God's Country

Part Twenty-Seven

'The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.'

Mark Twain

Peter Munroe had to admit that he enjoyed the spectacle. He was the best man, something which Charles Buckingham asked of him, and splendid in his morning suit he found it easy to imagine himself part of one of those fairytale occasions, the sort of thing his mother loved watching in costume dramas on television. She would undoubtedly be at home scouring the press coverage and swooning over the clothes and the pageantry. Munroe had to admit that he admired Charles. He had a similar decision to make down the road and he doubted if he could approach it with the same fortitude. Charles had found a strong faith out of a horrendous few years in his life and it was clear that his attachment to Reformism went far beyond the chance to revolutionise British politics.

Because that was what they were trying to do. It had not been clear to Peter at first, because like Charles he was caught up in getting another crack at parliament. When Charles first put his ideas in front of him, Peter had been sceptical, of course. Britain might be a country with a strong Christian ethos but he did not believe it was a Christian country. And the formal thinking behind Charles Buckingham's popularist manifesto was definitely all about turning it into one. Michael Winstanley had a cure for the ills of the modern world which involved forcing sixty five million people to fall to their knees before God, and that was clearly never going to happen. But Charles Buckingham had fought for a different position, and whilst the objectives might be broadly the same, the execution was much more plausible.

It had taken Peter Munroe weeks to see it himself. He did not have his own eureka moment and it crept up on him, working around his doubts about the extremes of Reformism, which he was exposed to in Meadvale. Religion was often extreme. Buckingham had pointed out that every faith and every denomination had a broad spectrum of belief. The Catholic Church was a prime example, embracing the fundamentalists of Opus Dei, the saintly goodness of Mother Teresa and persistent accusations of child abuse amongst its priests. None of that made a lot of difference to an ordinary Catholic congregation in Croydon; the extremes did not change the reality of the Church in the modern world. Islam was the same. A minority of Muslims were extremists, involved in or supporting terrorism, or stopping women going to school or leaving the house, but that did not mean that every girl wearing a hijab in the queue at the supermarket was in any way extreme.

Charles Buckingham's key decision, in Munroe's opinion, had been to separate the political party from the Church of Christian Reform, a move which had clearly disappointed Michael Winstanley. His personal commitment mollified the Pastor and gave the political side of the project a chance to talk about practicalities and not beliefs. Munroe liked that, because it was the practicalities which excited him the most. The truth was that traditional party politics was one continual compromise. Munroe had stood as a Conservative, but that was a broad church at the best of times. The Christian Democratic Alliance had no traditional dogma to deal with and no vested interests. They could look for the right answer, drifting left or right to solve the problems rather than sticking resolutely to a traditional party line. The possibilities of starting anew, with a clean slate, appealed to him.

But to be involved, to stay involved, he fully realised that he would have to make the same decision Charles had made. And Charles had no doubts. Munroe could not say the same of himself. His decision could not just be a personal one, based on his career prospects. He had to take Claire into account, of course. He had absolutely no problems with his daughter. Not like Charles. She was a good kid, just turned sixteen, happy at her boarding school and close to her grandparents, a family support system Charles had not benefitted from which made the late nights and school holidays much easier. Munroe could not see himself disturbing her life at all, let alone turning it on its head like Charles had done with Elizabeth, not just for the sake of his career in politics. And yet, Charles and his rich friends were starting what could be described as a revolution and if they succeeded things were going to change. If Munroe believed that his decision was not just about his career. It was about everyone's future, and everyone included Claire. He might be doing her a favour by getting her involved at the very beginning of things, and at the top of the social scale, making sure that she ended up on the winning side, as it were. Because there were always winners and losers. Charles Buckingham believed that they were doing the right thing for the right reasons, and he had backed his own judgement with his daughter's life.