Scottish Catholic Observer

There has been much said recently about Christianity being persecuted in today’s society. It conjures up images of Christians being thrown to the lions, being ripped apart and devoured. I have not noticed any of that going on, but that may be due to a shortage of lions. You have to be careful about how you treat animals these days and any suggestion that you put them in any danger would bring down all sorts of trouble on your head.

No, we may not be too welcome in society today but it has not come to executing us, yet. If it did come to the point of being prosecuted for being a Christian the problem arises of finding enough proof to convict. I wonder if they could prove, from my behaviour, that I am a Christian? After all, we should be easy to spot. If we are living true Christian lives we should stand out from the crowd.

Why should Christians feel that they are being attacked, if not persecuted? Are they not model citizens, obeying the law and going around doing good? Well, it depends on your point of view.

Christians are, by definition, followers of Christ, continuing what He started. So, what is it that Jesus did? He certainly stood out from the crowd. He was a Jew and lived the life of a Jew, going to the Synagogue and reading the Torah. Of course He had a higher calling and went beyond the ordinary. He went around questioning authority. He called some prominent holy men terrible names.

In St Luke’s Gospel He tells His followers: “Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on a household of five will be divided: three against two and two against three; the father divided against the son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Jesus came to bring about revolution. He brought a moral revolution, not a civil revolution. That is a much more dangerous kind. You can put down a revolution by force but you cannot stop the kind of moral revolution Jesus started. He was dangerous because He wanted to open people’s eyes to the truth. If you encourage people to consider what is true you may come into conflict with authority. You are encouraging people to question what they are told.

When being questioned by Pilate, Jesus said: “I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” Pilate’s response was “Truth, what is that?” Even today we find that those who question the truth of what we are told by those in authority are regarded as trouble-makers.

We have seen numerous examples of those in authority reacting against people who want to tell the truth. Scandals in the health service have prompted ‘whistle blowers’ to raise safety issues, only to find that they lose their job and have ‘gagging orders’ put on them. The truth seems to be too dangerous sometimes. The website, Wikileaks has been pursued for exposing the truth about what governments are really doing. Julian Assange, the Australian editor of the website is being pursued by the US Government and is currently in the Ecuadorean embassy in London where he has been granted asylum. The US soldier, Bradley Manning is in jail in in his country for leaking the truth about what US troops were doing in Iraq. He could end up spending the rest of his life in prison for revealing the truth.

It should come as no surprise to Christians, then, that they are not the most popular people. As followers of Christ we, rightly, question what our society believes. We feel that it is our duty to point out where our laws and social norms contradict the teachings of Jesus. The Church exists to promote the Kingdom of God, not the laws of the land.

I was recently told by a relative that it was okay to have religious beliefs but they cannot override the laws of the land. Now, I can’t believe that a bad law should be respected. We have examples from history of those who have opposed laws they believed to be wrong. Sir Thomas Moore on April 13, 1534 refused to take an oath of allegiance to a law declaring supremacy of the Crown over the Papacy. He was later found guilty of treason and executed.

I don’t think there is any danger of any of us being executed for religious belief in Britain today. That is not the case everywhere. Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in March 1980 in El Salvador. His offence was to speak out in defence of the poor. He refused to be silent in the face of the government’s abuses of human rights and called upon soldiers, as Christians to obey the laws of God before those of man.

So we are not being persecuted. We may be out of favour but why should that bother us? Perhaps we should be bothered by not facing persecution. If we are not seen to be a force for bringing about change in our country and in the world maybe we are doing something wrong. Maybe we are not speaking out loudly enough. Perhaps we should be more active in the daily running of our country.

I wonder how many members of Parliament, Westminster or Holyrood, consider how many votes they could lose by voting in ways that offend our beliefs? If Christians lived up to their beliefs and put their Faith to the fore we could become a real force for good in our world. We could become less popular but that is what happens when you stand up for what is right.

Putting my own Faith to the fore; when you are reading this I shall be in the final stages of preparation for my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Next week I’ll be off through France to the Spanish border and I will attempt to walk the 490 odd miles to the shrine of St James. I had intended to make greater preparations and had great plans for longer and more frequent walks but normal daily life got in the way.

Next week I’ll leave normal daily life behind and set off to find the silence of the road where I might learn more about myself and my Faith. That silence might make room for me to listen rather than to talk. It might make space for God where I normally just think of me.

I have invited you to join me in the journey of faith that is this series of articles. I can’t ask you to join me on the road, the Camino de Santiago. I will ask you to give a thought and perhaps a wee prayer to help me on my way. I’ll try to keep the Scottish Catholic Observer up to date with my progress whenever I stop so you might hear how I’m doing.

In any case, I will be thinking about the readers and you will be in my prayers at shrines I stop at on the way. I have had plenty of advice about blisters so good wishes are all I need now.

— www.themcgraths.me.uk