Last week we had the graphic image of a Cathedral Dean chasing a British National Party (BNP) candidate for the European Parliament off the premises. And as the election season hots up (well, as hot as a European assembly election ever gets), we will probably hear more stories of BNP meetings that had booked church premises under another name being thrown out, and all party debates in church halls (to which all candidates have to be invited by election law) being abandoned when the BNP candidate turns up.
I have every sympathy to denying a platform to BNP core policies, and drawing a very clear line between what the church should stand for and their own version of "English Christianity", but my understanding of bringing resolution to a difficult situation or a conflict is to listen to what the issues are. And we need to make sure that as a church that in our opposition to these views in a political context we are not (further) alienating these men and women who have sought answers for the needs of our nation in a variety of forms of nationalism. I touched on this over a week ago: Starting over again by listening to Lionheart and friends. The church is for them as much as people like us - all of us people with huge blindspots, behaviour that at times denies the way of Jesus Christ, and ideas that are contrary to the heart of our belief. We do not have to be perfect to get through the door, or even be a member, but we do seek to grow to be more like Jesus, and to see the world more as he does. And that is with a whole load of grace and kindness, as well as truth.
In an article in the Guardian - Why I chased the BNP from my cathedral - Chris Liley, the said Dean of Lichfield Cathedral, describes how he saw off a BNP candidate who was seeking photos in front of the cathedral. He writes of the BNP's policy:
The Dean says it well! Our journey of faith issues us the most incredible of challenges: to commit to follow the teaching of Jesus through every day life which is always throwing at us the very challenges to the viability of that teaching. That is why I have been silent for a week because I am trying to get my head around a new challenge. For me the challenge is perhaps opposite to that of many people. For a number of years I have been learning "to love my Muslim (and Hindu, and Sikh, and Buddhist, and traditional Chinese, etc) neighbour as myself." And as I said in my last post it meant I was all too quickly taking their side when the new challenge of a rising English nationalism emerged. I now need to continue in that, but at the same time seeking to genuinely love my white English neighbour as myself.
And to this challenge I have no easy answers, but to start talking, listening, questioning, processing, learning, making friends. My faith that allows me to genuinely listen to, engage with and learn from a person of another faith and yet hold firm to what I myself believe, must also equip me to do the same with a person of a different political ideology, even when they are a Christian and yet understand the teaching of Jesus to be so different to my own.
I will be touching on why I disagree with BNP policy that claims to be Christian in another post.
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