麻豆社

That you鈥檝e chosen to wake up to political analysis and discussion of the issues of the day is something on which this programme relies. You may be in your kitchen or bathroom reacting to something you鈥檙e hearing with anything from admiration to disinterest to fury. But underneath the cut and thrust of generating daily headlines, politicians and journalists alike remain aware of deeper questions that persist, even as, for example, the pace quickens in the debate about Brexit, with only 6 months to go.

At this political moment, in this last quarter of 2018, it seems that there is a hunger for deeper reflection and big political ideas - and not just in the fringe events at the party conferences. I wonder if we might call it 鈥渄eep news鈥� 鈥� that is, longer term thinking on the fundamentals. Just this month there was a new Big Tent Ideas Festival in the fens, and an 鈥淥pen Future鈥� Festival of ideas in London, Hong Kong and New York 鈥� and next month the annual Battle of Ideas will take up the mantle. Alongside this, remembering the 10th anniversary of the banking crisis, questions are being raised again about how capitalism is working; books are being published asking deeper questions about who benefits and who suffers from the mechanisms of the market. A realisation that 鈥減rogress鈥� is not inevitable or evenly distributed is prompting reflection on the nature of democracy in the light of the rise of populist nationalism. Is also causing us to ask ourselves how we can creatively, and crucially, together, address, for example, the large-scale forced migration of people and the changing climate of the planet.

I鈥檝e heard many people expressing huge frustration with the day to day political news cycles, crying 鈥渟low down鈥�, 鈥渟top arguing鈥� or alongside that 鈥渏ust get on with it鈥�. For religious thinkers, this frustration is one that can be addressed by a gentler pace, rooted in the wisdom of ritual and the practice of silence, which produces no less sharp a critique, but does it based in the spiritual fearlessness that comes with regular prayer and meditation. How religious people engage with these longer term deeper political issues will inevitably attract a variety of strong reactions, as the Archbishop of Canterbury discovered after his speech to the TUC last week; but in acknowledging a greater appetite for asking questions about how our society is organised, the Christian tradition can offer reflections on the nature of justice, the interdependence of all creation, the morality of personal responsibility and the human desire to love, to forgive and to flourish. If big ideas really are back, then these could be exciting 鈥� and more than that 鈥� hopeful - political times indeed.