Facing up to the challenges of crisis

Christianity is a faith designed for times of crisis. By that I don’t mean that it should only be observed and practised when the going gets tough but that it is uniquely placed to get human beings through their hardest times.

More of that later in this column: the important thing is that the Chinese government seems to be learning something it has never learned before. One financial commentator said this week: “Regardless of what the Chinese government and the PBoC (People’s Bank of China) might be saying and doing, they are currently learning a lesson that many have learned before them, namely you can only fight against market forces for so long before you end up losing.”

The idea that a government can micro-manage an economy and its financial environment (and in the case of China its own population) is found to be risible by virtually all economists, or is it? As an aside, apparently, Jeremy Corbyn’s team has been able to find some 40 economists who think that state planning, ownership of the means of production and distribution is still credible. The failure of every socialist economy is testimony to the fact that man isn’t, and never has been, a master of all the forces that assail him.

And we have found out the hard way in virtually every chaotic system that the universe throws at us that statisticians, futurologists, forecasters, planners, regulators and politicians, no matter how wise, can never predict and plan for the future. There will always be some surprise. We will never ultimately be in control.

I was listening to John Humphrys on the Today Programme lambast the head of the British Air Display Association, John Turner, for refusing to specify changes that should be made to plane displays and stunts following the tragic accident at the Shoreham Air Show.

Instead, he reasonably and calmly pointed out that an investigation needed to take place and then decisions would be taken about whether there needed to be changes. Humphrys’ approach plays to the delusion that tragedies can be instantly prevented, controlled and mitigated even when forces beyond human control – like gravity, error, and ‘acts of God’ are at stake.

Though the instinct is to regulate and plan so that accidents are less frequent, there are always costs. Health and safety officers often complain that the unintended consequence of their work is that public officials then start banning all activities that present a risk, rather than taking proper steps to reduce risk.

At any rate the Christian faith guards against human pride and hubris because the church teaches that we are not ultimately in control of anything at all. In fact, on the basis of our own merit we are undeserving, wretched creatures. So we learn to understand, as Christians, that there are forces beyond our control and that the best we can do is hope and pray and help each other to endure in the face of the storms and crises which often beset us, trusting only in God who is ultimately in control of all the visible and invisible forces of his creation.