JENNY SINCLAIR
‘Collaborate across the things which divide us’

The short answer is: by forming relationships with people who have different life experiences and whom we may not agree with. This is not easy, and goes against the way we’re often encouraged to think and act. But it’s when we collaborate across the things which divide us that we begin to build the common good.

And I do mean build. ‘Promoting’ or ‘seeking’ the common good makes it sound like it’s a sort of ‘utopian ideal’ or something to be imposed by one ‘enlightened’ group upon another. In fact, it’s the opposite – something we create together. And when we do this, we begin to transform our neighbourhoods and the lives of every person in them. The common good, properly understood, has the potential to make our communities, workplaces, institutions, not least our churches, places where everybody is valued and affirmed.

We seem to be losing a sense of our common life. Many voices today want to divide us –whether by class, ethnicity, religion, identity or whatever – rather than bring us together. As churches and Christians we have enormous potential to meet this challenge. We are people from all walks of life, all sectors of society. Our currency is love, hope, human dignity, family, interdependence. Can we help foster a culture of encounter where people with different experiences meet? Can we find the courage to ‘stay in the room’, keep the dialogue going, recognising the humanity in everyone, affirming the legitimacy of what they have to say? …

Jenny Sinclair is the founder of Together for the Common Good, a movement aiming to ‘bring alive the principle of the common good and to encourage people to work together across their differences’

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LUKE BRETHERTON
‘A community of faith in a community of fate’

Seeking the common good means navigating between being a member of the Church as a community of faith and recognising that we are all members of a shared community of fate. What do I mean by that?

In your street or neighbourhood you do not choose who you live next door to. Rather, you find yourself living in close proximity with a bunch of people whom you may be very different from. They may speak a different language, have different eating habits or look at the world very differently to you. But whether you like it or not, you share the same fate as them. If the mains bursts, all your houses will get flooded. If the electricity is cut off, you all lose power. If taxes rise, you all pay more. If the economy goes bottom up, you all suffer.

The same can be said of our places of work, the schools our children attend and the country as a whole. You don’t have to like those around you but in their welfare your own welfare is bound up.

As Jeremiah 29 says: ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.’ Good citizenship of the community where you live involves asking what you have in common with others – good schools, clean and safer streets, nice parks, a wage that you can support a family on – we have an interest in these things, as do others in our community of fate, be they Muslims, Sikhs, or secularists. …

Luke Bretherton is Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University, North Carolina