizing, as exemplified in the work of CitizensUK, represents a concrete form of the localization and democratization of governance: hence the commitment to train 5000 community ‘organizers’. Churches form the vast majority of membership institutions of CitizensUK. Another example of localization and democratization that is cited is participatory budgeting. Church Action on Poverty pioneered this in the UK as a way of bringing greater transparency and participation into local government. Likewise, an example of the co-production and delivery of services are social enterprises. These range from for-profit ventures that have socially transformative aims to not-for-profit initiatives that are mutually owned or run. Again, whether it is Fair Trade, credit unions or projects to train and employ NEETs, churches are at the forefront of such ventures.
Even that aspect of the Big Society policy agenda seemingly most distant from traditional church activities – the advocacy social networking technologies to connect people to organisations, resources and places – we find churches leading the way. StreetBank, established by Sam Stephens as a response to his church’s call to the congregation to reconnect to people in their locality, is an example of how social networking technologies foster a renewed sense of place. StreetBank allows you to lend and borrow things like a lawnmower with anyone who lives within a 1000-yard radius of your home.
So the question before the churches is not so much how should they respond to the Big Society; but what is a Christian social and political vision for the contemporary context and is the Big Society a proper respond to it? But in all the invitations I received none indicated that discussion of what a substantive political vision, one derived from the long tradition of Christian political thought, might be the first item on the agenda. Yet having some sense of such a vision is vital if real discernment is to be exercised and the opportunity to further shape the Big Society policy agenda is to be realised. And the stakes are high.
The Coalition has two distinct and rival anthropologies at work within it. Only one can shape the future direction of public sector reform. The first anthropology is that of the Big Citizen: there is no such thing as society, only individuals and their choices. The second anthropology is that of the Big Society: social relationships (whether in families, unions, or congregations) are the condition of individual flourishing.
In terms of the public sector reform this division will play out in significant ways. There is a neo-liberal economic move that meets up with a liberal progressive move to talk about individual co-production and co-governance of services that make the individual the central agent. Among liberal progressives this is framed in terms of the rights and empowerment of individuals; and among neo-liberals it is framed in terms of choice and individual responsibility. Nick Clegg and George Osbourne are the champions of this approach.
By contrast, communal co-production and co-governance of services shifts the focus from an individualistic conception to one that starts from the premise that there is such a thing as a common life. Real people power requires coordinated and common action in pursuit of shared goods: housing, education, health etc.. Through acting in concert – in their families, congregations, unions and other self-generated institutions – citizens can uphold a common life that is more than the aggregation of individual choices. On this account it is not the individual’s freedom of choice that is the locus of citizenship but arenas of common life – workplaces, neighbourhoods, congregations, professional bodies, and institutions like schools, universities and hospitals - and the work it takes to ensure they contribute to a common good on which the good of each depends. Eric Pickles, Iain Duncan Smith and Oliver Letwin seem to stand on this territory.
As churches reflect on the Big Society, they need to decide which anthropology best reflects their vision of the good life and work out how best to strengthen it.
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