Everyone now has heard of Momentum, the successful grassroots organisation which many believe (and some fear) is taking over the Labour Party. Momentum was founded in 2015 by a Labour activist, Jon Lansman, who was formerly an aide to Tony Benn. It is currently the vehicle driving – some say fanatically – the left-wing leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
David Blunkett, himself a veteran left-winger, is nevertheless dismayed by the success of Momentum. “The people running Momentum are modern-day Marxists,” he has written. “I’m in despair at this calamitous situation.”
Others have made even more stinging accusations, claiming that Momentum is a Trojan horse to enable Trotskyist movements to dominate Labour. The Parliamentary Labour Party is deeply concerned about the way in which Momentum has sprung up – and, apparently, thrived, attracting thousands of new members.
Those of us who are not party political partisans may watch all this from the sidelines with some bemusement. But perhaps other organisations, including the Church, could ask themselves what can be learned from the success of Momentum. How can a similarly energetic movement be galvanised within our own networks?
An organising leader – such as Mr Lansman seems to be – is probably one requirement. A clever use of social media – Twitter and Facebook – is also an imperative. Conviction, commitment and a bold outreach to ideals appeal to younger people. And lots of merchandising – T-shirts, mugs, books, posters, pamphlets, even collections of poetry – is another tool brilliantly used by Momentum.
The Jesuits have always advocated learning from others, including opponents, and the success of Momentum might well be a masterclass in how to gather enthusiasm for any movement.
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I’d like to recommend a couple of good books to the Archbishop of Canterbury, if I may. Archbishop Justin Welby told the Mothers’ Union last week that a “golden age” of Victorian family values was a myth, and never existed. For this reason, he argued that Christians must face the realities of divorce, cohabitation and gay marriage in our world today.
Doubtless, Christians do have to be honest about the world that we’re living in, but that doesn’t necessarily mean disparaging the improvements that the Victorians brought about.
The books I’d recommend include the magisterial historical studies by the respected American academic Gertrude Himmelfarb. One is called The De-moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values, and the other is Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians. These are scholarly books, and yet so full of interesting information about people that they are not difficult to read.
Dr Himmelfarb shows how the Victorians greatly improved family life, lifted people out of poverty, stopped child prostitution, halted slavery and advanced the notions of “prudence, temperance, industriousness, decency and responsibility”.
Families are always flawed, and there is no family without its problems. But family life was stabilised and improved by “Victorian virtues”. The education of women, and of working-class people, advanced measurably, with the support of the Christian churches. Surely Archbishop Welby should also see that side of the coin when he speaks on this subject.
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In Woody Allen’s latest film Café Society – a slight story, but the Hollywood sets and costumes of the 1930s are fabulous – a Jewish gangster decides to become a Christian before he is executed by electric chair. His mother exclaims, with dark humour, that she doesn’t know which is worse: being executed for multiple homicide or becoming a Christian.
But the gangster tells his brother that the reason he’s made the choice is that “the Jews don’t believe in an afterlife”. So he figures that being a Christian is giving him a better option. But as I understand it, this is an over-simplified interpretation. Judaism is vague about the afterlife, but it is not ruled out. “Resting in Abraham’s bosom” is a phrase sometimes used to describe the great beyond.
I once asked a rabbi about his approach to the afterlife, and he replied with acerbic wit: “The afterlife is none of your business! Your duty is to live the most virtuous life you can, here on earth, and let the afterlife look after itself.”
A thoughtful reflection for Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year, which occurs next Monday.
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