Bishop's letters: June 04 +Graham : Going with our culture or challenging it

For centuries the members of the Church of England have not needed to be out of step with our society. The dominant values have been those with which the average churchgoer was comfortable. But the present situation presents new challenges for Christians.

To put it positively: Christians believe in God and therefore in authority beyond ourselves. We know that we are not self-sufficient as human beings. We know that we cannot sort out the evil in the world by ourselves, as we are so conspicuously trying to do at the moment and, equally conspicuously, failing.

Quite contrary to our present culture, we believe that the way forward is to take God seriously. But to do so is to threaten the pinnacle of fashionable values – choice. The Christian challenge to our culture is well put by Christina Odone, deputy editor of the New Statesman and a Roman Catholic. She writes:

‘For a start, we believe in authority. In an era that prizes individual freedom, individual choice and individual authority, Christians share an unabashed belief in a supreme being whose word is final. The Kingdom of heaven is not a democracy and makes no claim to be one. In the City of God there is no elected mayor, no divine equivalent of Ken Livingstone to reflect the views of angels, archangels, seraphim and cherubim, and judge their competing claims.

Odone realises that this sounds outrageously autocratic and is liable to be scorned. But the root of the challenge is this: God and his authority in his world. His will for us is utterly wise and good, as we Christians say; but he has a will and to him we are all accountable.

The growing desire for euthanasia is one of the first examples she cites. Do we really have the right to die when we wish to? Then there are the issues around the freedom to choose who we have sex with, and then whether or not we will welcome God given life when it is conceived. She hints at the issue of taxation. Why is it that we wish to pay the minimum of our income rather than seek the best possible services for the good of all and the relief of those in poverty? Should we not challenge the sole right to ‘our wishes’ in how we use our income or whether or not to keep a pregnancy? But to raise these challenges, she says, brands us interfering and dictatorial.

Look at magazines like Hello or listen to interviews with celebrities on radio and TV. It seems quite normal to move from one intimate relationship to another. Our present culture smiles at those who are unfaithful or have had many sexual partners. This is sad because it is not for the good of society. Marriage is the God given basis for stable family life and sexual intercourse is its sign and seal. But our government is barely supporting marriage. Everything has become choice and there is no respect for the will of our Heavenly Maker.

It is time for Christians, even Church of England Christians, to be seriously counter-cultural. As Odone points out, secular morality cannot answer the questions: Why should I not cheat? Why should I not sleep with him? The reason, of course, is because our God and Father has revealed that these things are wrong in his sight and not good for us. But to say this is to challenge our culture to the core.

+Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle