Counter Ideology

Did you know that the British Government has a ‘Counter Ideology Team’? Until last week neither did I, until I spent a fascinating half day working with them as part of my ‘professional’ job as a consultant advising the Foreign Office on change management.

The Counter Ideology Team’s objective is to “challenge the violent extremist narrative and support the voice of the majority”. Their focus is on British Muslims, and they fund a variety of initiatives to ensure that moderate voices get heard and militants become marginalised.

The very existence of this team raises a whole load of fascinating questions about the likelihood of their success and the implications of their methods. I was still thinking about this when I came across a brilliant quote in Brian McLaren’s thought provoking book on faith and politics “Everything Must Change: Jesus, global crises, and a revolution of hope.” Get this:

“When groups of seemingly disparate people defect and band together in the way of Jesus, they form what we might call unterror cells. They secretly plot detonations of hope. They quietly conspire to set off explosions of spontaneous kindness. They plan gentle coup d’états to replace regimes of domination and oppression with movements of empowerment and service. In a complete overthrow of violent terrorism, they fly airplanes of generosity into towers of need and plant improvised encouragement devices by roadsides in neighbourhoods everywhere, seeking God’s kingdom and God’s equity.”

The answer to radical evil is not moderate anything, but radical good. I dream of a movement whose passionate commitment to the cause of Christ leads them acts of kindness more extreme and audacious than anything the kingdom of darkness can muster. And when the Counter Ideology Team come after me and accuse me of ‘radicalising young people’, I want the charges to stick.