THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - 14th December 2006

The Rt Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

For the last few years I’ve been part of a small group here in Liverpool made up of four Jews, four Muslims and four Christians. The idea’s been to get beyond the platitudes of religious and political leaders, to look at our differences and to speak with each other frankly. At our last meeting the barriers came down for the first time. True feelings began to show passionately. It was new territory for us all. It was the lecture by the Pope that got us started. But that’s not where we ended up. Furious disagreement transfigured into the most remarkable discussion about what it meant for us all to be British.

Difficult to summarise but there were five features that made us to various degrees consciously British; law, liberty, language, landscape and monarchy.

An immigrant from the Middle East said how he wanted to stay in Britain with his children because people here abide by the law. Although our prisons may be full to bursting the British do not take the law or lawlessness into their own hands.

A senior man from Pakistan who’s lived here for fifty years cherishes the freedom he has to speak out against the Government. He loves the liberty of Britain.

A young barrister who’s mastered the English language takes out a day a week to visit schools and use his formidable skills as a communicator to foster greater understanding.

Each of these three is Muslim and devoutly British. Others contributed to the discussion saying how much they loved the landscape of Britain and its different hues of green.

It was then a Jewish lady who said it was the singing of the National Anthem at their gatherings that reinforced her own feeling of being British. It struck me how here was monarchy almost being re-invented for a new era offering a common symbol binding together different cultures.

After our meeting what struck me was how each of these five features owed their unique shape to the influence of Christianity in Britain. The Law to the Ten Commandments, Liberty to the freedom to preach the Gospel, Language to the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, Landscape to a myriad of churches that stud it in stone and monarchy to the faith that we are all, especially our leaders, answerable to God.

I have to confess that I’ve not yet shared this reflection on these Christian roots of Britishness with the others. But I look forward to doing so at our next meeting not least because the subject we’ve agreed to discuss - is Tolerance!