My placement continues and yesterday I was once again in the Multi-Faith Chaplaincy at the local university helping them publicise the work of the chaplaincy to new and returning students.
As well as the chaplaincy centre the chaplains also have a permanent table in one of the main university buildings, partly to promote the work of the chaplaincy and partly to allow the different faith groups at the university to promote their own services and events. Yesterday we discovered that all the faith materials has been removed from the table and replaced with a couple of plain pieces of A4 paper that said ‘Student Finance.’ We were assured that this was only temporary and that the faith materials would be replaced.
This take-over of the Multi-Faith table, temporary though it was, seemed to me to be a sad reflection of the attitude of society as a whole towards faith, spirituality and religious experience. There were any other tables that could have been temporarily taken over, but it was the faith table that was chosen. Why? Is it because people of faith are seen as a soft target? Is it because religion is now seen by most people as a bit of an anachronism, as something that should be tolerated because it gives comfort to an eccentric few but that is ultimately not really important?
If it is the former then whoever moved the faith materials is going to shortly discover than people of faith are not a soft target, but are willing to fight their corner and stand up for the importance of their faith.
If it is the latter then that is a sad reflection on our Western Society, a society where the material is seen as real and important and the spiritual is seen as unreal and less important, if not unimportant.
As people of faith, whatever faith, we need to actively try to reverse this trend. We need to be visible as people of faith at all levels of society making a real contribution to the decision making processes, showing to the rest of our society that faith can and does make a real difference not only in individual lives but in society as a whole.
As a Christian I want to see Christian politicians whose political actions and decisions are guided not by loyalty to a political party but out of loyalty to the God who created and redeemed them; the God to whom they owe literally everything. I want to see Christians involved in voluntary organisations like charities, pressure groups and community groups. I want to see Christian scientists demonstrating that faith and science are not enemies but are complimentary. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
I pray for a time when people of faith are not marginalised because having faith will be seen by all as an integral part of what it means to be human.
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