JESUS fed people when they were hungry. He healed them when they were sick or blind or suffering from extreme mental distress. He instructed his disciples to give water to the thirsty and to welcome the stranger. It is not hard to see why those who chose to follow his Way developed practices, groups, and, ultimately, institutions that fed, clothed, housed, healed, and welcomed the needy. It remains so today.
But this is not all that Jesus did. Put another way, this account of Jesus’s life and ministry is in danger of ignoring the important detail of how — the way in which — Jesus did these things. Jesus provided food for people, and he ate with them. He taught people, and he asked them questions. He passed judgement on sin, and he offered forgiveness for it. He upheld the law, and he brought people into society when something — their past, their poverty, their profession, or just the straightforward prejudice of their peers — had led to their exclusion. In short, he drew them into relationship.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of this. “Man does not live by bread alone.” Humans need attention, sympathy, time, patience, friendship, and love almost as much as they need food, clothing, and a roof over their head. Yes, they will die if they don’t receive the latter, but a human starved of company, kindness, and compassion will soon see their humanity — their dignity, their personhood — wither and die. Jesus fed, clothed, and healed, and he instructed his followers to do likewise. But the way in which he did so affirmed their “personhood” (or “dignity” or “humanity”).
The attention that he paid to the excluded, his elevation of followers to friendship, his sharing of bread, his sharing of suffering, ultimately, his self-gift for the sake of others, restored not only their existence, but their existence as persons. His words, his presence, and his love humanised those who had been left out: those whose personhood had been damaged by inattention, neglect, and abuse.
HEREIN lies the “welfare Church” of the future, because, as the new welfare landscape suggests, we are living in a time in which the relationships that constitute our humanity are under immense strain, often crumbling into dust, and taking our mental health with them (Features, 27 September).
Worse, as if loneliness, anxiety, depression, and broken relationship are not bad enough, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is liable to make things worse. Just as many today, not least children, take refuge in phones and social media, to the detriment of their long-term good, so an age of AI “companionship” risks setting us ever further adrift from one another.
We yearn for one another, not for a screen. The human need to be known, to be heard, to be seen, to be respected, and to be loved, is evergreen; and, while a companion robot or a “carebot” may be better than all-out isolation, it is ultimately a poor substitute. In an age of liberal individualism, of unprecedented movement of people, of demographic rebalancing, and an ever-ageing population, of digitally mediated communication, of ubiquitous and immersive technology, the premium on affirming the humanity of one another in intimate, patient, present, laborious, and generous ways will be enormous.
The less we do it, the more acutely we feel the need to spend time with, to listen to, to share with, to hold, one another. A body of people that tries to follow Christ will go and do likewise. Ultimately, the churches should and will continue to feed, clothe, house, and welcome those who need it. Recognising and fostering the personhood of a human being is not an alternative to understanding them as an individual or organism, to meeting their basic material and biological needs. Once upon a time, the churches tried met those material needs, but, despite their Herculean efforts, the time came when it was clear that they could no longer do so, and the State took them over.
Most of the time it did so, not only with the Churches’ blessing, but with their active encouragement. The Churches are still doing such things, albeit in massively attenuated ways, today. The very fact that most Churches today also argue, sometimes vociferously, that they shouldn’t have to do that, however, means, by definition, that this is not now their responsibility. The State is responsible for welfare, and it should be.
But the meaning of welfare changes. There are new giants standing alongside Beveridge’s famous five. Recent decades have shown that, even when practical needs are met (and, increasingly, it seems, they are not), it is necessary to satisfy the “personal” needs of citizens: their need for company, for companionship, for attention, for character formation, for support, for encouragement, for friendship, for love.
And, while such needs are not totally foreign to the State — it is not improper for a government to develop a strategy for loneliness — it is also the case that the practical action to meet them is far beyond the capacities of the State. Hence, the repeated mantra about “empower[ing] local communities” and “increas[ing] volunteering”.
IN OTHER words, just as the Churches recognised and responded to the needs that ultimately came to be met through the welfare state in the 20th century, so they must respond to the new welfare needs of the 21st. A religion of communion and community, of habits and practices, of moral and character formation, of sharing and eating, of listening and attention, of repentance and forgiveness, of faith and hope —a religion of love will not only speak, but act on, these new welfare concerns.
Arguably, that is just what the Churches (at their best) have done for centuries: affirming and serving the God-rooted and inalienable dignity of all humans, in so doing, serving as a conduit of the love that God has for his whole creation. As we enter the second quarter of the century, that dignity and that love are crying out for practical recognition. It is where the future of the Churches in Britain lies.
Nick Spencer is senior fellow of Theos.
This is an edited extract from an article that he wrote for the October 2024 edition of Crucible: The journal of Christian social ethics. Read the full article here.
crucible.hymnsam.co.uk/subscribe
