Sir Fred Catherwood is older than I am, which makes him fairly elderly, but he is still hard at work. Knighted for public service years ago, he recently ended a spell as a vice president of the European Parliament in order to lead Britain's Evangelical Alliance in a new urban initiative. In September's "Evangelicals Now," he writes about his venture under the jolting title "Before It's Too Late."
"British society has gone badly wrong," he begins. "You don't just have to look at the terrible statistics. People have started to look back to the good old days – not so long ago – when the streets were safe, everyone had a job, most people had a home, children stayed at school, the family stayed together and we all looked forward to better times." I can testify that there were indeed such days: the years of stubborn national endeavor that followed the Second World War.
"We look back today," he continues, "because we dare not look forward. We live in a violent, greedy, rootless, cynical and hopeless society and we don't know what's to become of it all." When I revisit Britain as a Brit on family and other business, I meet apprehensive apathy everywhere. I wish Sir Fred was wrong, but I know he's right.
The decline, he tells us, has two causes, both of them signs of how Britain has slipped its historic Christian moorings. The first is greed – "the logical result of the belief that there is no life after death. We grab what we can while we can however we can and then hold on to it hard."
The second cause is moral confusion, the pragmatic amorality of a society in which it is "politically correct" to deny that there are universal moral absolutes. "The powerful use their power and the weak go to the wall, not just the poor, but the weak-willed, and especially all the children, who depend on the age-old disciplines and loving care of the family." Too true.
"As we stop believing in the dignity of man and woman made in the image of God, violence has risen dramatically." Should that surprise?
"Can government turn the tide? I doubt it. … Around the Cabinet table, ministers will admit that people are deeply anxious because the social pillars of society have been shaken. All down the centuries governments have had moral guidelines to tell them how to shape the social structures. Now … they do not know what to do."
While politicians confess bafflement and secular caregivers feel beaten, Christians must hear God's call to practice neighbor-love where they are "by helping those whose lives have been wrecked by materialism and the disintegration of stable family life." So the Evangelical Alliance is forming City Action Networks, in which local churches pool resources, human and material, to help the casualties of a self-centered and hard-hearted society – the lonely, the hurting, the homeless, and the untrained. Each church will do what it does best, pass other problems to churches and organizations that have the skill and promises to handle them, and receive from others cases requiring their own expertise.
When each urban network is in place there will be a public launch, so that local politicians, civic leaders, and media are made aware of what is being done. This will identify the collaborating evangelical churches "as part of the community, not an exclusive private club, … but good neighbors who … are there to help."
Britain's problems are not exclusive to Britain; North America and Australia are more or less in the same boat. There are places in North America where leaders of churches regularly meet to pray and strategize for the serving and winning of their communities, and maybe City Action Networks already exist in some of these. But I write to express my belief that Sir Fred's version of the idea, simple, realistic, demanding, and fruitful as it is, should be acted on in all population centers everywhere – before it's too late.
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