Food For Thought is a public theology & Bible advocacy blog for Eternity from Sophia Think Tank’s David Wilson, who gathers top Christian thinkers to take a closer look at how the Christian faith addresses matters in society at large every week.

Last week’s On Line Opinion carried an article by Victoria Rollison entitled ‘Left vs. Right: Where we come from’.  In her obviously leftist bias she states:

‘For me, the egalitarianism aspect of Labor’s values is the most important reason that I support most of the party’s policies. I often remind people that an easy test when comparing two policies is to decide which one does the most good for the most people. This, for me, is the starkest difference between the opposing ends of the political spectrum. Left wingers tend to judge a policy’s value based on the effect it will have on their entire community. For lefties, community ranges from everything from a local council area, to the entire country, and often to the whole world. Conversely, right wingers are much more likely to think first and foremost of the policy’s impact on themselves and their immediate family. Any concern about the impact on a community is only seen through the prism of the resulting impact on the individual. If the policy doesn’t affect the individual or their family, it is sometimes ignored, or worse, labeled a ‘waste’.’

Before you either heartily agree with her left-right distinction or dismiss her as pathetically biased (or some moderate position between the poles) let’s have a look at what she is generally saying about public policy.  Forget about the polarities she puts forward.  Arguing about that would divert us from some very important observations she makes about public policy in general. She states that the test of any good policy is to ‘decide which one does the most good for the most people’.  This is the principle of Common Good and it needs to be a primary question addressed to public policy no matter where you lie on the political spectrum.

The position of evaluating a policy from a purely personal perspective reeks of an individualism that is dangerous to the wellbeing of society and that expresses a self-absorption that is not healthy for that individual, let alone the society at large.  I’ve long been challenged by the position that the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah called the Hebrew exiles to as they sat in Babylon waiting for their return to Jerusalem.  Rather than being self-seeking and spending all their time wishing things were different they were instructed to give of their very best to the City of Babylon and its wellbeing, praying for that City’s ‘shalom’ (see Jeremiah 29:4-7).  Daniel was one of those exiles in Babylon and the stories in the Bible around his studentship and subsequent work in the Government of Babylonia (and later the Medo-Persian Empire) show that he took this advice seriously with the Cities of the time benefiting.

It is interesting to note that Jeremiah told the exiles that in working for the common good of the Society they would themselves benefit.  A healthy society, a city of wellbeing will benefit all of us.

There is another polarization we need to be aware of and avoid if possible.  There are some in our world that talk as if the individual is all important.  Western civilization seems to be dominated by the supremacy of the individual and much of our life from voting patterns to consumerism to a preoccupation with ‘my rights’ is a result of this trend.  The psychologizing of life in the West over the 20^th and now the 21^st Centuries buys into this and Western Christianity has not been immune to these problems.  ‘What will this do for me?’ is a common life stance.

On the other hand there are those who seem to push that a Communalism is the only thing that matters, and that this is the answer to all the problems of Individualism. But this has its own problems.  Are the ‘rights’ of the individual always to be subjugated to the will of the community?  Is the majority always right or is there a valid voice for the minority?

The Bible has some wisdom to throw into the mix here.  It teaches that we are ‘individuals in community’.  The individual is important but I should always be mindful of my responsibility as a member of various communities including the family, the neighborhood, interest groups, the work place, and even the Global community (see for example the teaching of Romans 12).

I’m left to wonder how all of this should influence me when it comes to voting or to standing up against (or in support of) some public policy that hits the streets.  As an individual in community I must evaluate this policy or this political candidate from the perspective of my responsibility to the Community of which I belong. In the case of Federal elections the Nation and the World are the primary communities to which I belong.  If it’s a State election then what about the State in which I live and if it’s a Local government poll then my City or my ward.  I wonder how campaigning would be different, and how the Media’s reporting of campaigning and policy platforms, would be different if we made it known that we are tired of self-centeredness and that we are now going for what’s best for the common good, for the wellbeing of the world in which we live.

I guess this raises more questions than it gives answers but it seems like a good place to start.

Food for thought….

Featured image: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1215912