When God stood face to face with Moses on Mount Sinai, he described himself as a God of mercy and grace, slow to anger and abounding with kindness and truth. Kindness and truth, not kindness or truth. Pope Francis said that we are not living through an era of change but through a change of era. His words were prophetic, and we are living through a volatile moment in that transformation. The balance we strike between kindness and truth will define our engagement with it.
Before I begin to describe the era that is forming now, which I call the “Era of Restoration”, it is necessary to describe what it is replacing. It was a period of historical time that was mercilessly initiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and immaculately consummated by Tony Blair in 1997, and I call it the “Era of Progressive Globalisation”. It has been the common sense for forty years, and its assumptions still dominate our economy and government.
