THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

31st August 2005 The Rt Rev James Jones

Good Morning
Although Parliament doesn’t return until October, the ground’s already being prepared for some major battles ahead. Treading over it, and none too gingerly, this week on this programme was Salman Rushdie. He laid into the Government’s plans for faith based schools. He also warned about the loss of freedom likely to flow from the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill if it gets through Parliament.

The supporters of this Bill want to protect the weak and vulnerable in the faith communities, and hope to foster good community relations. Few would dissent from such noble ambitions. There’s only one problem: religion as a force in the world is anything but weak and vulnerable. It may have been so in the west for most of the twentieth century but that was an exception! For most of the world’s history religion has exercised huge power and influence. Often for good, but sometimes for ill; Although in that same twentieth century more people were killed under secularist ideologies than in any religious conflict. However, under the cloak of religion children have been abused, women have been raped, books have been destroyed and people have been killed. And tragically that’s not all in the past tense. In the current debate I think truth requires religious leaders to acknowledge this.

The question we must all honestly ask is how do we best deal with the excesses of religion which can be so easily corrupted. It is argument, humour, satire and even ridicule that prod and prick and test the mettle of someone else’s convictions. It may well offend people’s sensibilities. I’ve known and felt such offence myself. But it’s a small price to pay for the incalculable treasure of the freedom to speak what you truly believe.
In the early days of Christianity the first believers were frequently corralled by the state and told not to tell anyone about Jesus. They were threatened with prison and execution. Now there’s an interesting detail in this history. We’re told that Peter’s response to these violent threats was simply to preach all the more with ‘boldness’. The word used by the writer came from classical Greek. It meant – ‘Freedom of Speech’.
It seems that Peter and the other followers of Jesus were acting on what they felt was an inalienable human right given by God. Of course, they yielded to the authority of the state to punish them. But when the State tried to silence them they clung to the divine right of all human beings and uttered those famous words:

‘Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; but, as for us, we cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard.’