Reader Writes - August 2020

The slow killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman while others stood by was deeply shocking and rightly set the world ablaze. The most of us who have never lived in America probably underestimate the influence of the “frontier society” where guns, violence and aggressive market economics have a recent painful history. Black lives matter, and all lives matter to God who made us, black, Asian, white, in his own image. Our Archbishop and many others point out that whilst we may portray Jesus as an Anglo Saxon or Celt in our stained glass, all round the world he is portrayed in the ethnic image of the indigenous; Maori Christs in New Zealand to ebony Christs in Africa

There have been earnest conversations about removing statues and monuments, changing names, and generally engaging more thoroughly and honestly with our own history. For sure, some monuments would be better placed in museums where their context can be more honestly scrutinized, especially where the slave trade is concerned. Our own Lady Hawkins School has done a great job talking about and engaging with the issues around slavery; their benefactor, Lady Margaret Hawkins, was the widow of an 18th C slave trader who made himself hugely wealthy carrying slaves across the Atlantic. The municipal splendour of our great port cities often owes much to this terrible enterprise.

But there is no stopping at slaving. How about the East India Company and its ruthless and lucrative extractive trading in India? If we could bear to read the more honest histories of colonialism, we would find much to be ashamed of. Aggressive neo-liberal market economics are nothing new; it was all happening, greased by political lobbying and the purchase of favours, in our own country for the “development” of the colonies. Not all bad, my father who was there used to assure me.

We might hold up our hand to racism, greed and injustice, but underneath all these ubiquitous weaknesses I suggest there is tribalism; we fear “the other” and find it easier to exploit those not like ourselves. I confess to finding the Old Testament sometimes exhausting and challenging with its violence; even if you give some leeway for literary effect, it is still shocking. But it may be good to be shocked and recognize that today we are the same violent tribalised people. Look at our own society, look at the pitiless and endless civil war in Syria.

And yet, in the good news of the Gospel, Jesus Christ has turned our tribalism, our fear of the other, our humiliating caste systems, upside down. He calls us to follow him when he embraced the untouchable, healed lepers, respected the Samaritan woman, rescued the abused wife, dined with the humble, befriended the rejected. He saw “the other”, feared or despised by the world, and loved them. And he looked far beyond this imperfect world when he called us to receive eternal life. We live with this tension between what is and what could and one day shall be. The Apostle Paul expresses it in his letter to the Galatians; “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus …. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” As Christians we joyfully embrace eternal life, but rejecting the toxins of tribalism needs honest work.

Robert MacCurrach