THE MAITLAND MEMORIAL LECTURE 2004
Integrity and Identity
Murdoch MacKenzie
Introduction
Integrity and Identity
Murdoch MacKenzie
Introduction

I am grateful to Professor Storrar and the Centre for Theology and Public Issues for inviting me to give this lecture. When I studied here in New College (image on the left) in the early 1960s the Professor of Practical Theology was Willie Tindal, an ecumenical figure in his own right. On his lecture-room door was a notice which said: ' PRACTICAL THEOLOGY '. But some wag had added an extra ' LY ' between the two words so that it read ' PRACTICALLY THEOLOGY ' which, of course, was actually very perceptive. What you will hear from me this evening will be practically theology, perhaps more in the way of orthopraxis though, I hope, not completely without orthodoxis, as we reflect on questions of integrity and identity arising out of the current world situation and of my ecumenical experience.
James Maitland
In all of this we can have no better starting point than in the life and witness of Revd Dr James Maitland together with his wife, Elizabeth. Just like Malvolio's 'greatness' some are born ecumenical, some achieve an ecumenical understanding, and some have what is mistakenly called 'ecumenism' thrust upon them. To be truly ecumenical is a gift, a charism, which Jim had in full measure. The ecumenical imperative burned in his bones and was reflected in the openness of his highland eyes and smiling face. Yet, like many of us here this evening, he bore in his body, and possibly in his soul, the slings and arrows of outrageous 'ecumenism'. I can see him now at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, almost in tears, as the fathers and brethren, as they were called in those days, asked the inevitable questions as to just how much the Livingston experiment was costing the Church of Scotland. The real answer was probably ' not enough ' just as it is today and by that I don't just mean money. As Ian Fraser once wrote in a prayer:
Lord God,
whose Son was content to die
to bring new life ,
have mercy on your church
which will do anything you ask,
anything at all,
except die
and be reborn.
The sheer integrity of Jim's identification with the poor, the forgotten and the despised under-girded his ecumenical commitment. (1) For him the Report from the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches held at Amsterdam was inspirational and fundamental.
' We have to learn afresh together to speak boldly in Christ's name both to those in power and to the people, to oppose terror, cruelty and race discrimination, to stand by the outcast, the prisoner and the refugee. We have to make of the Church in every place a voice for those who have no voice and a home where everyone will be at home.'
Commenting on this Jim said: ' These tremendous words from the first World Council Assembly show so clearly that the ecumenical movement is not just concerned with unity in a narrow, churchly sense, but with unity amongst all people. The imperative for Christian reconciliation lies at the heart of a Gospel for the whole world, a Gospel that a divided Church can only distort, corrupt and make ineffective.' (2) He quotes St Paul in
1 Corinthians 1:10 (NIV)
' I appeal to you brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.'
He then goes on to say: ' Look at any Scottish town or city. It is not just that divisions are palpably evident in almost every other street, but that ministers and priests, people and their leaders, seem to find these divisions perfectly acceptable and in no sense a flagrant contradiction of the heart and soul of our faith, a denial of Christ and a blockage to the Spirit's working. ' (3) Going further he spoke of ' that aggressive negativity said to be Scotland's worst characteristic and never very far from the surface in great areas of Protestant Church life. ' He also spoke of ' Ecumenism on the cheap which like cheap grace itself is an enemy of the Gospel. ' (4)
These are strong words but when will we see his like again ? You don't hear that kind of language much these days since we have been seduced by the sedative of 'unity and diversity '. Even Edinburgh 1910, which meant so much to Jim and to many others, seems, in the modern parlance, to have been dumbed down. For Jim, the Sermon on the Mound was not that of Margaret Thatcher but of Bishop Azariah of Dornakal to the effect that ' only a united Church can be a missionary Church and only a united Church can be a Christian Church. ' (5) He quotes with approval Jeanne Hendrickse of South Africa who says:
Don't get involved with unity, don't get involved with growing together into unity unless your bones, heart, soul, your whole being cry out for unity..................
Don't get involved, unless your whole being cries with Christ for justice, love, humanness, unity and peace.
BUT if you dare, dare to get involved. (5)
At the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) it was said that when we die we will not be asked if we have achieved unity, but if we have worked, prayed and suffered for unity. Jim certainly did all of that and was the kind of person, who with great integrity, dared to get involved.
Integration and Identity
The word integrity, or, at least, integration, is everywhere these days as is the word identity. On the main news on 4th April the newsreader asked: ' Is integration the key to a shining, happier Britain ? ' In the Observer on 11th April we read that the first identity cards seen in Britain since the Second World War will be issued from March 2007. In the same paper in relation to the multiculturalism debate sparked off by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, who expressed the view that ' multiculturalism suggests separateness ', Sir Gulam Noon, a businessman, said; ' The second generation Asian immigrants are British and by the same token they are Muslims and Hindus as well. They have a dual identity. ' Likewise Zamila Bunglawala, a policy analyst, said: ' There is no part of me that does not feel British and no part that does not feel Muslim. This combined identity is possible because I live in an inclusive society. ' Charles Bailey, a record producer, said:
' What we should be talking about is integration. ' Fiona MacTaggart, Minister for race equality and community policy said: ' The debate must now be about how positive integration can ensure no one is left behind. ' Christine Yau, Chair of Soho's Chinatown community centre said: ' If you leave your own country you have to be prepared to integrate.'
Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society said: ' British history is one of integrating different groups ' and Tariq Modood, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol said: ' Multiculturalism versus Britishness is a phoney war. ... Even in Britain members of ethnic minorities feel more British than do the Scots. ' So there !
On Radio 4 Alan Duncan spoke of people having a tap root of national identity and also their own culture and that what we needed was not just tolerance but acceptance. Trevor Phillips, himself, asserted that there should be a core of Britishness and said that Jews and Catholics are both integrated but with an identity of their own. The Baptist minister, Roy Jenkins, speaking on Thought for the Day, with reference to our current fascination with personal genealogies said that some people feel their whole identity is bound up with discovering where they came from. He referred to the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke both of which identify his royal claim as son of David. In passing we can note, what we all know, that whilst the Jewish writer of Matthew's Gospel traces Jesus' identity back to Abraham, Luke, the Gentile, identifies Jesus with Adam.(Matthew 1:1ff Luke 3:23ff) The particularity of Jesus' group identity as a Jew is understood by Luke within the wider frame of reference of his humanity. Similarly with regard to the Runnymede Report on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain Professor Bhikhu Parekh points out that it nowhere advocates group rights, or even uses the term, but devotes a chapter to human rights and expects them to provide the framework within which to negotiate cultural differences. He goes on to say that the report argues that British society is made up of both individuals and cultural, civic, religious and other communities and needs to respect both individuals and their constantly redefined cultural identities. It unambiguously rejects segregationist multiculturalism and advocates open and interactive multiculturalism. (6)
Recent research by Dr Sandy Wolfson, a sports psychologist at Northumbria University, as to why football fans stay loyal, suggested that social identity was a fundamental and powerful psychological force. She said: ' What we found was that social identity and identifying yourself as a member of the group is far more important than the outcome of your team. In fact it gets to the point where abandoning your team is an impossibility, because you see the team as part of your identity. ' She said that football was about the only area in life where it was still politically correct to be outspoken about one's dislike for "outsiders". She also said: ' Probably it is true that being a member of an in-group will help you see other groups as potential targets. ' (7) Hence the notice which I saw on the Stranraer to Belfast ferry the other day banning sectarian songs and banners. Is it surprising that when British people were asked recently: ' Who is more influential in your life, David Beckham or God ? ' 37% said: ' David Beckham '.
As I wrote these words David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, was on the news speaking about biometric ID cards, telling us that, within three years, state of the art technology would produce a database which using our eyes, face and fingers would record each person's unique identity. He said: ' This is about true identity being known and being traceable. ' and went on to say that because of our tolerance Britain, which unlike France did not ban the wearing of the hijab and other symbols, was an icon of hope.(8) In the same news programme we heard that the peace process had broken down in Sri Lanka because the majority community feared a loss of their Buddhist identity, that the reunification of Cyprus had been similarly pre-empted as the Greek population feared the loss of their Orthodox identity and that 70% of British Muslims felt that they were not an integral part of Britain. Likewise we are told that Bretons in Brittany, having spent years maintaining their identity over against the rest of France, find that it is now being infiltrated by 'Brits' who buy up property, don't learn French, stay together, and eat baked beans and fish and chips.
Three Different Contexts
Mainland Britain
Against this background we will now explore some approaches to identity and integration before going on to consider how they relate to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in which we say we believe when we repeat the words of the Nicene Creed. First let us turn to Ranjit Sondhi, Senior Lecturer at Westhill College in Birmingham, Governor of the BBC and a former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality. In a lecture on 'Ethnicity, Identity and Change: new challenges for social policy ' (9) he illustrates the difficulties surrounding the question of limits to pluralism and diversity.
' On the question of ethnic distinctiveness it is interesting to note....the All Different, All Equal campaign, a title which, in principle, neatly caught the paradox between the equally legitimate demands of both unity and diversity. I say, in principle because in practice, at least in Britain, the campaign amounted to no more than sanctioning yet another round of multi-cultural jamborees that had little to do with the dismantling of racist practices and beliefs. As someone wryly commented, the All Different, All Equal campaign transformed all too easily into an All Different, All Different campaign.
...... We clearly have to find answers to some fundamental questions.....What are the common patterns and theoretical possibilities of coexistence ? Are there limits to pluralism and diversity ? In the same soil, can a thousand ethnic flowers bloom ? '
In a delightful illustration he tells the story of a precocious young Muslim schoolgirl from Bradford whose parents had migrated from the district of Mirpur in Pakistan. When asked to define her identity she answered:
' When I am in the school playground with my white English friends, I am black. When an Afro-Caribbean girl joins our group, I become an Asian. When another Asian girl comes in, I think of myself as Pakistani Muslim. When a Pakistani friend joins us, I become a Mirpuri. And when another Mirpuri girl turns up, I become a Bradford school girl again. '
Sondhi comments: ' The moral of that story is that nobody identifies with the same group, or in opposition to the same set of others, all the time. Everybody has more than one answer to the question " Who am I ? " .... These identities are stored within the individual and are not always visible to the observer, and it is likely that the individual will not always be conscious of shifting from one identity to another. ' Just like my own grand-daughter, aged six, who is herself half Bosnian, a quarter English and a quarter Scottish and when she moved recently from Yorkshire to Glasgow was asked by her mother if the other children at her school spoke funnily and, after a moment's thought, she replied: ' No, I do. ' In this whole business of identity and integration perhaps it takes a little child to lead them.
India and Hindutva
If we think these issues of multiculturalism, ethnicity and religion are the flavour of the month here in the United Kingdom they are as nothing to the ferment taking place in the Indian sub-continent and especially in India itself. As in Britain and elsewhere there are three major socio-political influences which are known in India as swadeshi (national interests) videshi (foreign investment and expertise) and visweshi (globalisation for trade and prosperity). As we await the final result of the recent elections we know that issues of identity and integration are at the heart of Indian politics. Of particular relevance are the yet to be published papers presented on the subject of 'Nationalism and Hindutva: A Christian Response' presented at the 10th Centre for Mission Studies Consultation of the Union Biblical Seminary Pune in mid January this year. Whilst this is a huge subject in itself, a few insights from the Consultation may highlight issues which are also relevant to our present purpose.
For three thousand years India has evolved as a heterogeneous society practising pluralism and maintaining the fundamental principle of ' unity in diversity '. For many centuries up until 1947 either the Mughals or the British ruled the country whose people were 85% Hindu. After independence Pandit Jawarhal Nehru promoted secularism as over against communalism. In 1961 in Srinagar he declared:
' As soon as you speak of Hindu, Sikh or Muslim, you do not speak for India. Each person has to ask himself the question: what do I want to make of India, one country, one nation or 10, 20, 25 nations, a fragmented and divided nation without any strength or endurance ready to break to pieces at the slightest shock. ...... Fissaparious tendencies, whether they belong to Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians or others are very dangerous...belonging to petty and backward minds. No one who understands the spirit of the times can think in terms of communalism. '
Mahatma Gandhi put it this way:
' If I were a dictator religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion, I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everyone's personal concern. '
However all this has now changed dramatically. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has developed the secular swadeshi or nationalist tradition into a Hindu cultural nationalism embracing the ideology of Hindutva which means the identification of Indians with Hindus originally promoted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. In the early 1950s the RSS launched its own political party known as the Jana Sangh which later emerged as the BJP. Thus India's heterogeneous society is now being homogenised to the extent that ' conversion ', for example, is seen not only as a change in religion but as a change in nationality and a denial of what it means to be Indian. Hence the anti-conversion legislation being introduced in various states. Is it any wonder that the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has stated that to define Indian identity as Hindu is to undermine the tradition of heterodoxy ? (10)
Moreover the issues close to Jim Maitland's heart of the poor, the forgotten and the despised are thrown into sharp relief by what Dr L. Stanislaus describes as ' Hindutva's concept of a national 'manufactured' culture built around upper caste male norms. ' It offers what he calls
' an oppressive nationalism ' which offers little or no room for other identities. It asserts only Hindu identity thus negating other identities such as those of tribal people.(11) Bizay Sonkar Shastri, chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes claims that tribals do not have any separate identity but are part of the Hindu fold. He said:
' There should be no discussion on this issue. How can they be different ? Hindus and tribals worship almost the same gods. ' (12) With respect to the poor, the forgotten and the despised Felix Wilfred asserts the importance of pluralism when he says: ' I think that pluralism in Asia is ultimately a question of justice. Denial of pluralism kills justice before destroying true unity. It is by affirming their "difference" that the poor have a chance to reclaim their very selves. Pluralism is, thus, the defence as well as the hope of the poor against the powerful who stand for an agenda of pseudo-unity. In this scenario, the hope-giving mission the Churches could play is to be active agents of pluralism. ' (13)
Hindutva particularly targets Muslims, Christians and Communists and according to Swami Agnivesh it is ' essentially religious terrorism. Its language and strategies belong to the world of terrorism, not religion or spirituality. Bullying helpless people, murdering innocent women and children, intimidating dissent, committing rape, arson and loot are what we expect from terrorists, not from religious people. ' (14) Interestingly enough, as Jesusdas M. Athyal points out, referring to Vijay Prashad's book ' Namaste Sharon: Hindutva and Sharonism under US Hegemony ' - ' In September 2003, when Ariel Sharon became the first Israeli Prime Minister to step on Indian soil, Hindutva and Sharonism embraced each other, and these two Asian right-wing ideologies hoped to form some sort of entente against "Islamic terrorism" with the blessing of George W. Bush's "evangelical imperialism". (15,16) Athyal sees an emerging nexus between politics and religious fundamentalism the world over and says: ' The debate on religion and politics needs to be placed within the context of the resurgence of identities based on ethnic and parochial religious allegiance the world over, in a context where the term 'identity' is increasingly used as a tool for division, not a unifying principle. As a social commentator located the problem in the Indian context: "... we are moving towards an era of recognition of Hindu-Muslim differences rather than pursuing their chimerical commonalities. We are moving towards a multi-culturalism, with majority and minority cultures, rather than the emergence of a 'composite culture' ."(17) '. Athyal goes on to point out that the decline of religion forecast in Harvey Cox's ' The Secular City ' of 1965, whereby all the citizens of a country would evolve a common identity, has not happened and that Cox himself revised his theory in the 1980's when he wrote in ' Religion in the Secular City ' that rather than an era of rampant secularisation and religious decline, it appears to be more of an era of religious revival and the return of the sacred. (18)
A Voice from Ireland
To come nearer to home, to a lecture given here in New College, by John Dunlop in 1998 relating to reconciliation in Ireland in which he strongly supports the views of the Croatian Miroslav Volf who maintains that issues of ' identity and otherness ' have to be placed at the core of theological reflection. (19) With reference to positive and negative identity Dunlop says:
' In a divided society, there is a tendency for people to define themselves over against the people from whom they are alienated. For example, the religious life of the protestant part of Belfast is deeply fractured between different denominations and a myriad of mission halls, all of them protestant. Many are more aware of who they are not, than of who they are. The energy which drives some people on, in both religious and political communities, and the glue which holds them together, has a large negative element to it. '
Whilst catholics fear the lambeg drums and annual marches of the Loyal Orders, the average protestant, rather like Indian Christians in the face of Hindutva, fears an imagined overpowering, imperialistic, monolithic catholicism. To quote Dunlop again: ' Such negative definitions of selfhood and identity, whether religious or political or social, cannot reinforce concepts of personal or community significance or of self worth. ' Again, with resonances relating to the poor, the forgotten and the despised, and rather like Felix Wilfred, Dunlop quotes Daniel Bell from Patrick Moynihan's book ' Pandaemonium ' :
' The upsurge of ethnicity is a cultural gain in that it allows individuals whose identities have been submerged, or whose status have been denigrated, to assert a sense of pride in what they regard as their own. In equal terms it is a means for disadvantaged groups to claim rights and privileges which the existing power structures have denied them. ' (20)
However Dunlop goes on to point out that it is possible for devotion to Nationalism or Ethnicity to unleash untold troubles on societies unless they are themselves accommodated within wider concerns. He then goes on to examine the accommodation of difference and asks the question as to whether particularity can be accommodated without separation. Quoting Jurgen Moltmann he helpfully points us in the direction of the Trinity:
'... the Trinity corresponds to a community in which people are defined in their relations with one another and in their significance for one another, not in opposition to one another in terms of power and possession.... The trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord .... I am free and feel myself to be truly free when I am respected and recognised by others and when I, for my part, respect and recognise them.... Then the other person is no longer the limitation of my freedom; (s)he is an expansion of it. ' (20)
He also reminds us that the World Alliance of Reformed Churches General Council, meeting in Debrecen in 1997, called on member churches to make an affirmation, modelled on the Barmen Declaration of 1934, as part of their worship services in situations of conflict, including the words:
' There is neither Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.' (Galatians 3:28)
All the churches of Jesus Christ, scattered in diverse cultures, have been redeemed for God by the blood of the Lamb to form one multi-cultural community of faith. What binds Christians together as brothers and sisters is more significant than what may distinguish them or separate them from each other.
We reject as false the doctrine that allegiance to nation or culture should be placed above the allegiance to God and to the vision of God's new redeemed community. '
He further quotes Paraic Reamonn, Communications Secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, writing about ' Ethnicity and Christian Faith ' who maintains that:
' We must remember that our belonging in Christ precludes Reformed Churches from identifying themselves with any single ethnic culture, or suggesting that members of one ethnic group must fully assimilate themselves into another if they are to be considered Reformed.
Our primary and ultimate identity is in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 3:27).... Belonging in Christ transcends all ethnic differences. We are not ethnic Christians, but "Christian ethnics" who are in communion with one another in Christ across ethnic barriers. We are called to resist the temptation to succumb to political, social or economic pressures which tear down rather than build up human and Christian community.' (Romans 12:2) (22)
One holy, catholic and apostolic Church
Thus it is clear that questions of integration and identity are everywhere and we haven't even mentioned the European Union, with the integration of its 10 new members involving 75 million people with their variety of identities, bringing in a much stronger Roman Catholic element to challenge the secularists, who, like Alastair Campbell, don't do God and who, understandably, when they look at the churches, not to mention Hindutva and Islam, don't want God to do them ! The arguments about unity in Europe are more or less exactly paralleled by the arguments about church unity, the main difference being that the politicians and their bureaucrats are doing something tangible about it whilst the churches and their bureaucrats are not. But what can we do, those of us who claim that our primary and ultimate identity is in Jesus Christ, who talk perhaps too glibly of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and who sit too comfortably on Sundays as we hear the mighty proclamation that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female but that we are all one in Christ Jesus ? When we think global we sometimes see things with great clarity but to act local is another matter. In India they refer to it as 'glocalisation'. It resonates with our understanding of the universal Church being fully manifested in the local eucharistic community and with Lesslie Newbigin's reference to the local congregation as the true hermeneutic of the Gospel. (23) All this is fine talk but as Spurgeon is supposed to have said:
To dwell above with those we love
Ah, that indeed is glory.
To dwell below with those we know
Is quite another story.
And so it so often seems that we take refuge in a perverse understanding of the extremely important concept of unity and diversity and live more in the not yet than in the now, consoling our consciences with the conventional wisdom that the mills of God grind slowly, that sectarianism in Scotland has been around for a long time and that in any case we cannot solve all the world's problems never mind those of the Church. But in the midst of this we are challenged by the people of Livingston and their Team Members such as Jim Maitland and Brian Hardy, Max Cruickshank and John Byrne, Hamish Smith and Ross McLaren, Joan Ryeland and Norman McCallum, John Macleod and John Robinson and a whole host of others who have followed in their footsteps, including those who are there today, challenging us to think again as to the meaning of integrity and identity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
The root meaning of integrity derives from two Latin words which literally mean 'untouched' (24) and an integer is a whole number as distinguished from a fraction. To integrate means to make whole or to renew, and integrity literally means entireness, wholeness, the unimpaired or unadulterated state of anything, uprightness, honesty, purity and rectitude. It sounds like holiness to me, about righteousness, reminding us of the righteousness of God who when asked by Moses for an ID card and a name replied: 'I am who I am. Tell the people that I am has sent you to them.' It is a reminder also of the righteous integrity of one crying in the wilderness: ' Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ' and of the question put by Jesus to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi: ' Who do people say that I am ? ' In other words: ' What is my identity ? ' or as Ranjit Sondhi put it ' Who am I ? ' The answer will soon be in a biometric ID card which as the Home Secretary has said, is about true identity being known and being traceable. But then identity actually means the state of being the same deriving from the Latin idem and identical means the very same. In fact identity means the sameness of a thing within itself, its coherence, its lack of division or, in other words, its integrity. When we say that a person, or a church, or a nation has integrity surely this is what we mean. I am who I am. Unlike the Gerasene demoniac who, when asked for his identity, replied; ' My name is Legion, for we are many.' but who was later found clothed and in his right mind. (Mark 5:9,15) Might not this apply to the Christian Church with its many divisions, 25,000 according to a recent report?
In spite of Edinburgh 1910 we simply have to hold up our hands and say: ' My name is Legion, for we are many. ' Even the Orthodox are divided and it is perhaps only the Roman Catholics with over one billion members world-wide who can lay claim to unity. From the time of Pope John XXIII onwards and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council's Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio it was recognised by Rome that the movement for the restoration of unity among all Christians is ' fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit ' and it
' commends ecumenical work to Bishops everywhere. ' (25) More recently Pope John Paul II in the Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint says: ' It is absolutely clear that the movement for promoting Christian unity is not just some sort of "appendix" which is added to the churches traditional activity. Rather, ecumenism is an organic part of her life and work, and consequently must pervade all that she is and does. ' (26) Would that this was actually happening, in all our churches. A divided church, lacks both integrity and identity and is not normal. It is not how it was meant to be and as Jim Maitland said it is a flagrant contradiction of the Gospel, a denial of Christ and a blockage to the Spirit's working. Seeking refuge in diversity is a cop-out, if it means carrying on having separate churches. Of course there will be diversity but within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in which Archbishop William Temple is supposed to have said he believed but regretted that it nowhere existed. For diversity to have integrity simply cannot mean endless separation. Nor does it mean the dreaded uniformity, but it does mean the sameness of a coherent identity in the love of God who is in Christ reconciling not just the Church but the world and especially the poor, the forgotten and the despised. It means the riches of each fragmented Christian tradition being brought together again, being integrated, re-integrated, as an offering in reconciliation to God. It means making the Church in every place a voice for those who have no voice and a home where everyone will be at home. But a home in which ' a thousand flowers may bloom ' and in which we may ' welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed us, for the glory of God '. (Romans 15:7) This, of course, is what Livingston and other Local Ecumenical Partnerships are all about, places in which their integrity is such that there is not just toleration but acceptance. These are places in which we find organic unity , (another dreaded word these days) which as the Pope clearly understands does not mean ecclesiastical joinery, power without glory and all of that, but glory without power which grows organically at the grass-roots where people meet regularly face to face in Local Ecumenical Partnerships, as well as in great gatherings such as Edinburgh 1910, the Scottish Ecumenical Assembly, and even, believe it or not, in church offices and theological dialogues.
It was Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles, who said in 1926: ' In order to unite with one another we must love one another; in order to love one another we must know one another; in order to know one another we must go and meet one another.' (27) As Ecumenical Moderator in Milton Keynes I had the privilege of doing precisely that day in and day out, of sharing in pastoral care, in teaching, in worship, in mission with Christian people, and other ministers who were paid to work full-time, from the Catholic, Reformed, Methodist, Anglican, Salvation Army, Pentecostal, Independent, Quaker, Orthodox and Baptist churches not to mention people of other faiths. Like St Paul I became all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9:22) exercising a personal episcope within a communal and collegial nexus. Not only that, with the encouragement of the Catholics and others, the Baptists, Anglicans, Reformed and Methodists united their Synod, District and Circuit into a single body. It can happen. It is happening and had the ' Scottish Church Initiative for Union ' (SCIFU) proposals been put into practice it might have been possible for something similar to be happening here also. Surely if we take St Paul seriously when he talks about ' a new creation ' (2 Corinthians 5:17) the old must pass away and the new must come. It follows that if we're going to remember Edinburgh 1910 in a fitting and meaningful way in six years time, it needs to be more than one of Ranjit Sondhi's 'multicultural jamborees' with lots of theological papers and the like, but we must do something about dismantling our 'All Different, All Different' identities and entering into the discovery that in fact we are all equal, at least in our humanity, as well as having Abraham as our father and Sarah who bore us (Isaiah 51:2) , not to mention a man called Jesus who, on the night on which he was betrayed, prayed that we might be perfectly one so that the world might believe that real integrity was actually possible.
If Moltmann is right that the trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord, can we not also be set free, at least at the local level of neighbouring churches in LEP's, to take the risk of becoming each other's servants, of making ourselves of no reputation, as Jesus did, and of serving our local communities together in such a way that we can fulfil the hopes of Cardinal Hume and others as we move along the ' Ecumenical Scale of C ' from Confrontation to Coexistence to Cooperation to Commitment and to Communion. (28) Then we might proclaim to the world around us, with integrity, our common Trinitarian identity when we sing St Patrick's Breastplate. ' I bind unto myself today the strong Name of the Trinity '. Or are we to remain like the football fans for whom our perceived identity becomes more important than the outcome of our team, in our case in mission and service in the world ? In any case, if, as both the Pope and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches General Council agree, that what unites us is far more important than what divides us, (29) what is to prevent us, as Christians, from having more than one identity, either in uniate churches, as suggested by Professor John Macquarrie (30) or by doing what many Christians do and moving freely from one denomination to another ? Reflecting on what we learn from India we may have to ask yet again how far the Church is like Hindutva in so far as it is built around upper middle class male norms which deny the legitimate aspirations of so-called ordinary local people and especially women and ' the poor, the forgotten and the despised.' Also, echoing the thoughts of Pandit Nehru, we might say: ' As soon as you speak of Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or Pentecostal, not to mention Presbyterian, Methodist or Anglican, you do not speak for Jesus. Each person has to ask her(him)self: What do I want to make of Jesus ? One body, one Church or 10, 20, 25 or 25,000 churches ?
These are serious questions, which both our integrity and our credibility demand we act upon, not tomorrow but today, so that in 2010 the Sermon on the Mound will be preached not only from our lips but in our lives and in the life of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in Scotland and far beyond, believing, as we do, that with God all things are possible.
And so with James Maitland, with Duncan McClements, with Bishop Azariah, with Cardinal Mercier, with Lesslie Newbigin, with Cardinal Hume, with Archie Craig, with Derek Worlock, with Derek Palmer, with David Goldie, with George MacLeod and so many others, who have gone on before us, we can be inspired by the Spirit of Unity and of Peace, the Holy Spirit, to pray for the ecumenical movement in the words of a prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake:
'O Lord God, when thou givest to thy servants
to endeavour any great matter, grant us to know
that it is not the beginning but the continuing of the same,
until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth true glory. '
Murdoch MacKenzie
6th May 2004
Centre for Theology and Public Issues
School of Divinity
The University of Edinburgh
New College
Mound Place
Edinburgh EH1 2LX
References
(1) Maitland, James New Beginnings pg 7 Saint Andrew Press 1998
(2) ibid pg 9
(3) ibid pg 120
(4) ibid pg 8
(5) ibid pg 137 Ecumenical Review, vol.31 no.1, 1979
(6) Lord Parekh Letter to The Guardian 16.04.04
(7) Press Association Report The Guardian 14.04.04
(8) Blunkett, David Interview on Radio 4 26.04.04
(9) Sondhi, Ranjit Ethicity, Identity and Change: new challenges for social policy. The EDI Framework Northern Ireland Seminars 2001
(10) Sen, Amartya The Times of India 03.03.01
(11) Stanislaus, Dr L, SVD A Christian Response to Hindutva - in Mark Laing (ed.) Nationalism and Hindutva: A Christian Response. Papers from 10th CMS Consultation, (Delhi: CMS/ISPCK, to be published in 2004)
(12) Shastri, B Sonkar The Times of India 26.03.02 quoted by Stanislaus
(13) Wilfred,Felix Nationalism in a New Avatar and Challenges to Christianity Vaiharai, vol 6. Nos. 3+4 (2001) pg 104 quoted by Stanislaus
(14) Swami Agnivesh The Indian Express 19.08.03 quoted by Stanislaus
(15) Athyal Jesusdas M The Return of the Sacred - in Mark Laing (ed.) Nationalism and Hindutva: A Christian Response. Papers from 10th CMS Consultation, (Delhi: CMS/ISPCK, to be published in 2004)
(16) Prashad, Vijay Namaste Sharon: Hindutva and Sharonism under US Hegemony (Leftword Publications, New Delhi, 2003) quoted by Athyal
(17) Koshy, Ninan Religion and Politics: The Debate at the End of the Century (Ecumenical Christian Centre Bangalore 1995) 8-9 quoted by Athyal
(18) Athyal, Jesudas M The Return of the Sacred
(19) Dunlop, John The Churches Move - From Containment to Reconciliation? "A Turning Point in Ireland and in Scotland " The Challenge to the Churches and Theology. The Centre for Theology and Public Issues, New College, The University of Edinburgh 1998 Address by Very Rev John Dunlop, Minister of Rosemary Presbyterian Church, Belfast.
(20) Moynihan, D.P Pandaemonium, Ethicity in International Politics OUP 1993
(21) Moltmann, J The Trinity and the Kingdom of God SCM 1981 quoted by Dunlop
(22) Reamonn, Paraic UP DATE: WARC volume 5 number 4
(23) Newbigin JEL The Gospel in a Pluralist Society pg 222ff (SPCK London 1989)
(24) Integrity from Latin 'in' - 'not' and 'tag' - root of 'tango' - 'to touch'
(25) Unitatis Redintegratio 1
(26) Ut Unum Sint Section 20
(27) Cardinal Mercier Called To Be One pg 31 CTE (Publications) 1996
(28) Cardinal Basil Hume Swanwick Conference September 3 1987 'First, I hope that our Roman Catholic delegates at this Conference will recommend to members of our Church that we move now quite deliberately from a situation of co-operation to one of commitment to each other.... We should have in view a moving, in God's time, to full communion, or communion that is both visible and organic.... In a full "communion" we recognise, of course, that there will not be uniformity but legitimate diversity. It is not often stressed sufficiently that even within the Roman Catholic Church there is considerable diversity. '
(29) Debrecen Declaration 1997 World Alliance of Reformed Churches
(29) Tertio Millennio Adveniente The Jubilee of the Year 2000 Section 16. His Holiness Pope John Paul II says: ' Amongst the most fervent petitions which the Church makes to the Lord during this important time, as the eve of the new millennium approaches, is that unity among all Christians of the various confessions will increase until they reach full communion. I pray that the Jubilee will be a promising opportunity for fruitful co-operation in the many areas which unite us; these are unquestionably more numerous than those which divide us. '
(30) Macquarrie, John Christian Unity and Christian Diversity SCM Press Ltd 1975 pg 44, 53, 54. On pg 54 Macquarrie draws attention to the celebrated phrase of Malines, "united not absorbed".
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OR HUMAN LIVES
Sondhi makes the following plea for Pragmatic Reasoning: " The question of pluralism does not sit easily with the children of the Enlightenment. The reason why some might find such a debate about diversity strangely disconcerting or even unacceptable is because one of the consequences of the attempt to define values in the Western world by rational procedures has been to drastically reduce the scope of moral reflection. Since the Enlightenment, moral philosophers have ceased to be interested in the eclectic range of values and goods which actually shape human lives, concentrating instead on the quest for universal principles of moral obligation. You might agree that this philosophical tunnel-vision has left the language of morality in a 'state of grave disorder' which in turn has tended to impede the emergence of genuinely multicultural societies. By emphasising the moral and ontological primacy of similarity among human beings, and privileging commonality over difference, modern moral philosophy has precluded any positive assessment of cultural plurality. The notion that there might be goods internal to other cultures, or ideals specific to particular communities, is never seriously entertained.
Perhaps we need to resurrect the Aristotelian concept of practical reasoning and assert that moral wisdom consists in the capacity to deliberate on multiple and diverse value commitments and translate them into practical moral action. Observation suggests that people have always occupied complex moral worlds, and are quite ready to explore the issues, tensions and conflicts which arise in their attempts to live a good life.
Attempts to constantly move towards the rational determination of universal ethical principles therefore rest on Enlightenment assumptions about the unlimited power of procedural reason and an associated conception of human nature as rational, uniform and socially transcendent. These assumptions have given rise to a much truncated view of the moral life and a strong anti-pluralist bias in modern moral philosophy. By contrast, the account of practical reasoning I am advocating affirms the fullness and complexity of 'the good life for man' and facilitates a positive assessment of cultural difference. When it is recognised that there are multiple and diverse goods within cultures, moral diversity between cultures need not be threatening. Far from presenting problems I would regard a multicultural society as an ideal context for the exploration of different visions of the good and the development of moral wisdom. "
Ranjit Sondhi ‘Ethnicity, Identity and Change’
In all of this we can have no better starting point than in the life and witness of Revd Dr James Maitland together with his wife, Elizabeth. Just like Malvolio's 'greatness' some are born ecumenical, some achieve an ecumenical understanding, and some have what is mistakenly called 'ecumenism' thrust upon them. To be truly ecumenical is a gift, a charism, which Jim had in full measure. The ecumenical imperative burned in his bones and was reflected in the openness of his highland eyes and smiling face. Yet, like many of us here this evening, he bore in his body, and possibly in his soul, the slings and arrows of outrageous 'ecumenism'. I can see him now at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, almost in tears, as the fathers and brethren, as they were called in those days, asked the inevitable questions as to just how much the Livingston experiment was costing the Church of Scotland. The real answer was probably ' not enough ' just as it is today and by that I don't just mean money. As Ian Fraser once wrote in a prayer:
Lord God,
whose Son was content to die
to bring new life ,
have mercy on your church
which will do anything you ask,
anything at all,
except die
and be reborn.
The sheer integrity of Jim's identification with the poor, the forgotten and the despised under-girded his ecumenical commitment. (1) For him the Report from the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches held at Amsterdam was inspirational and fundamental.
' We have to learn afresh together to speak boldly in Christ's name both to those in power and to the people, to oppose terror, cruelty and race discrimination, to stand by the outcast, the prisoner and the refugee. We have to make of the Church in every place a voice for those who have no voice and a home where everyone will be at home.'
Commenting on this Jim said: ' These tremendous words from the first World Council Assembly show so clearly that the ecumenical movement is not just concerned with unity in a narrow, churchly sense, but with unity amongst all people. The imperative for Christian reconciliation lies at the heart of a Gospel for the whole world, a Gospel that a divided Church can only distort, corrupt and make ineffective.' (2) He quotes St Paul in
1 Corinthians 1:10 (NIV)
' I appeal to you brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.'
He then goes on to say: ' Look at any Scottish town or city. It is not just that divisions are palpably evident in almost every other street, but that ministers and priests, people and their leaders, seem to find these divisions perfectly acceptable and in no sense a flagrant contradiction of the heart and soul of our faith, a denial of Christ and a blockage to the Spirit's working. ' (3) Going further he spoke of ' that aggressive negativity said to be Scotland's worst characteristic and never very far from the surface in great areas of Protestant Church life. ' He also spoke of ' Ecumenism on the cheap which like cheap grace itself is an enemy of the Gospel. ' (4)
These are strong words but when will we see his like again ? You don't hear that kind of language much these days since we have been seduced by the sedative of 'unity and diversity '. Even Edinburgh 1910, which meant so much to Jim and to many others, seems, in the modern parlance, to have been dumbed down. For Jim, the Sermon on the Mound was not that of Margaret Thatcher but of Bishop Azariah of Dornakal to the effect that ' only a united Church can be a missionary Church and only a united Church can be a Christian Church. ' (5) He quotes with approval Jeanne Hendrickse of South Africa who says:
Don't get involved with unity, don't get involved with growing together into unity unless your bones, heart, soul, your whole being cry out for unity..................
Don't get involved, unless your whole being cries with Christ for justice, love, humanness, unity and peace.
BUT if you dare, dare to get involved. (5)
At the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) it was said that when we die we will not be asked if we have achieved unity, but if we have worked, prayed and suffered for unity. Jim certainly did all of that and was the kind of person, who with great integrity, dared to get involved.
Integration and Identity
The word integrity, or, at least, integration, is everywhere these days as is the word identity. On the main news on 4th April the newsreader asked: ' Is integration the key to a shining, happier Britain ? ' In the Observer on 11th April we read that the first identity cards seen in Britain since the Second World War will be issued from March 2007. In the same paper in relation to the multiculturalism debate sparked off by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, who expressed the view that ' multiculturalism suggests separateness ', Sir Gulam Noon, a businessman, said; ' The second generation Asian immigrants are British and by the same token they are Muslims and Hindus as well. They have a dual identity. ' Likewise Zamila Bunglawala, a policy analyst, said: ' There is no part of me that does not feel British and no part that does not feel Muslim. This combined identity is possible because I live in an inclusive society. ' Charles Bailey, a record producer, said:
' What we should be talking about is integration. ' Fiona MacTaggart, Minister for race equality and community policy said: ' The debate must now be about how positive integration can ensure no one is left behind. ' Christine Yau, Chair of Soho's Chinatown community centre said: ' If you leave your own country you have to be prepared to integrate.'
Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society said: ' British history is one of integrating different groups ' and Tariq Modood, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol said: ' Multiculturalism versus Britishness is a phoney war. ... Even in Britain members of ethnic minorities feel more British than do the Scots. ' So there !
On Radio 4 Alan Duncan spoke of people having a tap root of national identity and also their own culture and that what we needed was not just tolerance but acceptance. Trevor Phillips, himself, asserted that there should be a core of Britishness and said that Jews and Catholics are both integrated but with an identity of their own. The Baptist minister, Roy Jenkins, speaking on Thought for the Day, with reference to our current fascination with personal genealogies said that some people feel their whole identity is bound up with discovering where they came from. He referred to the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke both of which identify his royal claim as son of David. In passing we can note, what we all know, that whilst the Jewish writer of Matthew's Gospel traces Jesus' identity back to Abraham, Luke, the Gentile, identifies Jesus with Adam.(Matthew 1:1ff Luke 3:23ff) The particularity of Jesus' group identity as a Jew is understood by Luke within the wider frame of reference of his humanity. Similarly with regard to the Runnymede Report on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain Professor Bhikhu Parekh points out that it nowhere advocates group rights, or even uses the term, but devotes a chapter to human rights and expects them to provide the framework within which to negotiate cultural differences. He goes on to say that the report argues that British society is made up of both individuals and cultural, civic, religious and other communities and needs to respect both individuals and their constantly redefined cultural identities. It unambiguously rejects segregationist multiculturalism and advocates open and interactive multiculturalism. (6)
Recent research by Dr Sandy Wolfson, a sports psychologist at Northumbria University, as to why football fans stay loyal, suggested that social identity was a fundamental and powerful psychological force. She said: ' What we found was that social identity and identifying yourself as a member of the group is far more important than the outcome of your team. In fact it gets to the point where abandoning your team is an impossibility, because you see the team as part of your identity. ' She said that football was about the only area in life where it was still politically correct to be outspoken about one's dislike for "outsiders". She also said: ' Probably it is true that being a member of an in-group will help you see other groups as potential targets. ' (7) Hence the notice which I saw on the Stranraer to Belfast ferry the other day banning sectarian songs and banners. Is it surprising that when British people were asked recently: ' Who is more influential in your life, David Beckham or God ? ' 37% said: ' David Beckham '.
As I wrote these words David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, was on the news speaking about biometric ID cards, telling us that, within three years, state of the art technology would produce a database which using our eyes, face and fingers would record each person's unique identity. He said: ' This is about true identity being known and being traceable. ' and went on to say that because of our tolerance Britain, which unlike France did not ban the wearing of the hijab and other symbols, was an icon of hope.(8) In the same news programme we heard that the peace process had broken down in Sri Lanka because the majority community feared a loss of their Buddhist identity, that the reunification of Cyprus had been similarly pre-empted as the Greek population feared the loss of their Orthodox identity and that 70% of British Muslims felt that they were not an integral part of Britain. Likewise we are told that Bretons in Brittany, having spent years maintaining their identity over against the rest of France, find that it is now being infiltrated by 'Brits' who buy up property, don't learn French, stay together, and eat baked beans and fish and chips.
Three Different Contexts
Mainland Britain
Against this background we will now explore some approaches to identity and integration before going on to consider how they relate to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in which we say we believe when we repeat the words of the Nicene Creed. First let us turn to Ranjit Sondhi, Senior Lecturer at Westhill College in Birmingham, Governor of the BBC and a former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality. In a lecture on 'Ethnicity, Identity and Change: new challenges for social policy ' (9) he illustrates the difficulties surrounding the question of limits to pluralism and diversity.
' On the question of ethnic distinctiveness it is interesting to note....the All Different, All Equal campaign, a title which, in principle, neatly caught the paradox between the equally legitimate demands of both unity and diversity. I say, in principle because in practice, at least in Britain, the campaign amounted to no more than sanctioning yet another round of multi-cultural jamborees that had little to do with the dismantling of racist practices and beliefs. As someone wryly commented, the All Different, All Equal campaign transformed all too easily into an All Different, All Different campaign.
...... We clearly have to find answers to some fundamental questions.....What are the common patterns and theoretical possibilities of coexistence ? Are there limits to pluralism and diversity ? In the same soil, can a thousand ethnic flowers bloom ? '
In a delightful illustration he tells the story of a precocious young Muslim schoolgirl from Bradford whose parents had migrated from the district of Mirpur in Pakistan. When asked to define her identity she answered:
' When I am in the school playground with my white English friends, I am black. When an Afro-Caribbean girl joins our group, I become an Asian. When another Asian girl comes in, I think of myself as Pakistani Muslim. When a Pakistani friend joins us, I become a Mirpuri. And when another Mirpuri girl turns up, I become a Bradford school girl again. '
Sondhi comments: ' The moral of that story is that nobody identifies with the same group, or in opposition to the same set of others, all the time. Everybody has more than one answer to the question " Who am I ? " .... These identities are stored within the individual and are not always visible to the observer, and it is likely that the individual will not always be conscious of shifting from one identity to another. ' Just like my own grand-daughter, aged six, who is herself half Bosnian, a quarter English and a quarter Scottish and when she moved recently from Yorkshire to Glasgow was asked by her mother if the other children at her school spoke funnily and, after a moment's thought, she replied: ' No, I do. ' In this whole business of identity and integration perhaps it takes a little child to lead them.
India and Hindutva
If we think these issues of multiculturalism, ethnicity and religion are the flavour of the month here in the United Kingdom they are as nothing to the ferment taking place in the Indian sub-continent and especially in India itself. As in Britain and elsewhere there are three major socio-political influences which are known in India as swadeshi (national interests) videshi (foreign investment and expertise) and visweshi (globalisation for trade and prosperity). As we await the final result of the recent elections we know that issues of identity and integration are at the heart of Indian politics. Of particular relevance are the yet to be published papers presented on the subject of 'Nationalism and Hindutva: A Christian Response' presented at the 10th Centre for Mission Studies Consultation of the Union Biblical Seminary Pune in mid January this year. Whilst this is a huge subject in itself, a few insights from the Consultation may highlight issues which are also relevant to our present purpose.
For three thousand years India has evolved as a heterogeneous society practising pluralism and maintaining the fundamental principle of ' unity in diversity '. For many centuries up until 1947 either the Mughals or the British ruled the country whose people were 85% Hindu. After independence Pandit Jawarhal Nehru promoted secularism as over against communalism. In 1961 in Srinagar he declared:
' As soon as you speak of Hindu, Sikh or Muslim, you do not speak for India. Each person has to ask himself the question: what do I want to make of India, one country, one nation or 10, 20, 25 nations, a fragmented and divided nation without any strength or endurance ready to break to pieces at the slightest shock. ...... Fissaparious tendencies, whether they belong to Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians or others are very dangerous...belonging to petty and backward minds. No one who understands the spirit of the times can think in terms of communalism. '
Mahatma Gandhi put it this way:
' If I were a dictator religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion, I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everyone's personal concern. '
However all this has now changed dramatically. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has developed the secular swadeshi or nationalist tradition into a Hindu cultural nationalism embracing the ideology of Hindutva which means the identification of Indians with Hindus originally promoted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. In the early 1950s the RSS launched its own political party known as the Jana Sangh which later emerged as the BJP. Thus India's heterogeneous society is now being homogenised to the extent that ' conversion ', for example, is seen not only as a change in religion but as a change in nationality and a denial of what it means to be Indian. Hence the anti-conversion legislation being introduced in various states. Is it any wonder that the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has stated that to define Indian identity as Hindu is to undermine the tradition of heterodoxy ? (10)
Moreover the issues close to Jim Maitland's heart of the poor, the forgotten and the despised are thrown into sharp relief by what Dr L. Stanislaus describes as ' Hindutva's concept of a national 'manufactured' culture built around upper caste male norms. ' It offers what he calls
' an oppressive nationalism ' which offers little or no room for other identities. It asserts only Hindu identity thus negating other identities such as those of tribal people.(11) Bizay Sonkar Shastri, chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes claims that tribals do not have any separate identity but are part of the Hindu fold. He said:
' There should be no discussion on this issue. How can they be different ? Hindus and tribals worship almost the same gods. ' (12) With respect to the poor, the forgotten and the despised Felix Wilfred asserts the importance of pluralism when he says: ' I think that pluralism in Asia is ultimately a question of justice. Denial of pluralism kills justice before destroying true unity. It is by affirming their "difference" that the poor have a chance to reclaim their very selves. Pluralism is, thus, the defence as well as the hope of the poor against the powerful who stand for an agenda of pseudo-unity. In this scenario, the hope-giving mission the Churches could play is to be active agents of pluralism. ' (13)
Hindutva particularly targets Muslims, Christians and Communists and according to Swami Agnivesh it is ' essentially religious terrorism. Its language and strategies belong to the world of terrorism, not religion or spirituality. Bullying helpless people, murdering innocent women and children, intimidating dissent, committing rape, arson and loot are what we expect from terrorists, not from religious people. ' (14) Interestingly enough, as Jesusdas M. Athyal points out, referring to Vijay Prashad's book ' Namaste Sharon: Hindutva and Sharonism under US Hegemony ' - ' In September 2003, when Ariel Sharon became the first Israeli Prime Minister to step on Indian soil, Hindutva and Sharonism embraced each other, and these two Asian right-wing ideologies hoped to form some sort of entente against "Islamic terrorism" with the blessing of George W. Bush's "evangelical imperialism". (15,16) Athyal sees an emerging nexus between politics and religious fundamentalism the world over and says: ' The debate on religion and politics needs to be placed within the context of the resurgence of identities based on ethnic and parochial religious allegiance the world over, in a context where the term 'identity' is increasingly used as a tool for division, not a unifying principle. As a social commentator located the problem in the Indian context: "... we are moving towards an era of recognition of Hindu-Muslim differences rather than pursuing their chimerical commonalities. We are moving towards a multi-culturalism, with majority and minority cultures, rather than the emergence of a 'composite culture' ."(17) '. Athyal goes on to point out that the decline of religion forecast in Harvey Cox's ' The Secular City ' of 1965, whereby all the citizens of a country would evolve a common identity, has not happened and that Cox himself revised his theory in the 1980's when he wrote in ' Religion in the Secular City ' that rather than an era of rampant secularisation and religious decline, it appears to be more of an era of religious revival and the return of the sacred. (18)
A Voice from Ireland
To come nearer to home, to a lecture given here in New College, by John Dunlop in 1998 relating to reconciliation in Ireland in which he strongly supports the views of the Croatian Miroslav Volf who maintains that issues of ' identity and otherness ' have to be placed at the core of theological reflection. (19) With reference to positive and negative identity Dunlop says:
' In a divided society, there is a tendency for people to define themselves over against the people from whom they are alienated. For example, the religious life of the protestant part of Belfast is deeply fractured between different denominations and a myriad of mission halls, all of them protestant. Many are more aware of who they are not, than of who they are. The energy which drives some people on, in both religious and political communities, and the glue which holds them together, has a large negative element to it. '
Whilst catholics fear the lambeg drums and annual marches of the Loyal Orders, the average protestant, rather like Indian Christians in the face of Hindutva, fears an imagined overpowering, imperialistic, monolithic catholicism. To quote Dunlop again: ' Such negative definitions of selfhood and identity, whether religious or political or social, cannot reinforce concepts of personal or community significance or of self worth. ' Again, with resonances relating to the poor, the forgotten and the despised, and rather like Felix Wilfred, Dunlop quotes Daniel Bell from Patrick Moynihan's book ' Pandaemonium ' :
' The upsurge of ethnicity is a cultural gain in that it allows individuals whose identities have been submerged, or whose status have been denigrated, to assert a sense of pride in what they regard as their own. In equal terms it is a means for disadvantaged groups to claim rights and privileges which the existing power structures have denied them. ' (20)
However Dunlop goes on to point out that it is possible for devotion to Nationalism or Ethnicity to unleash untold troubles on societies unless they are themselves accommodated within wider concerns. He then goes on to examine the accommodation of difference and asks the question as to whether particularity can be accommodated without separation. Quoting Jurgen Moltmann he helpfully points us in the direction of the Trinity:
'... the Trinity corresponds to a community in which people are defined in their relations with one another and in their significance for one another, not in opposition to one another in terms of power and possession.... The trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord .... I am free and feel myself to be truly free when I am respected and recognised by others and when I, for my part, respect and recognise them.... Then the other person is no longer the limitation of my freedom; (s)he is an expansion of it. ' (20)
He also reminds us that the World Alliance of Reformed Churches General Council, meeting in Debrecen in 1997, called on member churches to make an affirmation, modelled on the Barmen Declaration of 1934, as part of their worship services in situations of conflict, including the words:
' There is neither Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.' (Galatians 3:28)
All the churches of Jesus Christ, scattered in diverse cultures, have been redeemed for God by the blood of the Lamb to form one multi-cultural community of faith. What binds Christians together as brothers and sisters is more significant than what may distinguish them or separate them from each other.
We reject as false the doctrine that allegiance to nation or culture should be placed above the allegiance to God and to the vision of God's new redeemed community. '
He further quotes Paraic Reamonn, Communications Secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, writing about ' Ethnicity and Christian Faith ' who maintains that:
' We must remember that our belonging in Christ precludes Reformed Churches from identifying themselves with any single ethnic culture, or suggesting that members of one ethnic group must fully assimilate themselves into another if they are to be considered Reformed.
Our primary and ultimate identity is in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 3:27).... Belonging in Christ transcends all ethnic differences. We are not ethnic Christians, but "Christian ethnics" who are in communion with one another in Christ across ethnic barriers. We are called to resist the temptation to succumb to political, social or economic pressures which tear down rather than build up human and Christian community.' (Romans 12:2) (22)
One holy, catholic and apostolic Church
Thus it is clear that questions of integration and identity are everywhere and we haven't even mentioned the European Union, with the integration of its 10 new members involving 75 million people with their variety of identities, bringing in a much stronger Roman Catholic element to challenge the secularists, who, like Alastair Campbell, don't do God and who, understandably, when they look at the churches, not to mention Hindutva and Islam, don't want God to do them ! The arguments about unity in Europe are more or less exactly paralleled by the arguments about church unity, the main difference being that the politicians and their bureaucrats are doing something tangible about it whilst the churches and their bureaucrats are not. But what can we do, those of us who claim that our primary and ultimate identity is in Jesus Christ, who talk perhaps too glibly of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and who sit too comfortably on Sundays as we hear the mighty proclamation that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female but that we are all one in Christ Jesus ? When we think global we sometimes see things with great clarity but to act local is another matter. In India they refer to it as 'glocalisation'. It resonates with our understanding of the universal Church being fully manifested in the local eucharistic community and with Lesslie Newbigin's reference to the local congregation as the true hermeneutic of the Gospel. (23) All this is fine talk but as Spurgeon is supposed to have said:
To dwell above with those we love
Ah, that indeed is glory.
To dwell below with those we know
Is quite another story.
And so it so often seems that we take refuge in a perverse understanding of the extremely important concept of unity and diversity and live more in the not yet than in the now, consoling our consciences with the conventional wisdom that the mills of God grind slowly, that sectarianism in Scotland has been around for a long time and that in any case we cannot solve all the world's problems never mind those of the Church. But in the midst of this we are challenged by the people of Livingston and their Team Members such as Jim Maitland and Brian Hardy, Max Cruickshank and John Byrne, Hamish Smith and Ross McLaren, Joan Ryeland and Norman McCallum, John Macleod and John Robinson and a whole host of others who have followed in their footsteps, including those who are there today, challenging us to think again as to the meaning of integrity and identity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
The root meaning of integrity derives from two Latin words which literally mean 'untouched' (24) and an integer is a whole number as distinguished from a fraction. To integrate means to make whole or to renew, and integrity literally means entireness, wholeness, the unimpaired or unadulterated state of anything, uprightness, honesty, purity and rectitude. It sounds like holiness to me, about righteousness, reminding us of the righteousness of God who when asked by Moses for an ID card and a name replied: 'I am who I am. Tell the people that I am has sent you to them.' It is a reminder also of the righteous integrity of one crying in the wilderness: ' Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ' and of the question put by Jesus to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi: ' Who do people say that I am ? ' In other words: ' What is my identity ? ' or as Ranjit Sondhi put it ' Who am I ? ' The answer will soon be in a biometric ID card which as the Home Secretary has said, is about true identity being known and being traceable. But then identity actually means the state of being the same deriving from the Latin idem and identical means the very same. In fact identity means the sameness of a thing within itself, its coherence, its lack of division or, in other words, its integrity. When we say that a person, or a church, or a nation has integrity surely this is what we mean. I am who I am. Unlike the Gerasene demoniac who, when asked for his identity, replied; ' My name is Legion, for we are many.' but who was later found clothed and in his right mind. (Mark 5:9,15) Might not this apply to the Christian Church with its many divisions, 25,000 according to a recent report?
In spite of Edinburgh 1910 we simply have to hold up our hands and say: ' My name is Legion, for we are many. ' Even the Orthodox are divided and it is perhaps only the Roman Catholics with over one billion members world-wide who can lay claim to unity. From the time of Pope John XXIII onwards and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council's Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio it was recognised by Rome that the movement for the restoration of unity among all Christians is ' fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit ' and it
' commends ecumenical work to Bishops everywhere. ' (25) More recently Pope John Paul II in the Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint says: ' It is absolutely clear that the movement for promoting Christian unity is not just some sort of "appendix" which is added to the churches traditional activity. Rather, ecumenism is an organic part of her life and work, and consequently must pervade all that she is and does. ' (26) Would that this was actually happening, in all our churches. A divided church, lacks both integrity and identity and is not normal. It is not how it was meant to be and as Jim Maitland said it is a flagrant contradiction of the Gospel, a denial of Christ and a blockage to the Spirit's working. Seeking refuge in diversity is a cop-out, if it means carrying on having separate churches. Of course there will be diversity but within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in which Archbishop William Temple is supposed to have said he believed but regretted that it nowhere existed. For diversity to have integrity simply cannot mean endless separation. Nor does it mean the dreaded uniformity, but it does mean the sameness of a coherent identity in the love of God who is in Christ reconciling not just the Church but the world and especially the poor, the forgotten and the despised. It means the riches of each fragmented Christian tradition being brought together again, being integrated, re-integrated, as an offering in reconciliation to God. It means making the Church in every place a voice for those who have no voice and a home where everyone will be at home. But a home in which ' a thousand flowers may bloom ' and in which we may ' welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed us, for the glory of God '. (Romans 15:7) This, of course, is what Livingston and other Local Ecumenical Partnerships are all about, places in which their integrity is such that there is not just toleration but acceptance. These are places in which we find organic unity , (another dreaded word these days) which as the Pope clearly understands does not mean ecclesiastical joinery, power without glory and all of that, but glory without power which grows organically at the grass-roots where people meet regularly face to face in Local Ecumenical Partnerships, as well as in great gatherings such as Edinburgh 1910, the Scottish Ecumenical Assembly, and even, believe it or not, in church offices and theological dialogues.
It was Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles, who said in 1926: ' In order to unite with one another we must love one another; in order to love one another we must know one another; in order to know one another we must go and meet one another.' (27) As Ecumenical Moderator in Milton Keynes I had the privilege of doing precisely that day in and day out, of sharing in pastoral care, in teaching, in worship, in mission with Christian people, and other ministers who were paid to work full-time, from the Catholic, Reformed, Methodist, Anglican, Salvation Army, Pentecostal, Independent, Quaker, Orthodox and Baptist churches not to mention people of other faiths. Like St Paul I became all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9:22) exercising a personal episcope within a communal and collegial nexus. Not only that, with the encouragement of the Catholics and others, the Baptists, Anglicans, Reformed and Methodists united their Synod, District and Circuit into a single body. It can happen. It is happening and had the ' Scottish Church Initiative for Union ' (SCIFU) proposals been put into practice it might have been possible for something similar to be happening here also. Surely if we take St Paul seriously when he talks about ' a new creation ' (2 Corinthians 5:17) the old must pass away and the new must come. It follows that if we're going to remember Edinburgh 1910 in a fitting and meaningful way in six years time, it needs to be more than one of Ranjit Sondhi's 'multicultural jamborees' with lots of theological papers and the like, but we must do something about dismantling our 'All Different, All Different' identities and entering into the discovery that in fact we are all equal, at least in our humanity, as well as having Abraham as our father and Sarah who bore us (Isaiah 51:2) , not to mention a man called Jesus who, on the night on which he was betrayed, prayed that we might be perfectly one so that the world might believe that real integrity was actually possible.
If Moltmann is right that the trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord, can we not also be set free, at least at the local level of neighbouring churches in LEP's, to take the risk of becoming each other's servants, of making ourselves of no reputation, as Jesus did, and of serving our local communities together in such a way that we can fulfil the hopes of Cardinal Hume and others as we move along the ' Ecumenical Scale of C ' from Confrontation to Coexistence to Cooperation to Commitment and to Communion. (28) Then we might proclaim to the world around us, with integrity, our common Trinitarian identity when we sing St Patrick's Breastplate. ' I bind unto myself today the strong Name of the Trinity '. Or are we to remain like the football fans for whom our perceived identity becomes more important than the outcome of our team, in our case in mission and service in the world ? In any case, if, as both the Pope and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches General Council agree, that what unites us is far more important than what divides us, (29) what is to prevent us, as Christians, from having more than one identity, either in uniate churches, as suggested by Professor John Macquarrie (30) or by doing what many Christians do and moving freely from one denomination to another ? Reflecting on what we learn from India we may have to ask yet again how far the Church is like Hindutva in so far as it is built around upper middle class male norms which deny the legitimate aspirations of so-called ordinary local people and especially women and ' the poor, the forgotten and the despised.' Also, echoing the thoughts of Pandit Nehru, we might say: ' As soon as you speak of Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or Pentecostal, not to mention Presbyterian, Methodist or Anglican, you do not speak for Jesus. Each person has to ask her(him)self: What do I want to make of Jesus ? One body, one Church or 10, 20, 25 or 25,000 churches ?
These are serious questions, which both our integrity and our credibility demand we act upon, not tomorrow but today, so that in 2010 the Sermon on the Mound will be preached not only from our lips but in our lives and in the life of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in Scotland and far beyond, believing, as we do, that with God all things are possible.
And so with James Maitland, with Duncan McClements, with Bishop Azariah, with Cardinal Mercier, with Lesslie Newbigin, with Cardinal Hume, with Archie Craig, with Derek Worlock, with Derek Palmer, with David Goldie, with George MacLeod and so many others, who have gone on before us, we can be inspired by the Spirit of Unity and of Peace, the Holy Spirit, to pray for the ecumenical movement in the words of a prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake:
'O Lord God, when thou givest to thy servants
to endeavour any great matter, grant us to know
that it is not the beginning but the continuing of the same,
until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth true glory. '
Murdoch MacKenzie
6th May 2004
Centre for Theology and Public Issues
School of Divinity
The University of Edinburgh
New College
Mound Place
Edinburgh EH1 2LX
References
(1) Maitland, James New Beginnings pg 7 Saint Andrew Press 1998
(2) ibid pg 9
(3) ibid pg 120
(4) ibid pg 8
(5) ibid pg 137 Ecumenical Review, vol.31 no.1, 1979
(6) Lord Parekh Letter to The Guardian 16.04.04
(7) Press Association Report The Guardian 14.04.04
(8) Blunkett, David Interview on Radio 4 26.04.04
(9) Sondhi, Ranjit Ethicity, Identity and Change: new challenges for social policy. The EDI Framework Northern Ireland Seminars 2001
(10) Sen, Amartya The Times of India 03.03.01
(11) Stanislaus, Dr L, SVD A Christian Response to Hindutva - in Mark Laing (ed.) Nationalism and Hindutva: A Christian Response. Papers from 10th CMS Consultation, (Delhi: CMS/ISPCK, to be published in 2004)
(12) Shastri, B Sonkar The Times of India 26.03.02 quoted by Stanislaus
(13) Wilfred,Felix Nationalism in a New Avatar and Challenges to Christianity Vaiharai, vol 6. Nos. 3+4 (2001) pg 104 quoted by Stanislaus
(14) Swami Agnivesh The Indian Express 19.08.03 quoted by Stanislaus
(15) Athyal Jesusdas M The Return of the Sacred - in Mark Laing (ed.) Nationalism and Hindutva: A Christian Response. Papers from 10th CMS Consultation, (Delhi: CMS/ISPCK, to be published in 2004)
(16) Prashad, Vijay Namaste Sharon: Hindutva and Sharonism under US Hegemony (Leftword Publications, New Delhi, 2003) quoted by Athyal
(17) Koshy, Ninan Religion and Politics: The Debate at the End of the Century (Ecumenical Christian Centre Bangalore 1995) 8-9 quoted by Athyal
(18) Athyal, Jesudas M The Return of the Sacred
(19) Dunlop, John The Churches Move - From Containment to Reconciliation? "A Turning Point in Ireland and in Scotland " The Challenge to the Churches and Theology. The Centre for Theology and Public Issues, New College, The University of Edinburgh 1998 Address by Very Rev John Dunlop, Minister of Rosemary Presbyterian Church, Belfast.
(20) Moynihan, D.P Pandaemonium, Ethicity in International Politics OUP 1993
(21) Moltmann, J The Trinity and the Kingdom of God SCM 1981 quoted by Dunlop
(22) Reamonn, Paraic UP DATE: WARC volume 5 number 4
(23) Newbigin JEL The Gospel in a Pluralist Society pg 222ff (SPCK London 1989)
(24) Integrity from Latin 'in' - 'not' and 'tag' - root of 'tango' - 'to touch'
(25) Unitatis Redintegratio 1
(26) Ut Unum Sint Section 20
(27) Cardinal Mercier Called To Be One pg 31 CTE (Publications) 1996
(28) Cardinal Basil Hume Swanwick Conference September 3 1987 'First, I hope that our Roman Catholic delegates at this Conference will recommend to members of our Church that we move now quite deliberately from a situation of co-operation to one of commitment to each other.... We should have in view a moving, in God's time, to full communion, or communion that is both visible and organic.... In a full "communion" we recognise, of course, that there will not be uniformity but legitimate diversity. It is not often stressed sufficiently that even within the Roman Catholic Church there is considerable diversity. '
(29) Debrecen Declaration 1997 World Alliance of Reformed Churches
(29) Tertio Millennio Adveniente The Jubilee of the Year 2000 Section 16. His Holiness Pope John Paul II says: ' Amongst the most fervent petitions which the Church makes to the Lord during this important time, as the eve of the new millennium approaches, is that unity among all Christians of the various confessions will increase until they reach full communion. I pray that the Jubilee will be a promising opportunity for fruitful co-operation in the many areas which unite us; these are unquestionably more numerous than those which divide us. '
(30) Macquarrie, John Christian Unity and Christian Diversity SCM Press Ltd 1975 pg 44, 53, 54. On pg 54 Macquarrie draws attention to the celebrated phrase of Malines, "united not absorbed".
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OR HUMAN LIVES
Sondhi makes the following plea for Pragmatic Reasoning: " The question of pluralism does not sit easily with the children of the Enlightenment. The reason why some might find such a debate about diversity strangely disconcerting or even unacceptable is because one of the consequences of the attempt to define values in the Western world by rational procedures has been to drastically reduce the scope of moral reflection. Since the Enlightenment, moral philosophers have ceased to be interested in the eclectic range of values and goods which actually shape human lives, concentrating instead on the quest for universal principles of moral obligation. You might agree that this philosophical tunnel-vision has left the language of morality in a 'state of grave disorder' which in turn has tended to impede the emergence of genuinely multicultural societies. By emphasising the moral and ontological primacy of similarity among human beings, and privileging commonality over difference, modern moral philosophy has precluded any positive assessment of cultural plurality. The notion that there might be goods internal to other cultures, or ideals specific to particular communities, is never seriously entertained.
Perhaps we need to resurrect the Aristotelian concept of practical reasoning and assert that moral wisdom consists in the capacity to deliberate on multiple and diverse value commitments and translate them into practical moral action. Observation suggests that people have always occupied complex moral worlds, and are quite ready to explore the issues, tensions and conflicts which arise in their attempts to live a good life.
Attempts to constantly move towards the rational determination of universal ethical principles therefore rest on Enlightenment assumptions about the unlimited power of procedural reason and an associated conception of human nature as rational, uniform and socially transcendent. These assumptions have given rise to a much truncated view of the moral life and a strong anti-pluralist bias in modern moral philosophy. By contrast, the account of practical reasoning I am advocating affirms the fullness and complexity of 'the good life for man' and facilitates a positive assessment of cultural difference. When it is recognised that there are multiple and diverse goods within cultures, moral diversity between cultures need not be threatening. Far from presenting problems I would regard a multicultural society as an ideal context for the exploration of different visions of the good and the development of moral wisdom. "
Ranjit Sondhi ‘Ethnicity, Identity and Change’