‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands – CLAP! CLAP! If you’re happy and you know it’ … and so on until your hands are red raw from clapping so much just to prove to David Cameron that your happiness levels are indeed high despite the slashing of our public services. Yes the prime minister is interested in setting up a happiness index for the UK – a statistical device that will tell us how happy we all are in this country.

I was quite flabbergasted when I first read of the story yesterday but after reading a little further I found that other leaders around the world are doing the same thing. France, for example, is already drawing up a survey and their leader Sarkozy wants to know, among other things, the ratio of time the French spend between work and leisure activities (understandable, I’m sure you’ll agree) but also how much time they spend in traffic jams. The Canadians are also doing this kind of thing and some American leaders down the years have suggested that there is more to wellbeing than financial success. Wise words indeed.

But here’s the issue that needs contending with as a Christian – how much are we to depend on the state to make us happy, or to use another word, flourish? There’s a lot of interest these days in what makes life flourish for us. A whole book industry on popular psychology has sprung up since the mid 20th century as people realise that there’s something missing from their lives. These days life coaches are a phenomenon that is growing rapidly – all intending to give us that additional pep that makes life good. And now the state wants to get in on the act too.

I’m reminded a little of that great Roman Emperor, Augustus, who believed that he was the one who could bring peace and wellbeing to the life of the empire. Under such ideas the state and its head became an idol to be worshipped and a god to be depended upon. But in the same period Jesus was born with his message that the only way true wellbeing could come to creation was through his living, dying, and living again. The great idol that was imperial power was challenged by a Kingdom that offered not to spread a little happiness, but transformation and restoration.

Maybe I’m being a little bit overdramatic in suggesting that, once again, the state is setting itself up as the one we can depend upon but I want to delve deeper into this whole issue of ‘state as idol’ – so more to come.

In the meantime, all together … ‘I’m H.A.P.P.Y, I’m H.A.P.P.Y …’