Speech to The Liberal Democrat Christian Forum – 01/02/10

Faith, Science and Politics

May I first of all thank you for the honour of allowing me to give the Annual Gladstone Lecture this evening and trust that we can create a hearty discussion on what is without doubt a hugely topical area of discussion - Faith, Science and Politics .

I feel hopelessly inadequate in making this presentation, given the illustrious parliamentarians and others you have invited so hopefully you will forgive me if I raise more questions than I give answers.

May I also take this opportunity to thank the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum for the excellent work you do in both supporting the Liberal Democrats and helping to maintain that somewhat difficult bridge between faith and politics.

Indeed my theme this evening is to question whether the gap between faith and politics is widening? Is it possible to bridge it? And given the growing importance of science in finding solutions to the great global challenges of the 21st century – has science become the new ‘faith’ to which mankind should seek answers rather than deity?

As a Christian, a Politician, and custodian of science scrutiny in Parliament the relationship between these disciplines is absolutely integral to who I am. Though my personal faith is often tested in my work, I find like all who acknowledge their faith – that very testing of what I believe to be crucial.

Indeed I would argue that scientists, politicians and theologians share a common methodoly - ‘a search for the truth – for answers – based on best evidence’.

It is the constant testing of one’s faith, science or political beliefs that strengthens rather than undermines resolve. It is the tension between all three elements that makes for better policy making.

Of course Gladstone had no such difficulty with this dilemma – ‘We walk by faith and not by sight’ he famously said. His faith guided almost everything he did with a sense of unerring infallibility – a characteristic I am less comfortable with.

That Gladstone spent 63 years in parliament with four terms as prime minister and achieved in political terms what arguably no prime minister since has achieved since was remarkable.

That he gave all the credit to God I find a little unnerving. To do so passes responsibility for political failures to the almighty too – something several modern day politicians have come close to claiming!

What I do not question however was his conviction expressed in 1832, the year of the Great Reform Bill, - ‘restrict the sphere of politics to earth and it becomes a secondary science’.

For a Christian to testify that God has a place within political decision making is essential – as too is the belief that God has a guiding purpose – but to go further and abdicate responsibility is difficult for me to accept.

Indeed it is mans ability to choose rather than be divinely directed that makes my interest, fascination and belief in science and religion much more powerful and so much more worthwhile.

I’m told that science, religion and politics are the three things one should never mention at a dinner party. Well that’s certainly true if you like your dinner parties to be sedate and polite – but personally I prefer a slightly livelier discussion…

Don K Price said in his book The Scientific Estate (1965) ‘The union of the political and scientific estates is not like a partnership, but a marriage. It will not be improved if the two become like each other, but only if they respect each other's quite different needs and purposes. No great harm is done if in the meantime they quarrel a bit.’

I certainly think the same is true if you add religion to the equation as well.

Gladstone did not have strong views about science and scientists. He did of course relish in the remarkably engineering and technological achievements he saw during his political life time. Such feats as the building of the railways, the growth of mass production, of gas for lighting and heating were all somehow accepted as inevitable progress.

Such could not be said about arguably the world’s greatest scientist and certainly the greatest of the Gladstone era – Charles Darwin. One would have expected a clash of these great intellectual titans – the one claiming divine infallibility and the other questioning the ‘origin of the species’. It is rather disappointing that these two did not clash but hardly surprising. Darwin, like most scientists never believed his theory was perfect or not capable of challenge. For his part Gladstone always understood the mankind had ‘progressed’ under the divine tutelage of God. There was an uneasy truce.

As James Bryce Gladstone’s biolographer ‘Mr. Gladstone, though too wise to rail at science, as many religious men did till within the last few years, could never quite reconcile himself either to the conclusions of geology and zoology regarding the history of the physical world and the animals which inhabit it, or to the modern
methods of critical inquiry as applied to Scripture and to ancient
literature generally.’

It was therefore perhaps fitting that when Darwin died Gladstone arranged for him to be buried in Westminster Abbey but did not attend – preferring to have dinner at Windsor.

I suspect a greater level of engagement would be expected today. In fact the political controversy over Darwin raged more fiercely last year, 150 years after the publication of ‘Origin of the Species’ than in 1859.

And it is the current inter relationship between politics, science and religion I now turn to because ironically the tensions therefore between faith, science and politics are more heightened than ever in my life time.

We may now have reached the dizzy heights of the Bush era where 47% of Americans agreed with the Gallop statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the past 10,000 years or so” but we are not far off.

Despite the fact that in the UK scientists are held in relatively high esteem – that their work particularly in medical science is eagerly received – when science and religion collide all bets are off!

Last year the ComRes poll commissioned by Theos found that whilst 37% of people in the UK believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution was ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ 32% say that Young Earth Creationism – that God created the world in the last 10,000 years is either true or probably true and 51% said that Intelligent Design is either ‘definitely or probably true’.

It is hardly surprising therefore that on both sides of the Atlantic there is a growing but confused relationship between faith, science and politics.

In the US there has always been a strong link between faith and politics – the reliance of the Kennedy’s on the Catholic vote is well documented and hence political attitudes to abortion and contraception were problematic.

Bush became almost handcuffed to the mid west Christian fundamentalists and key areas of science including global warning and embryonic stem cell research were either traduced or banned as a result.
Bush went further citing God as telling him to take key political actions. He once famously told Palestinian leaders: "God would tell me, 'George, go end the tyranny in Iraq' and I did." In the UK Tony Blair, a man who never hid his deep faith finessed divine instruction over the same war when he said to Micahel Parkinson in May 2006 (ITV) "If you have faith about these things then you realise that judgement is made by other people. If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."

Of course it is wrong to assume any insincerity by either leader but the rejection of science and the convenience of religion do have an element of political convenience if not opportunism. I for one find that wearing faith as a badge, worn alongside the party rosette when campaigning troubling.

Yet for politicans whom religion, politics and science are way of life why should we not be prepared to proclaim our faith with the vigour we proclaim our politics or announce our scientific discoveries?

Just because faith can be traduced in politics, does not been that it should not be drawn upon at all.

That most certainly could be said of Gladstone and though radically difference President Obama too.

Obama is often referred to as a religious politician.

He isn’t.

Obama is a politically active religious man. His faith comes first, and his politics second.

Although even that suggests a slightly artificial line drawn between the two…

Obama is a man who has not wavered in his passionate faith for the progressive potential of religious belief since he first encountered it in south Chicago when community organising.

For Obama, politics is simply a way to do the work that his faith sets for him.

He recognises that ultimately, politics and religion have the same goal. Put quite simply, to make the world a better place.

It sounds contrite, but the centre of Christian faith is a constant striving to make things better – to love thy neighbour, to be the good Samaritan, to learn the lessons from the past and use them to build a better, more peaceful and more prosperous future.

That is exactly why I came into politics and indeed why I am a Liberal Democrat – my faith and my politics are indistinguishable and always have been.

And let me add, that despite the recent appalling press where a few appear to have had very different motives - I do believe that very few people come into politics for anything other than the ardent desire to make things better.

We may disagree on what actually is better, we may disagree on how to get there, but I do believe that the intentions are nearly always good.

So how does science fit into this cosy arrangement? Surely science can be a divisive as either religion or politics?

Well it is undeniable that the purpose of scientific exploration is also just to make things better. Yes the application of science can and is used for the most evil of purposes as we saw following the splitting of the atom, the use of rocket technology, of chemical and biological agents in warfare etc.

But essentially science is a force for good.

Science by definition is always attempting to answer a question, resolve a problem, discover new frontiers.

Like faith and politics they all have a common aim to improve the world we live in and the people we are.

What stands in the way of science and why so often it conflicts with religions and thereby creates a dilemma for politicians is fear?

Fear borne all too often of ignorance. Fear that our norms, our beliefs are being questioned.

President Bush and the Christian fundamentalists who urged him on - put a barrier on scientists in the US to exploit the breakthroughs in stem cell research, particularly embryonic stem cell research. The fear being that the very nature of creation itself was being questioned.

Yet at the same time the Christian evolutionary biologist Francis Collins was sequencing the human genome arguably the greatest breakthrough in understanding human creation .

Such scientific breakthroughs are not a threat to our faith but a way of understanding it – of answering yet another complex question about our creation.

Very shortly after coming into office, President Obama removed restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. He recognised that the enormous potential of bio-engineering and its potential to develop new medical treatments that have the potential to save millions of lives.

This was a political decision, it was a decision based upon science, and it was a decision underpinned by Obama’s faith.

Commenting on it, Obama said:
"In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values…
In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering ...
I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research – and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."
Stem cell research is just one example of the many huge challenges that are presented to us when we consider the ethical and political implications of science.
Only last week a man who was partially blinded when ammonia was squirted in his eye during an attack 15 years ago regained his sight following a pioneering stem cell treatment.
In an experimental treatment devised by doctors at the North East England Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle, stem cells were taken from the man’s healthy eye and grown on a layer of amniotic tissue.
When the cells had covered the membrane, a piece the size of a postage stamp was transplanted onto Turnbull's damaged eye. Two months later the membrane had broken down, leaving his damaged eye with a fresh supply of healthy stem cells, which repaired the cornea.
This pioneering research has saved a man’s sight.
Yet many continue to oppose stem cell research because of the ethical implications of ‘creating life’.
The same questions arise when we consider IVF, or embryology.
The world’s first IVF baby is now 32 years old. That woman would not have lived were it not for a political decision to allow this science to go ahead. She would not have lived were it not for the religious and moral dilemmas that politicians will have gone through when considering this issue. And were it not for the fact that, informed by all of these perspectives, it was decided that this treatment was for the greater good.
But we have no way of knowing for sure whether this judgment was the right one. And it isn’t easy to know how, when, or where to draw the line.
Science has a tendency to natural progression.
Following the first IVF baby in 1978, there came the first frozen embryo birth in 1983, a process whereby ‘spare’ embryos created through IVF are frozen and used to create siblings years later.
It would be ridiculous to assume that, for those politicians and scientists who are religious, their faith did not play a very significant part in their decisions leading up to, and responses following these events.
In 2008 I chaired the committee that discussed the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. The bill covered hybrid embryos mixing human and animal tissue, the creation of ‘saviour siblings’ created as a genetic tissue match for an older brother or sister with a genetic condition, the extension pre-genetic dianosis (screening of embryos for known diseases) as well as the time limit for abortions.
Each of these scientific developments had the potential to save, or dramatically improve, countless lives.
But at what cost?
For every member of that committee, and every MP who ultimately voted upon the bill, their personal faith and politics were absolutely central to the decision, as they are to any individual who may go on to use fertility treatment, have an abortion, or receive medical treatment reliant upon another human life.
Of course for many religious groups science is a challenge but so faith is a challenge for many scientists.

As Einstein once said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

For myself as a politician and a Christian charged with promoting and scrutinising science in parliament it is not simply the areas of life science where science and religion meet and where ethical judgements are also required.

The splitting of the atom has solved uncountable political and scientific needs. It could have the potential to solve the energy crisis of our future; yet it also has the potential to literally destroy the world.

The MRI scanners are derived from nuclear science – they were originally known as nuclear magnetic resonance machines (NMR) I suspect there would have been a great deal more resistance to their use if they had been names NMR’s!

Do we prevent the development of nuclear technology that saves countless lives to remove the possibility of the atomic bomb?
Or do we, as Obama suggested, trust that just as ‘we been given the capacity and will to pursue this research – so we have the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly’?
Surely this is where ‘faith’ guides the politician to view the science objectively and to control its uses accordingly.

That ‘ethics’ of science can be vewed without faith is not questioned – what I argue is that faith enables a politican to bring his/her belief system into play as well.

But let me conclude by bringing this need for faith, science and politics to come together by looking at the huge global challenges that are ahead of us.

In particular the challenge of providing the very basics - food and water.

In the mid-1980s the terrible famine in Ethiopia caused 8 million people to need aid. High population growth, falling agricultural production and increasing drought mean that 9m people now need relief each year.

The first of the millennium development goals was to halve the number of people suffering from hunger between 1990 and 2015.

However by 2003 the percentage of the world’s population that was undernourished had decreased by only 3%. That’s still 820 million people going hungry.

The impacts of climate change – sea level rise, droughts, heat waves, floods and rainfall variation – could, by 2080, push another 600 million people into malnutrition and increase the number of people facing water scarcity by 1.8 billion.

In the future, wars will be fought over these most basic resources.

Already more than 50 countries over all 5 continents are said to be at risk of conflict over water.

With the impact of global warming and increasingly growing populations, this situation is only going to get worse unless we do something about it.

As a Christian, the natural impulse is to feed the hungry.

The bible tells of the feeding of the 5000 – the simple impulse to stop others going hungry or thirsty is fundamental to Christian charity.

As a politician, a commitment to equality and basic human rights makes the contrast between the obesity problem in this country and the many millions starving across the world seem wrong and immoral, and the natural impulse is to want to do something about it.

As a scientist, this is a practical problem, a problem with a solution, and one that scientist all over the world are working on.

Each on his/her own will not make the difference we need – that is obvious to most of us.

So why isn’t it that easy?

Why don’t we just stop talking about it and actually sort it out?

Because some of the solutions carry their own problems with them.

Solutions like geoengineering to combat climate change and stop global warming, solutions like nuclear energy to reduce our use of coal, or genetically modified crops to increase our food supply and decrease its need for water.

What could on the face of it be a simple decision suddenly becomes a lot more complicated.

As the technologies that we can develop become ever more sophisticated, and the problems that we face as a planet increase and intensify, as the temperature literally rises, the moral and ethical decisions that we are going to have to make as a people are only going to become tougher.

That’s why we have to embrace the interface between science, politics and religion.

That’s why we need to not be ashamed of having a faith-based politics, or a faith-based view of scientific development, but to embrace it.
Sir Robert Winston recently criticised writers like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, for making arguments which he claims are "dangerous", "irresponsible" and "very divisive".
He is absolutely right.
Regardless of whether one believes in God or not, cooperation and dialogue between religion and science are crucial to our future.
It is why we need more MPs with a strong faith and more MPs with a scientific background in the next parliament
Equally we need politicians who are prepared to engage both with science and religion rather than dismissing one or both.
I am not a scientist – my background is in education and I have a degree in philosophy but I have a passion for science, for problem solving and for addressing the huge global challenges ahead.
I fervently believe that without science we cannot avoid the world we have been given custody of,l irretrievably break down and those with the least skills, wealth and opportunity will suffer the most as they always have done.
As Christian Liberal Democrats we have a duty to face up to the difficult choices.
I cannot evoke the confidence of Gladstone when he said “When have I seen so strongly the relation between my public duties and the primary purposes for which God made and Christ redeemed the world?”
Yet I pray that politicians, scientists and people of all faiths take heed of that challenge.
As Ghandi once said that “those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.”
After ‘religion’ I would add ‘science’ and I suspect even Evan Harris would agree with that!

End.