I wish I could claim to understand something of international politics but I can't. There are a few striking features of the UK's vote to part ways with the EU though. The first is what a hair's breadth of a margin the leave voters won by: 51.9% to 48.1%. The second is that Scotland's "32 council areas" unanimously voted to remain. The third is that politics is our new idol.

A Hair's Breadth Majority

Democracy clearly has problems - you give the decision about how a country should be run to a population that doesn't understand much about anything needed to run a country. To be honest, that's why the ANC is still in power in South Africa, it's why Donald Trump is the republican nominee in the USA and, as far as I can tell, it's the reason for Brexit. Don't get me wrong, democracy is not all bad but it's interesting to see that such a small majority alters the course of a nation with a decision that will, no doubt, have lasting significance beyond the UK.

What's interesting to me about this is that my generation likes to doubt its parents. The heroes in our stories are people whose parents didn't understand/appreciate them but who triumph with their unconventional wisdom which their parents come to see is not so bad after all. Well, it turns out that we are adolescents when it comes to politics because the 67% majority that supported the UK's membership in the EU in 1973 - in our parents generation - was wrong.

The same thing happens in our churches and in theology. In church life, it's one of the reasons (thankfully not the only one) church planting is popular among younger pastors: our parents churches all have deep rooted systemic problems. The only solution is to start from scratch with our new ideas and then we'll have the perfect church. In theological circles everyone is flocking to narrative analysis of texts because whatever our parents were doing clearly didn't get us anywhere in terms of understanding the Bible. Whether its the rejection of our parents' taste in music or the switch to lectio divina style devotions, one thing is clear our parents didn't have a clue.

This makes me wonder what our successors will be saying 50 years from now because it seems to me we aren't paying very much attention to what anyone before us did right. Hopefully those who follow us will be more generous.

So What About Scotland

Recently Scotland was on the receiving end of a lot pressure to stay a part of the UK (which I think was a good thing anyway). Ironically Scotland's say when it came to the EU was swallowed up by its big brother. So, in spite of the fact that "A majority of voters in all 32 council areas in Scotland voted Remain," (source) Scotland will need to leave the UK to make that happen. I am reminded that this generation that is so preoccupied with minority voices is also really only interested in those little voices if it is not affected by them.

We are pretty good about listening to minority voices when we have no vested interest in their concerns. When we have competing interests, however, it's harder to hide how self-serving we really are beneath our normal veneer of social concern.

As Christians I think we need a bit more cross and a bit less comfort in our idea about what our lives are about - and I'll be the first to admit I'm a comfort idolater.

There's a New God in Town

Apparently this generation is excited about political engagement. It seems as though politics is where stuff is going wrong. It also seems as though if we were more involved we could fix it and make the world a better place. A few decades ago people were thinking the same thing about science (and then we made an atomic bomb and blew up a couple of cities which remain uninhabitable). Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, our salvation is not going to come from politics - Americans are learning that the hard way as Christians who have dominated the political arena for a long time are forced to realise that the Christian face in politics is a farce.

"Stay" or "Remain," neither one will fulfil what it promises and even if it did you would find that what it promised was not what you wanted or needed. Just as well the gospel doesn't offer us whatever the popular vote decides we need - instead we are offered things that seem like the opposite of what we need: instead of democracy we are told that Jesus is lord and we have no rights. Instead of comfort we are offered a cross. Like practised adolescents though, we know better than God and so it will take a miracle for us to lay down our demands for freedom and rights and comfort. It's fortunate that miracles are not foreign to the One who is still calling us, "Come, follow me."