Sermon preached at Grosvenor Chapel, Trinity 8 14th August, 2011.

“Soon the whole city was in uproar” Acts 19.29

“White riot - I want a riot - a riot of my own” The Clash, 1977.

Mobs, violence, riots should not be unfamiliar to anyone with a knowledge of biblical texts or Church history. “Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control” from Exodus 36. Jeremiah is plagued by the sons of Anathoth (Jeremiah 11). The Gospel account has the crowd shout ‘Crucify him, crucify him!’ and, wanting to satisfy the crowd Pilate released Barabbas and handed Jesus over to be crucified Mark 15.15). And not only in Ephesus, but also in Jerusalem ‘The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions.’ (Acts 21.30).

Riots were part and parcel of the political life of Republican Rome. In the Churchly story Athanasius and Arius fought their theological battle using the mob; the Alexandrine mob became famous for its fury, bailing up Caesar and his troops, while Cyril of Alexandria destroyed the last relics of pagan culture and had Hypatia torn to pieces by the mob 400 years later.

Desmoulins, Danton, and Robespierre managed the riots in the Paris of 1788, only to be themselves finally devoured in the terror. The Boston Tea Party riot of 1773 is even today resurrected as a symbol of revolt against taxes. London has had its experience of riots, the Gordon riots of 1780, the Luddite mobs of 1814/1816, Bristol 1831, a Bloody Sunday in 1905, and the 1958 Notting Hill riots, often beginning as demonstrations of one sort and another. There have even been classical music riots and the Opera House riot of 1830 in Brussels led to the formation of Belgium and the 1839 Treaty of London settling King Leopold on a throne.

Indeed, I remember being in the midst of what might have been a riot in 1969, when thousands marched in Washington DC over the Chicago Seven, and marshals managed the huge crowd near the Justice building chanting, “walk don’t run” as the police, lights churning the night sky, began a tear gas assault, one errant officer planting a canister at the feet of Attorney General Mitchell.

But one was very conscious of political reasons, social concerns and real grievances at that time.

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There seem to me to have been two very different riots taking place last week. First there was the undifferentiated rage of young people expressed not only in Tottenham, but later, in Clapham, Ealing, and then later still in Manchester, Leicester, Nottingham and Birmingham. The cause of which is yet to be fully understood. The violence repulsive.

Uncoordinated we are told, managed by cell phones, yet undisciplined hooliganism and brutal assaults on property. Worse still, the killing of people. The politicians mantra of ‘criminal’ is repeated, but surely there is a need for a more thoughtful analysis of what is going on.

For the second riot is a metaphorical one. It seems to me to have been exhibited in the panic behaviour of the stock markets, especially in Asia, when millions, if not billions of pounds in value fell from the stock markets and the world’s economic woes took a turn for the worse. This riot may have graver consequences for the global economy and our own way of life than the first one.

So Keynes’s animal spirits have been let loose and like ravening lions roaring on our streets (Psalms 22, 104), the economic rioters crying “sell, sell, sell” to manufacture the panic of the market place. The consequences of that abrupt behaviour not fully considered nor balanced.

And is there not an irony, in this summer after the Arab ‘spring’, that having sung the praises of those who rioted in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya we now face the grimness of inexplicable rage on our doorstep?

Philip Bobbitt’s massive study of War, Peace and the Course of History, called The Shield of Achilles, was published in 2001. Its dedication is interesting: ‘To those by whose love God’s grace was first made known to me and to those whose loving kindness has ever since sustained me in His care.’ Bobbitt foresaw an ever growing number of disagreeable dystopias. The book appeared shortly after 9/11, but it seems to prophesy just that sort of climactic moment.

It shares with Spengler’s Decline of the West, something of the doom scenario. Its essential argument is that the reign of the nation state is coming to an end, and that what appears in its place is what he called ‘the market state’. Put crudely, perhaps Reagan and Thatcher represent the last leaders of the nation state and Blair and George W Bush herald the market state. But ten years later on, with the near collapse of the global market, his prophecies seem already fulfilled.

He predicted the end of the twentieth century welfare state and a fresh situation where people sought merely to maximise their opportunities in the market state - perhaps a ‘smash and grab’ economy.

So here animal spirit’s are abroad and society becomes “subject to waves of disruption as it contains pockets of unobserved and unrelieved grimness” - an apt description of our present condition?

Another significant futurologist is Francis Fukuyama, whose first volume of a promised two volume study, The Origins of Political Order has just been published.

He begins reflecting on the tribal conflicts of Melanesian culture in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. There, particularly human strife, petty warring and fierce local combat mark the Hobbesean violent state of affairs where the life of man is famously ‘solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short’ (page 27). He goes on to explore how humankind evolves from primitive society into some sense of political order, however frail that may be.

Fukuyama sees three ingredients in the post modern condition of politics - the state - the rule of law - and accountable government. With the breakdown of law and order, as we have seen on our streets this past week, the survival of the other two elements surely becomes a moot question.

Thus we need to face some grave questions about what we are experiencing and seeing, whether these are what might be called pre-apocalyptic moments in a post- modern culture far more significant than at first meets the eye, either of the politician or the journalist.

Or is it the manifestation of that the state of affairs Hobbes described. Surely that is too bleak.

For isn’t there always room for optimism and hope, which is wonderfully our strength and joy as Christian believers and worshippers.

And those who shouldered brooms in Clapham to sweep up the debris in the streets somehow witness to that hope. Surely these are the victors who give us confidence in the simple common sense of the people.

Or, as Bobbit said in his dedication, give us reason to give thanks for the loving kindness of those whose practical action is an inspiration in our own search to know and understand better what the issues may be, in the trap of our own bewilderment and timidity.

Rex Davis ©

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