I’m striking for the first time tomorrow. It isn’t something that I’m happy to do. I’d actually prefer to be at work and earn that day’s wage.
I really feel driven to strike by the UK Government’s mistreatment of public sector workers. I believe that I have a responsibility to myself and the rest of the public sector to stand up and be counted. I will not be a nameless drone. I want the Chancellor to notice our collective dissatisfaction.
Now, you are probably fairly likely to agree with my attitude on this – if not my specific interpretation. My main way of publicising my under-achieving blog is through Facebook and Twitter, where most of my friends or followers are likely to hold similar political points of view to me – with a few, happy exceptions. You might disagree in part or in total (in which case, please accept my apology and celebrate with me as I retract my huge assumptions about my ‘readership’), but I doubt you’ll tell me so (please do tell me through comments – you have no idea how happy it makes me). But whatever the readers of this post think, there are whole swathes of people who would detest the very notion of the second paragraph of this post and that really interests me.
I have an irritating trait of always staying passive and non-confrontational, so the act of striking seems slightly foreign to me. There are people who disagree with me and my act of striking is essentially designed to heighten the confrontation. This is not normal behaviour. But I believe that it is healthy.
One bloke who used to be my youth worker, but is now a ‘Pioneer Curate’ at Rochester Cathedral (basically, he’s a special sort of vicar) taught me a bit about this idea of engaging with debate – probably without knowing he was doing so. I guess I’d wrapped my passivity and neutrality up with my faith. But I saw Rob engaging with debate, being a passionate member of a political party and arguing vibrantly through social media about serious issues. I guess I registered the fact that faith – and perhaps especially Christianity – has to engage with debate.
Belief itself is obviously a huge area of contention at the moment. The big Atheist/Theist debate is a famous one right now – despite the fact that there seems to be very little actual debate. Instead, what actually seems to be happening is that there are several people (largely middle-aged men) shouting (often in a very childish way) about how wrong everybody else is.
There are some places where people are trying to grow debate on this issue. In a series of articles on the Guardian website, Julian Baggini has proposed some articles of 21st-century faith to create some common ground to begin with. Unfortunately, as Jonathan Chaplin points out, Baggini’s idea of common ground is not particularly common to all sides of the debate. (Note that the comments on these articles tend to be pretty aggressive and wide of the mark – I would recommend staying ‘above the line’.)
I have been convinced for many years that questions about whether any god exists will not be answered through debate. Sure, some people might be convinced either way – though rarely through debate alone – but I think the wider argument will be ongoing until that inevitable point where each of us finds out first hand the answer to the question ‘What happens after death?’
In the light of that (I know this might sound strange from a Christian), while I believe that the question of whether God exists is the question upon which the whole of life rests, I think there are more fruitful disagreements to offer my interest to. There are arguments about justice issues in the Church a the moment that seem very pressing to me.
The debate about sexuality and sexual orientation in the Church is obviously one that is imperative. I do find this debate difficult, partly because of some of the extreme views expressed on either side. I tend to find myself in a sort of permanent dissonance on this issue, where I’m very aware of the Biblical point of view of sex as a celebration of the male-female marital relationship, but also aware that love, compassion and mercy are at the root of my calling. I guess my stance on this issue tends to be similar to person-centred counselling – with congruence and unconditional positive regard for all people, brought together by empathy.
Whatever my views, this is an important debate – if only because of the amount of people who are hurt by it and who will continue to be hurt – and it is well worth the effort to engage with it. There are some great writers on the web on both sides, including Symon Hill (a Christian who previously expressed homophobic views, but later came out) and Peter Ould (who describes himself as ‘PostGay’, became a Christian, married and had kids, then became a vicar).
What about other arguments in the Church? Women in leadership is another current issue, especially for the Church of England, who are working out whether to accept women bishops, I saw a really interesting debate on Twitter between Peter Ould (see above) on the more conservative side and Vicky Beeching (who has, for example, written this on women in leadership). I do come down heavily on the side of women in leadership on this issue, but it’s a debate I’m really interested in.
I could go on forever about the endless debates in the Church – from the intensely emotive (abortion) to the slightly less intensive (predestination) – but I think the point is clear. There are a huge amount of debates that are worth engaging with both in the Church and out of it.
My own church has its own way of doing this. We basically have a few ‘primary’ issues, which all the members agree on and then several ‘secondary’ issues, which are (unsurprisingly) secondary to membership. This essentially gives us freedom to disagree on several things, but still live in community together. I guess that one problem with this way of doing things is that, despite our great interest and our best intentions, the secondary issues just don’t get spoken about. We never really engage with the debates, perhaps because we know that, in those debates, there is potential for pain and damage to the community.
I think that, when two people disagree, God can do amazing things through that disagreement.
I know two members of a family who haven’t spoken to each other in several years. They disagreed over a very important issue ages ago. After a huge argument, they announced that their relationship had ended. I desperately hope that they will meet up again and that they will speak about the issue in hand. The reason I hope that they will speak about this cause of their friction is that it is only when we engage with an issue where we feel wronged, that we will be able to forgive the other person concerned.
By engaging with each other in our differences, wrongs can be righted. Bad relationships can be made good. Love can blossom.
Love is easily worth an uncomfortable disagreement or two.
