You Are Loved

Churches can be so frustrating sometimes!

It's a month since the EU Referendum result, when a truly horrible campaign from leaders of both sides led to a situation characterised by anger, despair and terrible division. Churches in this part of the world have talked internally about prayer and reconciliation over this period, but bog-all is visible externally.

Some of that, of course, is down to uncertainty about what can be done on a corporate level. Individually, being nice to foreigners and buying The Big Issue seem to be the order of the day, and the need for reconciliation has turned up in a sermon or two (most fervently in one case where the preacher had witnessed a racist attack in the middle of Reading the previous day). But that seems to be about the lot, in spite of the Bishop of Reading putting out a call for churches to get involved.

I'm not good at grand ideas, even less good at organising people, but surely we could start by doing something as simple and visible as telling people they are loved (even that idea I nicked from the Big Issue).

This is a core belief within Christianity: "God is love", "For God so loved the world", and so on. And the churches in CTM Parish were already being challenged by the PMC team to do something more positive with our noticeboards. It's not brain surgery.

I thought we had agreement to do some sort of poster a couple or three weeks back. So when I drove past St John's a few days ago I deliberately looked at the noticeboard to see what it said. "Thieves beware!" was all I could read from the road. :(

I need to check I am not treading on anyone's toes, that there is nothing already underway, but it looks as though I'll just have to put something up myself. This is my default approach, if I'm honest, and I've deliberately spent the past month trying to do things a better way: to get others involved; to cooperate, coordinate and consult; to seek better ideas and better ways of implementing them. Hmm.

I started this post intending to come from a completely different angle, actually, prompted by this post from HTB which makes the disappointing assumption that all parents feel instant and overwhelming love for their children and, more seriously, that all children are loved by their parents. It seems to me that maybe amongst those who most need to know that they are loved are precisely those who have least prior knowledge of their parents' love.

One role for the church is to show what love looks and feels like in practice, so people can have a starting point for recognising the love of God, whatever their background may be.

The referendum exposed deep divisions and insecurities in our communities. But these were already there, really. People need to know that they are loved, then that love can overflow to their neighbours. As I said before, it's not brain surgery - but it does seem remarkably difficult to do anything about in practice.

Fortunately I do believe in a God of miracles (as well as love)!

Edit 15/08/16:

It turns out that the poster was actually underway. A week or so back it turned up on our noticeboard, which now looks like this:

The person who did the posters is a gifted graphic artist, so I can only assume the brief he was given was somewhat ... unassuming.

Us & Them On So Many Levels

June really hasn't been a good month.

This is a picture of Stanford rapist Brock Turner: white, wealthy, privileged. When he found an unconscious women rather than helping her he began to rape her.

Some people came along and caught him so technically I suppose he is an 'attempted rapist', but he got far enough that the woman reportedly had dirt and grass inside her when they treated her in hospital.

He was sentenced to just six months in prison, reportedly reduced to four, by a judge who shared his background, and he and his family are appealing that as too harsh. His victim, once she had been treated, was articulate enough to ensure the case came to wider notice: a shocking example of 'them & us' in US society.

Melissa Etheridge's song, at the top of this post, was written in response to the mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando this month.

A deeply homophobic man shot dead 49 people and wounded 53 others. Behind him lay a deeply homophobic family, living in a deeply homophobic culture, surrounded by deeply homophobic churches (and presumably mosques).

Homosexuality has been a divisive issue across the world in recent years. My question on such things is "where are the haters?" Those who spread hatred of others are not God's people; and those who would divide Christ's body are nothing to do with Jesus.

Then we come to the UK's EU referendum campaign. The picture shown was probably the low point of a generally negative campaign. 

Both the Leave and Remain official campaigns focused on fear-mongering and negative propaganda. Both the official and unofficial Leave groups hammered away relentlessly at immigration and at people's fear and resentment of 'the other'.

Now the result is out and it seems the Leave campaigns worked - at least among older voters. The picture below, in many variations, is widely shared on social media by younger people angry at what they see as a betrayal of their future by those who won't have to live with the consequences. I suppose 'us & them' across generations is nothing new, but the anger is real.

I was going to put up picture of those utterly stupid politicians whose response to a crisis is to play politics and ignore the needs of the country. In many ways it was the Conservative party's internal politics, especially the ambition of Boris Johnson, which created the crisis, now Labour's MPs have decided they'd rather play leadership games than help rebuild the unity this country desperately needs to face a challenging future. The us & them of a broken political system.

In my view the most apposite comment was used as a headline by the Guardian newspaper: "If you've got money, you vote in ... if you haven't got money, you vote out." Subheading: "Brexit is about more than the EU: it’s about class, inequality, and voters feeling excluded from politics. So how do we even begin to put Britain the right way up?"

So much of the anger, so many of the divisions, arise from the deep and increasing inequalities within our society. A lot of the Remain campaign was based around fear of losing what we have got; to many that means nothing. A lot of the resentment of immigrants and minorities flows from insecurity, uncertainty, and a feeling someone must be to blame.

I'd like to come up with a nice 'Christian' solution to all this: "love one another," perhaps, "then everything will be wonderful." Meaningless! If we loved one another we wouldn't have the problems anyway. "Jesus Christ died to bring reconciliation," is at least apposite, but lacking in how and when.

At the moment my feelings are more in line with Habakkuk: how long, O Lord, is this unholy mess going to continue? When will there be justice and peace and cleansing?