Plenary, 01 Feb 2006

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Official Report 386KB pdf

---

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Right Rev David Lacy, who is the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

It is my privilege to bring you the greetings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

What do you expect from the likes of me? Perhaps you expect some criticism or complaint, or some attempt to persuade you of the moral correctness of one view over another. However, according to St Paul, neither criticism nor lobbying ought to be the Christian's primary attitude to you. In writing to Timothy, he said:

"I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be offered for all men; for sovereigns and all in high office".

That means that Christians must pray for you.

We pray for good governors. The early church believed that Governments are appointed by God for the protection and well-being of humanity, to create the conditions in which people can live their lives in peace and order. The early Christians were taught to pray for that before they worked for it, offered constructive criticism or encouraged and supported policies that would lead to peace, justice and order. The New Testament says that our governors need our prayers. There should be no fashionable cynicism or voter laziness.

There is another modern reason why you need our prayers. The parliamentarians whom I know and have been privileged to meet this week are busy people. Quite often, they are expected to do more and to be more than is at all reasonable but, through all that, momentous decisions have to be taken—sometimes quite quickly—on matters of great technicality, on which even the acknowledged experts are not agreed. The pressure of the next election—which you, unlike me, face—and of events must sometimes dictate that long-term vision be sacrificed to short-term goals, so if you sometimes deserve our criticism, you need first our understanding and our prayers.

That is true of even the wicked ones. When Paul wrote to Timothy about praying for

"sovereigns and all in high office",

that included Herod, Caesar and Pontius Pilate. Paul said that all those who are in authority over us need to be prayed for, as well as criticised and opposed when necessary.

What should we pray for? We should pray for what Solomon prayed for when he asked:

"Give thy servant a heart with skill to listen, so that he may govern thy people justly and distinguish good from evil".

That is authority that listens; it is the kind of moral authority that can distinguish good from evil. Leaders can easily be tempted to enact policies that are easy rather than right. They can be tempted, in the confusion, to fight for political doctrine more than for the rights of people. You need the church's prayers so that you may be enabled, through all the mess and confusion, to distinguish good from evil, and encouraged to go for the good, no matter what the cost to your political careers.

We believe that moral authority is not a human attribute, skill or ability. It is the gift of God, who is the ultimate authority in this world.

As its moderator, I bring you the greetings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and I come neither with any criticism nor to harangue you with any Kirk opinions—although we have them. I come with the guaranteed promise of our present and continuing prayers. For Christians, praying for those who are in authority must always come first.