Weekly Blog - 16 January 2023 - Diversity in Government
Diversity in Government
Regular readers of Arise’s weekly blogs and actions will know that we are not shy of criticising and challenging governments when they are not living up to God’s standards of justice, fairness, care for creation, and meeting the needs of all. However, as Christians we also need to give credit where it is due. So this week we thought we would look at the issue of diversity in the UK government.
The current UK government has rightly been commended for the number of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds it has appointed to positions right at the top of government. Three of the four traditional Great Offices of State are currently occupied by people from minority ethnic communities: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of course (Britain’s first Asian Prime Minister), Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, and Home Secretary Suella Braverman. In addition, other notables like Kemi Badenoch, International Trade Secretary, and Nadhim Zahawi, Minister without Portfolio, also hold senior roles within the Cabinet. A lot of the growth in the diversity of the parliamentary Conservative Party has been credited to former Prime Minister David Cameron, who very consciously drove the selection of a more diverse range of Conservative candidates as part of his modernisation of the party in the late 2000s.
What is also notable, and should be celebrated, is how the Conservative Party has gone about this without a great deal of fuss or grandstanding, and how relatively little stir or comment this has caused. Any suggestion that leaders like Rishi Sunak, James Cleverly or Suella Braverman should be pigeon holed into having to focus on particular issues deemed to be relevant to the communities they come from, or take views that are somehow, stereotypically, considered to be the typical views of those communities, has rightly been condemned. The ethnic background of these leaders has by and large, not been an issue with the British public and media, who feel free to praise or criticise them based on whether they agree or disagree with the policies they follow, regardless of their ethnic background. This is as it should be, that is what anti-racism and equality is about after all, that all should be treated equally without fear or favour regardless of their ethnic background.
As Christians we should welcome this. Complete equality and unity should be modelled in the kingdom of God, as Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3: 28) One of the key areas that a major report from Arise, The Arise Manifesto, looks at in detail is what standards for democracy, human rights and good governance countries should have. Complete equality in society for all regardless of gender, ethnicity, faith, sexuality, disability or any other issue, is an essential one of these standards (Arise Manifesto, pg 80 – 81). Of course, none of that means we have to agree with all that these leaders stand for. Indeed there are many ways in which the UK government (like all governments) falls short of God’s standards for justice and good governance, and it is on these that the church, every Christian, and the public more widely should always challenge them and hold them to account. Arise will continue to do that. Neither does it mean that the UK, and every other country, doesn’t still have a long, long way to go to fully address racism and inequality at every level in society. Nevertheless, we should pause, be encouraged, and celebrate this progress. This is what anti-racism and the journey to full equality looks like, that all are free to hold any position without fuss, and are free to be either praised or criticised based entirely on their views and their actions, whatever the colour of their skin.
Find out more
Find out more about how God is at work in the world, and the role we all have to play in that work, in the Arise Manifesto. This report is Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world. It looks at what the Bible says, and what we can learn from the best data and the world’s leading experts on the five major areas of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, development and the environment. It then draws these lessons together into a practical road map for the changes we need to see in our world, which the Arise movement campaigns to achieve.
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