feeling the crunch - an introduction from the editor

The Summer 2009 issue of the Common Good magazine focuses on the financial crisis and a message of hope.  Editor Dan Gover explains.

Throughout the latest edition of The Common Good, there’s a theme that pops up again and again: crisis. Looking back over the last few months, it’s not hard to see why. Across the world, people are feeling the effects of an unprecedented economic crisis. In Britain, a political crisis has damaged the reputation of our democratic institutions. In the Labour Party, ministerial resignations prompted a leadership crisis.

Yet the overarching theme of this issue is not despair, but hopefulness. Speaking about political disengagement, Jon Cruddas tells us: “we need to build a notion of hope again.” Hope was the theme taken up by the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, in his recent book, Surprised by Hope. In it, he outlined the biblical expectation of a new creation and argued that the church must reflect and anticipate this ‘hope’ as it brings hope and healing to the world.

And so, in his investigation on how Christians can respond to the economic crisis, Stephen Beer concludes: “There is still a role for hope.” He reports on a local church-based project that sees its role as “bringing hope” to its community. Stephen Timms, in dialogue with church leader Jonathan Oloyede, argues that these local projects can in turn help us to develop a politics that is based on hope. Meanwhile, Andy Flannagan outlines how he sees this biblical hope impacting on our own sense of purpose in CSM.

Elsewhere, both Lee Clark and Rachael Maskell discuss what we can learn from the recent financial and political scandals, building on CSM’s Tawney Dialogue held in May. Tom Quinn argues that young Christians can help to revive our political system, while Andy Freeman gives some ideas for prayer, and Paul Woolley helps to provide a theological framework for our political action.