A bit of a detour in this second article with a statement of intent, a clarification, an aspiration and a warning.
The statement of Intent is that in this series, which will likely take us through the second Lockdown, I am aiming to do two things. The frist is to outline the Bible’s teaching on our relationship (as Christians) with civil authority and to seek to learn from others in the history of the Church how to understand that teaching and to put it into practise. It’s interesting that so many of the ‘heroes of the faith’ (though they would certainly disdain such a title, and we should probably be circumpsect about using it) are those who stood faithfully against a state who for a variety of reasons behaved in a way that sought to restrict the life and mission of the Church. Those in government at the time may or may not have intended that to be the result of their policies, but it was the outcome nonetheless. It is also worth noting that many others were caught up in and suffered under the same policies, and often felt they too had to oppose them, albeit for different reasons.
The clarification is that I am not at this stage calling for any form of civil disobedience. I know that will be a relief to some and a frustration to others. My own personal belief is that the time will come in many of our lifetimes, when such things will need to be. But - and that is a crucial ‘but’ - we still live in a society where, relatively speaking, we are free to live and worship as Christians. Many sense that freedom is being eroded, and we may find that precedents set during times of crisis come back to haunt us in the future. But at the moment we would be hard pressed, I think, to justify wide spread civil disobedience. We ought first to explore all legal and legitimate forms of protest and expression of concern, and only when the effectiveness of that is exhausted are we at liberty to begin to think about civil disobedience - and even then within certain limits, as we’ll see as this series progresses.
It might also be worth saying that in pursuing any form of protest or engagement with the legislative process, I for one am not seeking to bring about a situation where people are obliged to gather with the Church in corporate worship. If you have been following my blog since March, you’ll have little trouble surmising my conviction about the indispensible nature of corproate worship and mission. But there is no compulsion for anyone to join in the physical congregation, and we are working hard at MIE to ensure that those who - for a wide variety of reasons - choose not to, are still able to connect with the life and worship of our Church as possible. The freedom to live and worship as a Christian (or not) is a freedom of conscience issue, and should not be coerced. In a way that is the issue lying behind much of the concern and anxiety that we are seeing across the Church in the UK. That freedom has been curtailed. Not by common agreement, but by the force of law. Corporate worship has - in the words of one MP - been criminalised. The freedom to choose whether we gather for worship or not has been taken from us.
And so my aspiration is not to make bloodless martyrs of us all. Let’s not get overly-dramatic. In real terms it would be wildly over-stating the situation to speak of persecution. My own sense is that the situation we find oursleves in has little malice behind it, at least at the level of human decision making. Like many Bishops, Christian leaders, MPs and campaigners, I would like to see our historic freedoms restored, and I have little doubt they will be. In the meantime, I would like to take the opportunity to explore with you the Bible’s teaching on civil authority, and how the Church is to engage with that authority. As I said in a previous post, the situation we are in demonstrates that these are not idle curiosities, but speak very directly into the fluid relationship between Church and State, a relationship that as we have seen, can change inn very rapid and unexpected ways.
And so to the warning. This is a dangerous time for any Church. Our inability to meet as a whole Church since March, and the restrictions that we were subject to even when some of the congregation could meet, will have taken its toll on the Body of Christ. As a Church we need to recognise that there is a wide spectrum of opinion on the situation we are confronting, and given the pressured context we are living in, it is tempting to express those opinions in a strident manner. Some of you think the Church not have physically gathered at all during the pandemic, and that the governments actions are entirely justified; some of you think we should run the gauntlet of civil disobeidence now, that we should just meet anyway and risk the fine. We need to be aware of the bredth and intenstiy of feeling that runs through the congregation. Given the pressure that people are under at the moment, and the levels of anxiety being felt, it is also worth recognising that covnersations can escalate very quickly. It was particularly poignant that we were looking at Eph.4:1-12 on Sunday.
And so back to the series. In our next post we’ll start to explore directly some instances in the Bible where folk felt they could not in good conscience follow the directives of those in positions of civil authority. We mgiht find ourselves looking at some familiar Sunday School stories in a very different way!