I have heard it said that we live in a country that at least used to be a Christian country. There is shock and alarm at the way the faith is being marginalised in this ever changing pluralistic society in which we live in. The issue is all the more to people’s mind as the rise of Islam on the agenda with certain activities and how their beliefs should fit in the British system. I hear people berating what appears to be the capitulation of our society to other forces and we’re not the same as we used to be.
What particularly brought this to mind was the report I read last night about the number of schools who are no longer having Christian school assemblies. I can understand how this got certain members of the Christian sector irate and concerned about God being steadily shoved out of social life much to the chagrin of many God-fearers and another clear sign of how the country is on the slide.
I appreciate those who refer to the Christian heritage that has apparently been the bedrock of key episodes in the country’s history like Winston Churchill calling for a national day of prayer. Also the development of crucial strands of the Christian faith that has grown from this country like Methodism.
What I still don’t buy, though, is the concept of a Christian country. As if in the same way that God made a covenant with Israel, there’s subsequently a similar deal with nation states in this day and age. That evidently wasn’t the agenda in the Great Commission or in subsequent writings of the prophets and apostles. Indeed if the example of the early church was anything to go off, Christian growth was a reality that was taking place despite pressure from the political as well as religious forces.
The centre of this argument is Jesus’ argument with Pilate that made it clear that Jesus was not after a political or social kingdom where His like would run things, otherwise He could have brought down the angelic host and have set up the kingdom. Rather His kingdom was not of this world – something that wasn’t new at all to the gospel narrative before this point or after it. Anyone who had been given the illumination of the words of the Master would have already understood that the Kingdom that was told was one which turned all other kingdoms and methods of human rule on its head.
That perspective is not just a view of one observer, but of quite a number of historians who would be able to outline that most nation states may have been influenced by Christendom as instituted from the updated Pax Romana Christianised version, which didn’t really bear that much resemblance to the heart of the gospel. For every noble effort for some Christian move to take place there would be the inevitable collusion, compromise and corruption that would see each one reflect more of the values of the power and glory trips of man-centred living than the loving sacrificial themes of following Christ.
Now it’s not unusual to have people who have done the Sunday School thing and are completely disillusioned by the Christian message because it’s been much talked about but little lived out and the gospel implications considered and lived through. No better a place is that reflected than in the assemblies issue. Really, how essential has Christian school assemblies been in shaping a Christian country? Did it help in the 1970’s? Can it be proven? What about the 1960’s and 1950’s – did those glorious school assemblies produce a generation of people sensitive to Jesus and prepared to live for Him?
Why was it the responsibility of the schools anyway? Oh yeah, another vestige of the link the school has to church which was forever ruptured when it was taken over by the state – see collusion, compromise and inevitable corruption. Which is fair enough – why should a state that is in no way linked officially with the Christian faith in any real way endorse, support and fund Christian faith in schools? Successive governments have in word and deed virtually committed to the false liberal notion of embracing pluralism and so cannot be seen to be advocating one worldview over another, so if you’re going to have Christian assemblies why not Muslim ones? Why not atheist ones? Why not Hindu ones? What’s the big deal behind them – who runs it?
Not only that, but isn’t the real responsibility of spreading and discipling people in the Christian way that of the church? Worse still, isn’t it really the responsibility of the family that lives by Christian ideals? Why pass it onto a school that will only promote those ideals in public pronouncements but to all intents and purposes the characters and personalities in these institutions embrace a lifestyle at odds with that which is declared in these Christian tomes?
I am not individualising the argument and saying it’s up to the parent how their child should be brought up. I am saying it’s not an effective policy to leave it to the school as you cannot legislate Christianity to those who have not embraced it in the first place. The beauty of the Christian faith being as well, because it is grace-based when it is embraced it is not a matter of external legislation that makes the difference but the word on the heart.
All of this to say that if Christian parents are concerned about God being slowly eased out of the schools, the reality was He wasn’t ‘there’ as such in the first place if you take the schools as state-initiated institutions. Is this an issue over which parents should be concerned? Well it’s an issue that should remind parents and the church as a whole of their family responsibility to their children. It is not the responsibility of schools to raise children, neither is it the responsibility of the school to instil spiritual and moral values. Although I’d argue there’s no such thing as a neutral school as each teacher and each curriculum overtly or implicitly puts across a mind-set and ideology that influences the learners one way or another. With the ages of the children being such it is inevitable that these views help to shape or trigger off shaping mechanisms in the child that will determine his or her outlook on life. This reinforces the responsibility that parents and the church has in shaping or influencing the child’s spiritual and moral compass as much as possible without crushing the individual.
As I grow and learn, converse and share, it becomes clearer to me that living a Christian life has far greater and deeper implications in all areas of life than I would once have assumed. This does not make the task overwhelming even if it does appear daunting. What it does is bring the individual back to a reliance on God through His Word and the community of grace that helps live it out together.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 