BBC Radio 4 2015-11-18

Good morning.

I have found myself just recently feeling a sentiment towards politicians which I have to admit is not necessarily my everyday attitude – I have been feeling sorry for them. The world is never exactly an easy place, but this last weekend seemed to demonstrate all too clearly that our politicians face a veritable witches’ brew of issues: the war in Syria, the refugee crisis, global warming, and the threat from terrorism. To solve any one of these problems, taken on its own, would be a triumph. But when one takes account of the subtle interconnections between the problems and thus the need to address them almost simultaneously, the task seems daunting beyond belief. Many of us, I imagine, worry about work problems in the evenings or over weekends – but the present state of the world is really an awful lot to take home with you.

If fame, rightly or more probably wrongly, is judged one of the rewards of a political career, Pontius Pilate did well for himself. He gets named day in, day out, from one side of the globe to another, as Christians recite the creed. But what to make of him? It was Francis Bacon, in the opening line of his essay ‘Of Truth’, who characterised him as ‘jesting Pilate’, who asked ‘what is truth? . . . and would not stay for an answer.’ And yet Pilate, it seems to me, is not necessarily easy to read. ‘What is truth?’ – or ‘what is the truth’ in one modern translation - could be the dismissive remark of a worldly and jaded political operator, with no time for high flown notions and ideals; but it could also be heard as the despairing cry of someone who, amidst competing claims for and against this or that course of action, finds himself unable to see the way ahead. And John’s Gospel tells us later that Pilate was ‘afraid’ – which makes him seem not so much blasé, as troubled and uncertain.

When democracies put politicians on parade before elections, the politicians are often declared to have or to lack qualities of leadership – and these qualities seem to be associated in popular punditry with a certain bold decisiveness. Pilate probably wouldn’t do well in such a beauty parade, and he is certainly no hero. But any politician who is not, at least some of the time, somewhat unsure, even to the point of feeling almost overwhelmed, has not grasped the difficulty and dreadful responsibility of discerning the right course of action in an uncertain and troubled - or fallen – world. Christians have, of course, made a point, of praying for rulers and politicians as a matter of course. This was not, as the cynical might suppose, an opportunity for obsequious fawning on those who wield power but rather of feeling some concern for them – or to put it more carefully, praying for all rulers and politicians at all times, acknowledges the terrible burden of accountability which conscientious or reflective rulers must surely feel weighing heavy on their shoulders.