Equality, Diversity and Spirituality

Equality is one of the great buzz words of our time. No inequalities must be allowed, whether of gender, sexuality or ethnicity: no distinction of creed, colour or class, no ageism or isms of any other kind.

Yet we are manifestly not equal by any measurable objective standard. Some of us are tall and athletic, others sadly less so. Some of us are great musicians, others cloth-eared. Some are fabulous with figures and awesome with admin – regrettably I'm not one of those! Some are creative, some are practical, some are charismatic high-fliers, some are plodders who get there in the end. Some who are ferociously intelligent academically may be really dense emotionally…

The fact is that on a secular, materialistic worldview we just can't be equal. A very few of us are Albert Einsteins or Usain Bolts or Nelson Mandelas, and how wonderful for the human race that we can produce such extraordinary people. But the rest of us, in the slow lane – in what verifiable sense are we their equal?

 In fact we can only have genuine equality by abandoning secular materialism. If we are measured by the outward things which are the only things secularism can judge us by, our physical and mental talents, equality is obviously an impossibility. It is a massive self-deception to believe in equality if we are going to hang on to the materialist world view that denies it.

Our longing that all humans should be equal therefore directs us to a different world view. It is because we are equally beloved of God that we are equal. The God who created us and who in Christ laid down His life for us all is the bedrock for human equality. However strong, talented, rich, beautiful or charming we are, God will never love us more than He loves our neighbour who has  none of these things; and however poor, broken, sad or boring their lives may be, He will never love them less. God has already loved both them and us to the uttermost.

And the great thing about our spiritual understanding of equality is that it makes room for diversity as well. So often societies of both left and right have sought equality through the suppression of difference: "don't let anyone stand out, they might become a threat! Stick 'em all in uniform and make them all the same!"

A classic example of this is the recent BBC documentary No More Boys and Girls. It's true that stereotyping is no fun at all for those being stereotyped. It may seriously limit their potential. However the response of the programme displays a deplorable poverty in our understanding of equality. We can only be equal if we are all the same. So we are asked to suppress diversity in the name of equality - no more boys and girls.

But how we dare we say that people who are not the same as us are not our equals? Beneath this attitude lurks the very opposite assumption, that is, the inequality of all people who are not the same as one another. How weird that in trying to make us all the same, secularism actually undermines our equality. And the suppression of difference is too high a price – it is our variety that enables our creativity.

So instead of turning to sameness we must accept difference on the grounds that all, however diverse, are equally valued. Once again we find ourselves directed to the world of values and away from the poverty of the materialist view. People are valuable because God loves us and identifies with us. And if God loves us with all our differences, it doesn't matter that I'm not Stephen Hawking or George Clooney. God loves me as I am, and He is working out His own plans for the things that make me uniquely me.

So Hooray for equality! Hooray for diversity! and Hooray for the spirituality that is the only ground in which either can flourish for long.

Tim Farron has been hounded out of office basically because he is a Christian. What kind of liberal and democratic society are we? For shame!

Please see below for the text of my letter published in the Times on Tuesday 27 December 2016. Basically it's a response to Matthew Parris's Comment column in which he says that he likes the Christian story and acknowledges it has brought huge benefits to the human race but pity it's a load of cobblers. The Times decided to publish this on Christmas Eve - great timing there.

Anyway I decided I couldn't let it pass and wrote the following:

Sir, I suppose I should thank Matthew Parris for being kind to us woolly-minded Christians and our sweet story (Comment, 24 December). However it really does matter whether that story is true or not. The manger at Bethlehem marks the dividing line between two radically opposed visions of humanity. In one, we are objects of and vehicles for the divine love. We are all therefore of infinite value, glorious destiny and enormous potential. In the other, we are no more than other animals, here by accident in a random universe in which it is pointless to seek the meaning of our own lives or of anything else. However compromised it has become over the centuries, it was the first vision that gave us the Renaissance and inspired most of our great thinkers, artists, writers and humanitarians. Our abandonment of it is likely to lead to a new dark ages.

Hope you enjoyed that. Someone wrote to the Times later to say that I am wrong about the Renaissance because it really came from Greek sources which were re-discovered through contact with the Islamic world. However this simplistic secularising view covers the "how" of the Renaissance but not the "why". It overlooks the influence of Christian scholars like Erasmus, the personal faith of leading lights such as Michelangelo and Raphael, and above all the massive degree to which the whole thing was sponsored by the Church. Why did the new learning lead to a cultural transformation in the West and not in Islam? Because the West was ready to receive it. The Christian view that we are made in God's image and are objects of His love is what inspired humanism - it's actually part of our Christian heritage and a great shame that secularists have stolen the word. The vision they have brought to us, as I argue in my letter, actually degrades the value of human beings and is not worthy of the term humanist.

Michelangelo's David

I am so incensed by the Home Office's refusal to let three Christian clergy from Iraq visit this country that I have written to the Home Secretary to complain. They had been invited to attend the opening of an Orthodox cathedral in London. Prince Charles was expecting them! Here's what I put in my letter:

Dear Home Secretary

Iraqi Archbishops refused visas to visit the UK

I am deeply offended that the Home Office recently refused visas to three archbishops from Iraq who had been invited to visit the UK. At a time when Christianity is being systematically eliminated from the Middle East this action can only be taken as a rejection of those who desperately need our support. As a fellow Christian I feel ashamed of the negative treatment the UK has meted out to my persecuted brothers.

Please can the Home Office review its decision, issue an apology to the archbishops and invite them to come and tell their story in this country. Or is it the Government's aim to suppress the news of what is being done to Christians in the Middle East?

Yours faithfully etc

Do you agree with me? The why don't you tell the Government what you think?

Bigger than the EU?

My two little congregations include loved and valued members from lots of back-grounds: Brazilian, Fijian, Finnish, German, Italian, Nigerian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, South African and Zimbabwean. I hope I haven't missed anyone out – and yes, Brits are welcome too! That's not bad two small to medium villages. It's like a foretaste of Heaven, which the Bible describes as containing "a vast multitude, drawn from every tribe and language and people and nation."

So we belong to something that's much bigger than England, Britain, the EU or for that matter any nation or empire that's ever been. They are things but of a moment whereas the Church stretches back two thousand years and forwards for all eternity. That is why Christians cannot take a narrowly nationalistic view of life: our citizenship is in heaven and extends to all who follow Christ – currently some two and a half billion people.

There are many valid reasons why people might be unhappy with the EU as an institution: lack of accountability, too much bureaucracy, trade barriers against the Third World and the like. But one reason that can never be acceptable is fear and hatred of those who are different from us. Fear and hatred are simply not worthy of our glorious Lord and Saviour, who calls us all to belong to His great family and makes us one in His Spirit. Let us therefore continue to love one another, welcome the stranger and take our stand for the Gospel of Mercy and the King of Love.

Go to Church and live longer?

Research published last month found that regular churchgoers were 33 per less likely to die during the 16 year study period than those who never attended. Frequent attenders also showed significantly lower risk of cancer (21% improvement) and cardiovascular disease (27% improvement). Even those who only go sporadically had improved survival rates compared to those who never do. Even when issues like smoking were factored out the improvements remained the same across the board. More details on for example www.cnn.com/2016/05/16/health/religion-lifespan-health

The study followed the lives of 74,534 American nurses, all women. So what of men? Well there are other studies out there which show that the effect is less marked, but still significant for men. But all these studies seem to be American. I googled churchgoers live longer research and couldn't find a single British study on the net. I wonder why our epidemiologists don't think it's worth investigating…

What about reasons why this should be so? Here's some possibilities:
o being part of a supportive community?
o taking part in communal singing (which has independently been shown to reduce stress and boost health)?
o clean living – less drugs, tobacco and alcohol?
o believing that your life has value and purpose?
o finding peace of mind?
o trusting that you  are loved – by God and others?

What do you think?

Reasons for believing (3)

I believe in God because Jesus is His Son

I am convinced that the character of Jesus is not fictional. There is no-one anywhere in literature who even begins to compare with him.

It is very difficult even for a Shakespeare or a Tolstoy to create a good character who is not bland. This is because we find it hard to conceive of goodness except as an absence of character flaws – but these same flaws are what make people interesting to us and enable us to identify with them. But Jesus is someone who is good all the way through, and yet the most disturbing, commanding, inspiring and magnetic person in all human writing. Bland? Jesus?

One very unusual feature of Jesus' character is the way he unites in himself traits that to us seem opposites. What I mean is this. A visionary person may not always be the most practical, down to earth person you could meet, whereas that same hands-on person may be contemptuous of those whose heads are in the clouds. A man on a mission may find it hard to be a people-centred person, whereas a compassionate and understanding person will find it too challenging to push on with their goals in the face of opposition from others. A highly charismatic leader will find it difficult to get down to the level of washing others' feet, but a meek and humble person is unlikely even to aspire to leadership. And holy and righteous people are not often prone to seeking out the company of sinners.

So how does Jesus manage to unite in himself what seem to us such opposites? We all have the weaknesses that go with our strengths, so much so that they may seem to be their necessary counterparts. So if gentleness is our strength, firmness is our weakness. If words are our strength, silence is our weakness. If tasks are our strength, people are our weakness. Yet somehow Jesus seems to combine them in one complete and coherent personality, to have just the strengths without their downsides. It is as if he is humanity as we were meant to be, all that is best about us fused into one majestic whole. I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he referred to himself as the Son of Man? Is he someone who represents everything that we could be, if only we could achieve our full potential?

 But I want to go beyond even this. Is he more than a very special and unusual person? to argue that I believe in God because Jesus is His Son is to assert that at least some things that are unique about God are also true of Jesus. I don't mean immortality, because he died, or omnipresence, because he lived at one time and in one place, or omnipotence or omniscience – all these he surrendered when he embraced our humanity.

I certainly mean the holiness of God. Jesus has a very powerful kind of holiness which does not consist of cutting himself off from the world, the flesh and the devil. Instead he is there for tax collectors, prostitutes, people in meltdown, sinners and lepers, not shunning their uncleanness to avoid being contaminated but, by embracing those enslaved to it, making them clean.

I also mean the freedom of God. Jesus has this tremendous ability to be himself and to fulfil his mission no matter what pressures are put upon him. For example he's on his way to rescue the daughter of a pillar of the local community when a woman in the huge crowd that has gathered touches him. Instantly he focuses on that one person who has reached out to him – as though the crowd and the synagogue rulers and the desperate situation and even his own disciples pressurising him to keep going are simply not there. Finally he discovers her: and it as if he has all the time in the world for her healing and affirmation. At last he reaches the house of the dying girl only to find the funeral has already started. He kicks everyone out – can you even imagine what it takes to disrupt a funeral like this? Then having restored the little girl to life he calmly tells the completely mind-boggled family to give her something to eat! It really isn't the miracle that is so astonishing here, it's the absolute freedom of Jesus to be himself. The bare-faced cheek of him! Well, all right, the miracle is a bit astonishing too...

But above all when I assert that Jesus uniquely displays characteristics of God in human form I mean the love of God. The key insight of Christian spirituality is God is Love. It is doubtful if this insight could have come about without Jesus, as a reflection on what his life says about who God is. But it carries a huge weight with it. If "I believe in God because Jesus is His Son," then Jesus has to be nothing less than God incarnate: and God incarnate in Christian talk means Love incarnate. Can Jesus' life and character stand up to this scrutiny?

To do this we have to re-set our parameters for what "love" means. Most of us would like God to offer us grandad love – giving us whatever we want on demand, turning a blind eye to all our foibles, making sure everybody gets to heaven (except for those who obviously deserve to burn, like Nazis and paedophiles). I think we all know that this sort of love, this sort of God, isn't good enough. In the spoiled West we give him a job description – to make sure nothing bad ever happens to anyone – and by and large we've sacked him for sleeping on the job. If he is so cuddly he's not going to mind anyway when we reject him, is he? So he will get us to paradise however rude we are to him – won't he?

But what if the Divine Love is not like that at all? What if our image of God is in fact an idol, a projection of our own consumerist desires? Surely anyone who is grown up, who has actually tried to love another human being, or has looked for more than a few minutes at the world around them, knows that grandad god is pure fantasy.

What Jesus gives us instead is the Cross. This is love so fierce it will dare any suffering, so powerful it will overcome every obstacle, so broad that it embraces everyone without exception, so uncompromising that it demands everything. Here at last is love that is worthy to be linked to the name of God – deeper, wilder, purer and more passionate than anything we could imagine. Again and again we see this love in the Gospel stories of Jesus: overwhelmed with compassion at the needs of outcasts, deeply angry with our hardness of heart that cast them out in the first place, demanding that we leave everything to follow him, shouting with joy over the tears of the Prodigal. Here is the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of God in a form that lives a human life with us. I believe in God because I believe that Jesus is his Son.

But Colin! We expected a proper argument here, with facts! This is subjective, it's opinion, it's literary! Where is your hard evidence?

Well actually there is plenty of evidence to look at, but that needs a new post, of a different character to this one. I hope to get on to it soon – watch this space. All I really want you to do as I round this post off is to read about Jesus for yourself. Try Mark. It's the shortest Gospel, you could do it in not much more than an hour.

And as you read, ask yourself a few questions:

·                What kind of person is Jesus?

·                Is there anyone else in history like him?

·                Is there anyone in fiction like him?

·                How can he be so like us, yet so different from us?

·                Is this what love incarnate looks like?

Who is this man?

But be warned. If your answer to that last question is yes, there are implications. Divine Love means eternal love. Jesus is still around. He's real. He will want to be part of your life, and that won't happen without you being changed by him. In the end, I believe that Jesus is God's Son because he came into my life and changed it utterly.