A long distance Jubilee pamphlet
The art of pamphleteering has all but died out with the possible exception of party political manifestos in the lead in to an election. The ascerbic observations of a Swift, and the coffee houses in which Boswell and Johnson’s observations were circulated are now more likely to be reflected somewhat inadequately in the opinion columns of newspapers and their web sites.
The Bible Society was well guided in its decision to issue a pamphlet to mark the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen who is its Patron, and in the challenge it set its President, The Rt Rev Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, to write it. The pamphlet, is titled “In Jubilee then and now: A big idea for the 21st century”.
The media and the headline writers zeroed in on his more populist observations. He stated that promiscuity, separation and divorce have reached epidemic proportions in Britain. However, he said much more on the theme that the Jubilee was an opportunity to think about the kind of environment being bequeathed to future generations. He said although people were better off since the Queen’s accession to the throne in 1952, material progress had come at the expense of equality and communal life.
Dr Chartres writes: “Britain is indeed a better place today materially than ever before, but that material progress has been at the expense of our relationships with one another, our communal life. Within families, within communities, within society as a whole, our relationships are more strained, more fragile, more broken than we care to recognise.”
“As we celebrate the Jubilee of our justly popular monarch, we have an opportunity to ask some wider questions in the spirit of Jubilee, to pause, look back and ask where we are as a nation, and where we are going.”
Bishop Chartres argues: “The 2012 Jubilee offers us an opportunity to pause and reflect not only on an extraordinary reign but also on what the Jubilee could mean to us as a nation.’
“Contemporary society lacks any credible narrative to release energies for the profound changes which are necessary,’ he adds.
“We need to go further than a bare recital of economic indicators and embrace a common vision that offers us hope.
“But it will need courage to rebalance the scales. Government needs to do less, and do more to enable all the various bodies within civil society to do what they do best, rather than preventing them by tying them up in rules and regulations. But at the same time it is also necessary to rein in the market which has ruled supreme over the last 30 years.”
The initiative comes as a new poll reveals that only 12% of people know that the term Jubilee comes from the Bible. Dr Chartres recalls the origin of Jubilee as defined in a single chapter of Leviticus, and elaborates on the responsibilities it places on the children of Israel when freed from slavery. The biblical concept of salvation and of Jubilee had a considerable impact on the stewardship of land, the nature of tenancy, and the restoration of land in the year of Jubilee. The spiritual and the socio-economic were inextricably linked. There was no dualism. We need to start living within our means and stop borrowing from the future.
Dr Chartres said the Jubilee celebrations should be used to “focus on hope” and “reset” the situation in Britain.
He adds: “Contemporary society lacks any credible narrative to release energies for the profound changes which are necessary and to give us a direction of travel. We need to go further than a bare recital of economic indicators and embrace a common vision that offers us hope.”
But he praised the “quiet dignity” of the Monarch, who he described as the most famous public figure on earth and the most respected.
“The way in which she and her family have reached out to include newly established British communities has provided a focus for continuing but expanding national self-respect,” he says, adding that the manner of the Queen’s reign had helped the peaceful transformation of Britain’s national identity.
The pamphlet is available on the web (see below). It will repay reading.
Houston McKelvey