Posted Sunday 1 April 2007
Bishop Idris offered the following charge to the 2007 Synod of the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway:
“Brothers and Sisters in Christ… Philippians 1, verse 27: ‘Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.’
“I was at a lecture in which the speaker told us that to be a disciple of Jesus was far harder than people ever admitted. The hard part, he went on, is not choosing between good and evil - after all we do know what the choice is meant to be there. The hard part is not even choosing between the lesser of two evils - it is when you have to choose between two ‘goods’ of equal merit.
“This was an echo for me of an earlier experience at a training day on parenthood at which the facilitators had been considering the situation in which parents and young adults were at odds. It was described as a ‘value conflict’ and as such we were recommended to consider that there could be no winners in any argument. Better to accept two equally valid points of view and try to find a way to live with them that was acceptable to both parties involved.
“Professor Alan Smith who holds the UNESCO Chair in Global Citizenship at Ulster University has been working for over fifteen years in the conflict situation in Northern Ireland, and in a recent address commented that in his experience there were three ways that people tried to deal with difference.
“One was to emphasise the similarities that people shared whilst ignoring difference - but this was not honest and offered a false picture of experience. Second was to emphasise the differences to the point of saying well, we are all different, so what’s the problem - and this was similarly failing to prepare folk to address the situation, and really what would you hope to achieve by this. Thirdly there was the possibility to address the question of where power was located in the relationships between groups and where the inequalities existed that required to be adjusted. Another way of expressing this is to say that people opt for change when it can be seen that there is something to be gained by change - and resist it if they feel that they will be disadvantaged by it .
“It seems that we are living through a period in which ‘value conflict’ is high on the agenda of society and perhaps of the church as well. The values that I have in mind are those of the freedom of individuals to be themselves and the need of a wider group (local community; or congregation; or diocese, or communion for that matter) to hold together - ‘one mind standing side by side for the faith of the gospel’ as St Paul wrote to the Philippians.
“So, in the life our Communion, we have to seek to balance the autonomy of a province to seek to model its life in conformity to its constitution and the insights of the gospel as it sees them to be, and the life of the wider communion in which the action of one province is felt to be injurious to others. This is a debate in which we are engaged at a deep level.
“But I suspect that it is one that arises when a diocese decides that it needs to do something that others would find hard to live with - what priority do we give to the existence of the province in those circumstances; or what is the reaction of a diocese to a congregation that insists in living in a way that is not upholding the sense that the rest of the diocese may have about mission and ministry matters. Are there limits to the toleration of divergence - a point at which difference is so wide as to leave no common ground to stand on?
“I am not seeking to identify any particular situation in saying this, but to highlight a general experience of the kind of tension that runs through the life of the church at nearly every level, and where the insights or values of those involved are both well motivated and in their own way express an intention to be obedient to the life of Christ. Nor is this issue one that is confined to the life of the church. In a few weeks, we shall be invited to elect new representatives to government both in nation and in local authority. How are we to judge how to vote? Should we accentuate difference in our choice of preference - should we try to overlook it; or can we identify those who are honestly prepared to seek ways forward that address in some depth the needs and aspirations of Scotland?
“In the world in which we seek to live out our faith it is no longer the case that the church can tell us what to do - and on the whole that is a step forward. The trouble with a prescriptive gospel is to know the point at which it becomes so trivial as to lose all sense. Jesus described that as ‘straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel’.
“The attempt to lay down rules for what should happen in every human circumstance led to the kind of legalism that Jesus taught was not much to do with the love of God. What is the case is that we might with St Paul again, ‘aspire to let our lives be worthy of the gospel of Christ’ yet allow that there will be differences between us in how that is to be lived out. We might go for the first option mentioned by Alan Smith and emphasise the things about which we agree - but that is to fail to confront the differences and not a good preparation for life or discipleship.
“It is on the other hand, as we have experienced in the life of the Communion, equally un-helpful to concentrate on the areas in which there is disagreement to the point of loosing the unity of our baptism. There yet remains the third option that he has promoted which is to ask where power and inequality are to be found in any situation.
“Our sharing is first in the need for forgiveness. Standing or kneeling at the altar we share in a solidarity of forgiveness. The power that we seek is not that of our own, but of the Holy Spirit and we all equally need to submit to the gentle rule of Christ. It is in that way that the manner of our life is to be worthy of the gospel.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking to the Primates recently, offered to us the image that in every gathering of Christians - wherever and whoever it may involve is an opportunity for that gathering to act as a cell of the body of Christ - that is that it is called to work in such as way that it can be seen that this cell is truly and authentically part of the body which is Christ. Vestries, study groups, synods, all are cells functioning within the body and need to demonstrate those qualities through which the world can identify that this is part of the body of Christ.
“Perhaps this is most especially the case when the body is struggling with difference - it is at that point that being Christ minded or Christ like becomes most critical in the life of the cell and of the whole body.
“So wherever we are pushed together in any kind of ‘value conflict’ - communion as against province, congregation as against diocese, between valuing the right of the individual to be themselves and the need of society to preserve itself through regulation and restriction - these situations in which there is right on both sides and a genuine good being sought; in these times we need the security of our baptism into the body of Christ and sufficient commitment to work through our disagreements in a way that honours Christ.”
Category: Bishop Idris, Diocesan Synod
