Affirmations for Isolations

What we are feeling is Grief. And Grief can be understood and dealt with.

The Truest Christology is the Most Inclusive Christology

I am the chaplain of a high-fee, private, non-denominational boarding and day school. Its student body is broadly multicultural.

Its constitution indicates that our education of students is to be grounded in Christian Values.

One of its stated aims is ‘to encourage the exploration of students' spiritual values and their power to make ethical decisions.’

The two notions taken together appear to be straightforward enough, the sort of ‘motherhood’ statements you’d expect any school to have in its shopfront window. 

But if we look closer at how these align, questions start to emerge.

First: Is it possible to explore one’s spiritual values and make ethical decisions without reference to Christian values? Of course it is. Just ask any Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, or Jew. If you look around, you’ll find a few in SA, and on our campus as well. It is more than likely they’d report a sense of having their own spiritual values, and the ability to make ethical decisions based on them.

On what basis, then, is the supremacy of specifically Christian values merited?

(But we’ll return to that question of Christian supremacy in a moment…)

Second: WHAT Christian values are being assumed here? All of them? Some of them—if some, which and why? Not even Christians agree on what these values are, or which are non-negotiable, hence the 1001 flavours ranging from The Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church to Shakers to 7^th Day Adventists to…(add your own here).

But let’s pick ONE Christian Value that seems to be the most basic and that therefore all who call themselves Christian should agree on. It’s expressed in Galatians 5:14--

^“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

That’s the familiar Golden Rule. But wait, that’s Paul, not Jesus. Maybe it will be safer to go to the source. Jesus had an extra layer to that value, as expressed in Matthew 22:36-40--

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

So, it would appear to the face of it that Jesus requires a certain theism that Paul does not. Or rather, that (for Paul) to love you neighbour as yourself is how you love the Abrahamic God. The distinction here is rather a critical one, for religious freedom would include the freedom to be atheistic. Do we insist our students believe in this God, or at least predicate their education on the assumption of this God? (That is a conversation I would not care to have with, say, Buddhist or Hindu parents.) And if we do not make the insistence or assumption of this God, in what sense are we upholding Christian values? (This is a conversation I would not care to have with, say, Pentacostal or Catholic parents.)

Leaving an insistence on theism to one side, however, let us assume that by ‘a Christian Value’ we mean, as the most sound example, this ethic of the Golden Rule. But in what sense is this a Christian Value? The Golden Rule is in no sense originally Christian. There are expressions of this same ethic that predate Christianity by thousands of years. The Golden Rule is in no sense exclusively Christian. It is universally endorsed by faith and wisdom traditions ranging from the ancient Hindu, Amer-Indian, and Aboriginal traditions, to the current Tenets of the Satanic Temple (“One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.”) At best, it is a human value, also endorsed by Christianity, among many others.

On what basis, then, is the supremacy of specifically Christian values merited in our work as a school? If its core value is neither exclusive nor original, there seems to be no theological basis for its supremacy above others. 

Perhaps Christian values are culturally supreme, in that Australia identifies itself as a Christian nation? This would be fair enough, as we take government money as part of our financing. However, the Australian government has also funded Islamic schools. It has also funded Catholic schools, although technically Catholics recognise the supreme earthly authority of the Holy See. (Let us hope Catholics’ allegiance is never tested by Australia getting into a war with Vatican City… 😉)

The cultural supremacy of Christianity in Australia begs the question: in what sense is Australia a Christian nation? If we mean church-going, Australia is in no sense a Christian nation. According to Professor Hugh Mackay, only 8% of the Australian population attends ANY sort of church service regularly. Such a quantum is the very definition of a niche interest. 

If we mean a stated affiliation, Australia as a Christian nation is at best a 50-50 proposition. According to the 2016 census, while 52% self-identify as some species of Christian, 8% identify as something other than Christian, and 30% self-identify as having ‘no religion’. But since the census question was optional, the remaining 10% did not think the question worth answering. Or rather, that their choice not to disclose anything amounts either to indifference to the question itself, or to a sense that the terms of the question were specious and did not reflect their identity. Either way, it would be safe to add this 10% to 38% non-Christian responses. That leaves a statistical difference of 2%. Most quantitative research considers such a small difference to be within the realm of a margin of error.

The most important fact about the religious identity of the nation is that these numbers have been trending consistently and dramatically for the past two generations: Christianity sharply downward from 88% in 1966, Other religions up from 0.7% in 1966, and No Religion sharply upward from 0.8% in 1966 to the whopping 30% most recently. There is nothing to suggest these trends will not continue at the same steep rate. This means that by 2030, Australia will not even be a 50-50 Christian nation. Christianity is headed, seemingly inexorably, to a minority status. One is left to wonder what will be left by then of the 8% who currently attend any form of regular worship.

This will no doubt distress those who consciously identify as Christians and whose lives are given coherence by its traditions and theology. This distress will be tied up, in part, with a perceived loss of cultural capital, and the power to direct the affairs of the nation and its institutions (including schools) in light of their preferred faith. 

It may be of some comfort to Christians to return to the model of inclusivity and generosity that characterized the person on whose teaching their faith was founded. As Christian theologian Rob Bell puts it:

If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. 

To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the "un" and "non", they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbour, and our neighbour can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. 

As the book of James says, "God shows no favouritism."

Non-denominational schools should show no favouritism either. To move toward a stance of religious pluralism, to include theist and non-theist alike, does not deny Christ. Rather, the widest possible inclusion upholds the very essence of his life and teaching. His crucifixion is the ultimate act of self-effacement in the service of the higher ideal of universal, self-giving love.

In this context, what would chapel and other religious services in such a school look like? They would look something like a church service for people who are broadly spiritual, but who don't identify with a particular faith or denomination. Broadly, they would look like religious humanism, and would be suited to a school setting where we would want to encourage and enable participation in an ongoing exploration of the spiritual side to human nature. It would not tell anyone what doctrines to believe.  Rather than the certainty of answers, we would keep re-engaging with the age-old questions and watching how our (provisional) answers evolve and change as we experience new things and encounter new writings in both the arts and sciences. We would not necessarily throw out the baby of religious language (grace, peace, sacredness) out with the bathwater of exclusivity, but we don't wish to exclude anyone whom that language either triggers, or doesn't help. As the reality of our student body reflects the broad cultural and religious diversity of the nation, chapels would attempt to include people of all cultural backgrounds, religious faiths, spiritual persuasions and world views, as a place to be open to each other and to respect each other.

This could be what we mean by ‘Christian values’.