EU thoughts

In no particular order

1. Some Christians  (update: now including the Archbishop of York) have made it quite clear which way they're going to vote, and which way they think our faith points. Others have said something different, and possibly more helpful:  I do believe that the pastor's job in any civilised democracy is to encourage a thoughtful, prayerful, political engagement by outlining the pertinent questions biblically without answering them in any publicly partisan way. The CofE's published prayer on the EU referendum drew ire from both sides by not praying explicitly for Brexit or Bremain, which probably means it was ok. 

2. Less of the spurious Bible studies please. I remember listening to a cassette (those were the days) of a serious scottish 'prophet' outlining how various bits of the Bible mapped onto contemporary politics. The cassette was recorded in the 1980s, and most of the contents are laughable. Even the notorious Rapture Ready website has binned its 'Rapture Index', which plotted the % likelihood of the return of Jesus based on things like the price of oil. So, for example:

The Protestant Truth society give us 5 reasons to leave the EU. Only one of the reasons has any Biblical or theological grounding, based on 1 verse (Acts 17:26, that God has set 'the boundaries of their dwellings'), which is used to endorse national boundaries and sovereignty. The verse is part of St. Pauls evangelistic sermon to the Areopagus in Athens. It dates from a time when the Roman Empire guaranteed the free movement of people around the Mediterranean, thus making Paul's missionary journeys possible. With border checks, he may never have got into Athens in the first place.

To quote Derek Tidball "some people use the Bible as a drunk uses a lamppost: more for support than illumination." 

3. What is God doing? What do we make of the stories of Muslim conversions on the EU mainland? Having just finished 'God's Smuggler', by Brother Andrew, the opening of the borders of former Warsaw Pact countries is a major answer to prayer. Refugees are pouring into Europe from countries where the West has pursued war (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan), and former colonies which we exploited and then walked away from. Maybe hospitality to those refugees is one way to repay our debt. Many Muslims are now in places where, for the first time, they can read the Bible or turn to Christ without risking a beating, imprisonment or 'honour' killing. 

4. The debate has mostly been about economics, and what we will gain or lose. Christians need to resist that kind of reductionism. For example  the EU 'free movement of people' treats citizens primarilky as economic units who can go where they like to work/retire, rather than people in community who have family, relationships, responsibilities and culture. The former undermines the latter. At the same time, appealing only to how much we would gain or lose financially sells voters short, and treats us as greedy consumers interested only in making money, rather than humans, citizens, neighbours and adults. So what if my house price goes down? What did I ever do to make it go up in the first place?

5. The Bible points towards a future where people of every nation worship God, anticipated by the day of Pentecost, and driven by the mission of Jesus to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. National borders, and international arrangements, are provisional. Jesus ministry and teaching show that God's love cross social, ethnic and cultural boundaries, from the Good Samaritan to the centurions servant. He also made a distinction between Caesar and God: you can't identify any human system of government with the Kingdom of God. The EU is not the Messiah, and neither is Boris Johnson. The Bible both recognises nations, and recognises that they are temporary, and the more powerful they get, the more they sign their own P45.

6. We're faced with a choice between two unknown futures, or possibly more: 

Brexit would quite probably lead to the break up of the UK, the EU and the Conservative party, which would be a dismal legacy for David Cameron to leave. It would also be a mess, as none of our main political parties are advocating it, so who on earth would lead the process? The NHS and social care sector would be decimated (though you could rightly argue we should never have become so dependent on imported labour in the first place, especially as most of the donor countries have much greater health needs than ours). 

Remaining in an EU which increases in size, power and economic influence by the year (ask the Greeks) isn't risk-free either. The project isn't working that well - the Euro has exacerbated the strain on poorer countries, and the rise of the far-right in many countries is a sign that people feel powerless. Whilst some parts are delivering (I'm thankful on a daily basis for the EU-wide food labelling laws that make it safe to go shopping for my coeliac daughter), others are not, particularly for the poor. If Bremain wins, it will be narrowly - taken as a warning sign and an impetus for reform that would be a good thing for the EU, taken as a blank cheque it would be very dangerous. Choose your spin, choose your future. 

If we do stay in, we are going to have to take the free movement of people much more seriously: with better efforts at integration, and honesty and good planning for the 300,000 net addition to the population we will get for the next few years. Politicians need to get their fingers out of their ears and stop going 'la-la-la' - yes we get benefits from immigration, and plenty of them. But we can't deal with 300,000 addition to the population each year the same way we dealt with 30,000, and we need a fuller vision of the human person than the EU's freely moving worker. 

7. David Cameron has dug his own grave. Having won an election on the basis that he wanted us to stay in a 'reformed EU', he hasn't won the reforms he wanted, and is now expecting us to believe that leaving the EU would unleash the Apocalypse. If it was that bad, he should never have offered a referendum in the process. As the main spokesman for Bremain, it is impossible to take his words seriously. Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn is compromised by his own historic opposition to the EU, and the media fascination with internal Tory politics which means they don't report what Labour, Libdem or Green politicians have to say. We are not hearing the best arguments, and we are not hearing them through the best people. Come back Nick Clegg, all is forgiven. 

Does the Bible tell us how to vote on the 23rd? No. And neither will I. But it does tell us to act in love not fear, welcome others as Christ welcomed us, act unselfishly, resist human attempts to replace God with any other absolute claim to loyalty (national or international), and to pray for those in government.

God of truth,
give us grace to debate the issues in this referendum
with honesty and openness.
Give generosity to those who seek to form opinion
and discernment to those who vote,
that our nation may prosper
and that with all the peoples of Europe
we may work for peace and the common good;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.