hosted an event today exploring shared values among faith communities in Britain. The event aimed to encourage meaningful and insightful conversation on the issue of shared values and faith in Britain, and brought together leaders and thinkers from Britain’s faith communities as part of a multi-faith discussion panel chaired by The Right Honourable
With the rise of religious discrimination and tension in the UK and around the world, proactive inter-faith dialogue is as important and relevant as ever. Faith communities in the UK face increasing challenges and yet provide invaluable resources in the form of education, guidance, social engagement and community support on local, national and international levels. In the run up to and aftermath of the general election British values have been constantly in the media spotlight with questions about what British values really mean and how they are compatible with major religions.
A 2014 study by Ipsos Mori revealed that Britons overestimate the proportion of Muslims in the country by a factor of four. These mass misconceptions become problematic when combined with biased perceptions of Islam leading people to feel threatened by the faith and its perceived incompatibility with British values. A similar study for Jewish Policy Research found that 28% of respondents felt anti semitism in the UK had increased a lot in the past five years; whilst 40% felt it had increased a little.
Faith communities’ participation in civil society is an important aspect of building strong cohesive communities. As participation is an indicator of how vibrant a civil society is faith participation can play an enabling and empowering role for many faith communities particularly those which are disadvantaged.
By bringing together religious, social and political leaders and thinkers The Muslim Community & Education Centre and Global One 2015 hoped to bring the discussion on shared values and faith to the forefront of British community life and find positive and achievable solutions to the problems faced by these communities today.
In my contribution to the debate I said the following:
This week my
sermon at
St Stephen Walbrook was based on
James 1. 22, “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.” This passage says that if we are hearers of God’s word and not doers, we are like those who look at themselves in a mirror and immediately forget what they were like. “A
first century mirror was not the silvered glass one without which no bathroom is complete today. It was beaten bronze and gave a fuzzy image. If you wanted to be sure your face was not dirty a quick glance was not sufficient. You would need to peer intently, work out what was required, then go and find some clean water to do something about it. The same is true of the way we react to encountering God. The real blessing of the Christian faith does not lie in listening to sermons or reciting liturgies, but in dwelling on what is true until it transforms what we do. A genuine encounter with Jesus provokes action.”
The action it produces is, as the letter of James states, “care for orphans and widows in their distress.” Jesus said, in the
Parable of the sheep and goats, that God’s judgement on us will be based on our actions; giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked and visiting those in prison. These actions are to be the end result of our faith. If our looking deeply into God’s word does not result in our doing these things, our faith is not genuine and we are not walking the walk as Christians.
One summary of those words from and thoughts based on the Christian scriptures would be the sentence known as the Golden Rule which appears in the scriptures of many faiths i.e. ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’
Let us bear these thoughts in mind, as shared values, as we think a little now about the contribution of Christianity to shared British values.
Julian Rivers has argued in
‘Religion and Law’, that:
“The political and legal implications of Christianity have been quite different from those of Judaism and Islam.” “Judaism and Islam manifested themselves as the law of an entire community organised around those faiths. So it makes sense to talk of Islamic or Jewish criminal law, family law, property law, law of contracts, charitable foundations and so on.” “Instead, under God, in Christianity, there are two authorities on earth, not one, and they are church and government. The sphere of church is characterised by salvific grace, by individual commitment, by freedom – so much so that the very concept of law might be out of place in the church (although Christian ecclesiological traditions vary considerably on that particular question). The sphere of government is characterised by judgement and coercion in the service of goods common to all of humankind. The tasks of government may be considered primarily in terms of restraining evil, or of coordinating human action in pursuit of the common good.”
He notes that, as a result, English law has been beneficially affected by Christianity” and summarises the argument of
Lord Denning (Master of the Rolls 1962-1981) who, on his retirement as President of the
Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, published a pamphlet on this topic: “These included a belief in the importance of truth, requirements of good faith in statutory interpretation and contractual obligations, the development of the law of negligence, basic presuppositions of criminal law (such as the requirement to demonstrate that the accused had a ‘guilty mind’), the principle of government under law, the rise of social welfare legislation, and the centrality of a Christian conception of marriage.”
To this list Rivers adds the following:
“Modern commitments to political liberty and equality within the law emerged out of debates which were internal to Christianity; debates which were catalysed by the inescapably radical liberty and equality exemplified by Jesus and his disciples. Jesus is the model of the accountable public servant, using power for the good of others and conscious of his answerability to a higher tribunal. English nationhood owes more than a little to the example of Israel. Christianity also reinforced a commitment to authority, order and the rule of law.”
Dipti Patel has explored, in a
paper on the religious foundations of Human Rights, approaches to understanding Human Rights based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. She writes that:
“The central understanding of the human being within the Judeo-Christian tradition starts with the idea that God was the creator of all things. He created man in his own image: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … So God created man in his own image, in the image and likeness of God he created him; male and female he created them.’ (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1, 9:6). This supports the idea of rights that all enjoy by virtue of their common humanity. By virtue of reflecting the divine image, absolute worth is accorded to human beings. This gives all human beings a special status, a unique value, or ... his dignity. Therefore the human being has absolute and inviolable worth. A human being is not to be valued for what society can do with him, he is not a means to an end. Being created in God’s image is to be understood ‘in the sense of God bestowing dignity and honour upon man’. This is explained in Psalm (8:5) where it is stated ‘You have made him but a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor.’ This means that every human being is to be treated with love and respect.”
This is a shared understanding within the Judeo-Christian tradition, while the particular Christian perspective on this issue is that:
“In the New Testament, the Son of God, in the person of Jesus Christ, perfected divine regard for the human being. Through Christ humanity is freed from sin and as a result of the Fall, redeemed before God, and exists in a state of grace. So it is in Christ that the image of God, obscured and blurred by sin, is restored. The human being has supreme value with infinite worth; he is not a bearer of borrowed values. So the Christian understanding of human rights is entirely a function of the value divinely granted to humans through Christ. This is absolute and universal. The absolute value of a person pre-exists any social differences, all are seen as equal, and as a result the value is universal. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is Jesus Christ, who is to be received by faith (Romans 3:21- 25). The origin of human rights language in the Judeo-Christian tradition therefore starts with the idea of the creation of man in the image of God, and is therefore absolute, and the state of grace, which is universal. This is the reason why it is important to recognise the dignity of every human being regardless of any social differences. Dignity is inherent. Human rights law provides for a way to recognise the respect for dignity.”
One significant point in the development of Human Rights legislation and the history of Christian influence on British values which is being celebrated this year, is the signing of
Magna Carta: “In 1215, after King John of England violated a number of ancient laws and customs by which England had been governed, his subjects forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which enumerates what later came to be thought of as human rights. Among them was the right of the church to be free from governmental interference, the rights of all free citizens to own and inherit property and to be protected from excessive taxes. It established the right of widows who owned property to choose not to remarry, and established principles of due process and equality before the law. It also contained provisions forbidding bribery and official misconduct. Widely viewed as one of the most important legal documents in the development of modern democracy, the Magna Carta was a crucial turning point in the struggle to establish freedom.”
Magna Carta starts as a
religious document, concerned with the “health of the soul” of the King, and with the “honour of God,” and with the “exaltation of the Holy Church”.
Dr Mike West notes that “Magna Carta established the freedom of the English church from state interference and this has grown to enshrine the rights of each individual to enjoy religious freedom. Today it challenges faith communities to examine the part they might play in the development of a liberal democracy and to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem in international relations.”
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Yusuf Islam -
Peace Train.
