蜜芽传媒

Good morning. Labour Party members have started voting for a new leader and I can鈥檛 imagine why anyone would want the job. The campaign has been fierce. Almost 6,000 people have been reported to the National Executive Committee for alleged abuse. And there has been an increasingly zealous tone to some of the rhetoric in recent weeks.

Politics has always been like this. In 1948, Aneurin Bevan described his Tory opponents as 鈥渓ower than vermin.鈥� And when Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th century prime minister, was asked to illustrate the difference between a misfortune and a calamity, he took his nemesis William Gladstone as an example. Disraeli said: 鈥淚f Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that I suppose would be a calamity.鈥�

But the difference between then and now is surely the internet. If we have always thought bad things about other people, now we have the technology to let them know about it 鈥� and an online mob of the likeminded will cheer you on. I know because I have both been the recipient of this and guilty of mocking others, too. It鈥檚 so tempting when you disagree with a politician to jump onto Twitter and denounce them. When you only have 140 characters, it鈥檚 easiest to use short, sometimes ugly words.

I鈥檓 ashamed of being part of this decline in the national conversation. It breaks that sensible rule of treating others how you would like to be treated yourself 鈥� and contradicts the Christian preference for trying to convert others through good example. The Apostle Peter cautions Christians against repaying 鈥渋nsult with insult.鈥� Instead, he says that answers to questions about the faith should be given with 鈥済entleness and respect.鈥�

Of course, plenty of Christians are coarse and disrespectful, and terrible things have been done in the name of God. This is the nature of man.

But at the core of Christian theology is the belief that conversion is only valid if it is chosen freely 鈥� if it is won through persuasion not coercion. This belief in the importance of free will has evolved hand-in-hand with Western democracy to produce the liberal order that we enjoy today, an order in which we don鈥檛 try to impose our convictions on others. It鈥檚 why, since the second world war, we鈥檝e boasted comparative levels of peace and liberty.

We may disagree with each other, that鈥檚 fine. We may passionately feel that 鈥渕y way鈥� is the only way forward, that鈥檚 natural. But there is in fact a symbiotic relationship between progress and civility 鈥� and we could probably all do with a dose of gentleness and respect.

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