The qualities of the faithful

At a recent christian fair trade conference, Labour MP and government minister Stephen Timms made the following comment:

There is positive impact when people of faith are involved in the lives of their community, because these people bring valuable qualities in their service which are rare elsewhere and they are qualities modern Britain urgently needs.

It’s not reported by Ekklesia as to what Timms thinks are these valuable qualities actually are, nor if indeed these qualities are actually valuable, but from reading some of his speeches from his web site, he seems to think that simply having “faith” is enough of a virtue in itself.

Inexplicably, I’m not convinced. Like all socially progressive activities claimed exclusively by the religious, there’s no reason why these things can’t be both motivated and achieved without resorting to superstition.

I’ve never heard of Timms before, but apparently he’s the Labour Party’s “vice-chair with special responsibility for faith communities”, whatever that is.

On his web site, Timms writes on christian socialism:

It is clear from the Bible that Jesus was not only a man who empathised with people’s problems, but was a man who took action to change them. It is my hope for this generation that people who are committed to following the lifestyle of Jesus will seek to engage in politics and with the political authorities, as Jesus himself regularly did.

From my own reading of that same book, I remember an episode whereby the Jesus character also told people that they should sell all of their belongings and give the proceeds to the poor. I wonder if Timms is willing to go that extra mile for his biblical convictions, seeing as he’s so adamant that it’s the basis for social responsibility.

Somehow, I think not.

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