OUR ten core ‘benchmarks’ for moving towards a better society, and working/voting for a genuinely common good, were first enunciated in 2015.
They were consciously designed to be sharable by people of goodwill from different faith traditions, and among those of non-religious convictions, too.
• A commitment to favouring the poorest and most marginalised in all decision-making
• Actively redressing and reversing social and economic injustices and inequalities
• Welcoming the stranger and valuing displaced and marginalised people
• Seeing people, their dignity and rights, as the solution not the problem
• Moving from punitive ‘welfare’ to a socially secure society where all fare well
• Promoting and prioritising community and neighbourhood empowerment
• Food, education, health, housing, public transport, work, creativity and a sustainable citizen’s income for all
• Care for the planet and wellbeing as the non-negotiable basis for human and economic development
• Investing in nonviolent alternatives to war and force as the basis for security
• Transparency, honesty, representation, participation and accountability in public institutions
Underpinning these, in the political realm, is a commitment to subsidiarity, popular sovereignty, proportional representation, and participatory/deliberative democracy as ethical imperatives.
Ekklesia’s approach is also rooted in virtue ethics. This involves a focus on exploring what ‘the good’ means in tangible rather than abstract terms; a refusal to separate means and ends; attention to how we need to be re-shaped as people and communities to help realise a good society (character formation); and nurturing the particular habits and practices required to direct interpersonal and political life towards love as well as justice: things like nonviolence, forgiveness, sharing, creativity, solidarity, resistance, restoring and repairing.
It should go without saying that corporate capitalism, institutional racism, classism, sexism, ableism and all forms of supremacism, hatred or discrimination are inimical to our principles and values.
Our latest FAQs will follow shortly.
(The previous ones can be viewed here.)
Similarly, we will be adding a new Values statement in the near future.
(The previous one, from 2007, can be viewed here.)