Absolutely: I firmly believe that non-involvement is a non-option for Christians. Whether you look to Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries, or to twentieth-century theologians like Gutiérrez or Bonhoeffer, or a present-day one like Stanley Hauerwas, you will find an expectation for involvement. Loving our neighbour doesn’t mean ignoring them!

But we can do all that without looking to the wider world?

Yes and No – not everyone is called to be a Diocesan World Development Officer. Not everyone is called to be the sort of missionary I write about in my articles for Newslink.  But we are all called to be part of the body of Christ, and that is a world-wide body. We are called to care, not to bury our heads in the sand. Some people, to be sure, will be called to spend most of their time and energy dealing with needs and issues closer to home; but, on others, God will place a concern on their heart for those in need further away.

And it’s not as if we can do much, is it – we are not going to change the world just like that?

“It’s God’s world, and he will return to put things right, you mean?” Well, that is true, but, we need to live in tension here (and I know tension isn’t comfortable, but bear with me). When God asked Wilberforce and his friends to abolish the slave trade, if they’d said we can’t do much, abolition would not have happened. But they worked at it, and 200 years ago this year the slave trade was abolished. Unfortunately, we know that millions are still enslaved world-wide, often in sexual slavery. So do we say that Wilberforce failed? He didn’t get his commission from God? Of course not. We continue his work: as Bonhoeffer put it, “It may be that the day of judgment will dawn tomorrow; in that case, we shall gladly stop working for a better future. But not before.”

This all sounds rather political?

That depends on what we mean by “politics”. Political debate (and I think this is where people often get concerned about ‘politics’), does not just come about because people have differing views over what is the most effective means of governing society. It also occurs because people’s interests differ, so what they see as efficient or effective will differ. More importantly, people’s values differ. This means that their ideas of what is right, not just what is efficient or effective, will differ. It is at this level of values that silence by the Christian community allows others with differing values to impose their views on the whole of society unopposed. It also means that those who do seek change will assume that silent churches, and silent church people, support the status quo. Is that what we want? I suggest that it shouldn’t be what we want when the status quo means someone dies needlessly every three seconds.

But if the church gets too involved with the world…?

The church cannot help but be in the world – the only question is how it is to be in it but not of it. Perhaps we need to remember that it has often been Christians who have started various movements to improve the lot of humanity: from the anti-slave trade movement to Make Poverty History, from the Victorian Factory Acts to the Fair Trade movement.

A vision of utopia, then?

Well, someone has to provide people with the vision of how it ought to be. The question is, again, how to get from today’s “is” to tomorrow’s “ought”. And every Christian has to live with that tension – including me!

And what’s the big issue of today?

Climate change, without a doubt. If we aren’t able, over the next ten years or so, to get our climate under control and mitigate the effects of the change we’ve already set in motion, then there will be millions more living in poverty, millions more dying needlessly, more crops will fail and more land will be reclaimed by the rising sea.

It all sounds pretty dire – is there anywhere we can read about all this?

I was hoping you’d ask me that! My book Engaging Politics? is out now and gives a theological explanation for Christian engagement with politics and gives five areas (including the ones we’ve mentioned today) of where and how Christians can be involved with the world.

Engaging Politics? by Nigel Oakley (foreword by our own Bishop Tom) is published by Paternoster Press, ISBN 987-1-84227-505-4 £16.99 Nigel will be holding a book launch at the Cathedral bookshop on 1st November at 6p.m. [A shortened version of this interview is published in 'Newslink' (Nov/Dec 2007), the newspaper of the Diocese of Durham.]

These are the tensions Nigel Oakley grapples with as he shows how Christians can, indeed must, engage with politics and with political debate. He demonstrates, in chapters on Augustine, Liberation theology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Stanley Hauerwas how these tensions exist in every strand of Christian political thinking; and then he applies those tensions to case studies varying from today’s highly charged debates on sexuality to the war on terrorism. In every case, he demonstrates that non-involvement is a non-option. This book is both an intelligent introduction to the difficult world of Christian political theology and to some of the key debates that are shaping our times.

‘It is a happy occasion to comment on this book by Nigel Oakley who … offers a constructive Christian position for the more difficult challenges facing us in our world today.’
Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School, North Carolina

‘This book will be an important tool for individuals and churches who are prepared to open their eyes to God’s reality, their minds to his multi-faceted but integrated truth, and their hearts to his compassion for a world greatly beloved but greatly afflicted.’
N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham

‘Nigel Oakley binds the wisdom and practice of the past to the issues and dilemmas of the present in a most creative and stimulating way. This hugely informative book will rescue Christians from simplistic or  monochrome answers to the biblical, theological and ethical complexity of wrestling with political realities.’
Christopher J.H. Wright, International Director, Langham Partnership International

‘Engaging Politics demonstrates that, far from being incompatible, Christianity, social justice and political engagement are inseparable. A thought-provoking, stimulating and action inducing read.’
Steve Chalke MBE, Founder of Oasis Global and Faithworks

Nigel Oakley is World Development Officer for the Anglican Diocese of Durham, UK. He has a PhD from the University of Durham in political theology.