CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH OR SPOILING FOR A FIGHT?

Should Christian professional associations regard themselves as campaigning groups with definite policies on controversial issues in their professions? Or should they be content to provide an arena in which individual members can discuss issues and reach their own conclusions? And how should we respond to claims that Christians are being persecuted in the workplace today?
GRAHAM HEDGES investigates.

Most readers will know that the Librarians' Christian Fellowship is just one of a number of Christian professional groups which have been established to bring together Christians in their respective professions, provide opportunities for Christian fellowship and co-operation, and consider issues from within a specifically Christian framework. Some of these groups are very small while others – such as the Association of Christian Teachers and the Christian Medical Fellowship – have memberships running into several thousands. Most of the groups originated within, or in close contact with, the Universities' and Colleges' Christian Fellowship, and many are now affiliated to the organisation Transform Work UK (TWUK).
One question that has always interested me during my thirty plus years as Secretary of the Librarians' Christian Fellowship is the extent to which Christian professional groups should see themselves as campaigning groups with definite policies and viewpoints on current issues which they seek to actively promote within their professional spheres. Members of the wider Christian community sometimes expect groups like LCF to take a definite stand on current issues, such as homosexuality or the provision of sexually explicit materials on library shelves. In practice, however, it is often clear that members hold a diversity of views on these issues and would not be happy for the Fellowship to publicly express views that are not held by everyone. One alternative approach, of course, is to see Christian professional groups as providing a forum in which different views are expressed but which leave members free to draw their own conclusions which they can put into practice in their working lives.
With these questions in mind I thought it might be helpful to find out how other Christian professional groups see their role and, perhaps, find a balance between the two alternative approaches mentioned above. To this end, I recently e-mailed some nineteen organisations, most of whom provide contact details on the TWUK web site, and asked them for their views.
I have to say that the response to this exercise has been a little disappointing and that the majority of the groups have still to reply to my questions at the time of writing. This may indicate that the groups are unsure of their role, or it may be that they are so busy campaigning on current issues that they have little time to respond to questionnaires! The present article, then, should be regarded as a “work in progress” rather than as a definitive treatment of the issues involved.
In my e-mail to the various groups I explained that I was hoping to explore the question “Should Christian professional groups see themselves as campaigning groups, with definite viewpoints on controversial issues which arise in their professional spheres and which they actively promote within their professions? Or should they see their role as mainly providing a forum in which their members can debate professional issues, and in which individuals are encouraged to reach their own conclusions?”
I suggested that a number of subsidiary questions arise from this. If groups see themselves primarily as campaigning groups, how do they ascertain that the views they are expressing really reflect the views of their members? And how do they deal with individual members (perhaps a minority) who may dissent from the views of the majority. On the other hand if groups see themselves mainly as arenas for the exchange of views, how do they deal with pressure from some individual members, or members of the wider Christian community, who may want them to take a tougher line on particular issues?
It may be that most groups will see themselves, to some extent, as fulfilling both roles. In that case, I wanted to know how groups decide which issues warrant the expression of an “official view” and which are merely matters for discussion or individual conscience.
I am not sure that the responses received to date have entirely answered these questions, but I have summarised some of the replies below for the interest of LCF readers.
One of the most encouraging responses came from Christopher Jones of the Agricultural Christian Fellowship. In the late 1980s the ACF committee produced a booklet entitled Biblical Signposts for Agricultural Policy, drafted by a member in consultation with a theologian. This was worked over by the committee and sent out as a draft to the membership and other interested parties such as Christian Aid. A day's consultation, open to all members, was held and the booklet re-drafted and published. This has been used since to address the basics of issues in agriculture as they arise.
One of these issues was the growing difficulties and stress that many farming families were experiencing. The ACF joined with the Chaplaincy Centre in the Royal Agriculture Society in establishing the Farm Crisis Network, with help from a similar group in Germany. This network of volunteers has, in the last seventeen or eighteen years, been of assistance to some thousands of people.
Another step that ACF has taken is to form a partnership with the Church Mission Society and the John Ray Initiative (a Christian and scientific environmental study group) to develop the exploration of underlying issues, of which climate change is a very pressing example. The original booklet is now being revised by this partnership.
Paul Darley, Chair of Christians in Engineering, tells me that CiE is a small group and not large enough to support an annual conference. They publish a journal but sometimes find it difficult to find articles especially on topics which are specific to engineering. Comments are invited from members but few received. They are not a campaigning group but members do contact them for advice and support on issues such as being asked to lie at work, bribery when carrying out work for overseas clients, redundancy, enforced career change, and lack of support from local churches.
Contact is by letter, e-mail and telephone and the support given is informal and ad-hoc. The major emphasis is on moral issues such as lying. Paul himself has had experience of being dismissed from a post when he refused to exaggerate the output of his company's machines in negotiations with a trade union. Other less personal issues arise in engineering work – such as the rights and wrongs of developing nuclear power – but these are issues on which members are likely to have different views.
Paul thinks that there needs to be a wider debate on leadership and that this applies to all organisations including the government and local churches. To what extent should leaders lead and formulate policy and to what extent should they simply seek to reflect the views of their members?
Steven Rouch, Secretary of Christian Nurses and Midwives, tells me that CNM is still a small group of about one hundred and seventy members in all. While it would be ideal to create a forum for their members to discuss ethical issues, in practice whenever they have tried to get feedback the response from members has been a “deafening silence”. Attendance at events is often disappointing but these events do provide opportunities to hold discussions and get feedback from members on what concerns them.
This minimal feedback has shaped what CNM has tried to do, in terms of writing articles, sharing news stories and holding seminars and other events. It has also led them to work with others who are concerned with similar issues in order to identify common positions on such topics as end of life care and the sharing of faith with patients and colleagues. It has mostly been the leadership of CNM that has shaped these policies, rather than the rank and file members.
On a few occasions, members have e-mailed CNM about public consultations or discussions into which they feel a Christian input is needed. One example was the consultation on a framework and core competencies for spiritual care delivery in the Welsh National Health Service. The CNM leadership consulted with members known to have knowledge or expertise in this area and prepared a submission based on the various comments received. However, they have not been a pro-actively campaigning organisation, despite supporting the Care Not Killing campaign against euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The Rev. Dr. Joanna Collicutt, Chair of the British Association of Christians in Psychology, tells me that her group is essentially a forum rather than a campaigning group although they have been reviewing their identity recently.
Janet Liao, of the Christian Dental Fellowship, tells me that the issues raised in my e-mail were discussed at their recent annual conference and that some thirty-eight members filled in a questionnaire on the subject “What is the Christian Dental Fellowship for?” The answers given seem to suggest that most members view CDF as a fellowship linking together Christian dentists in their professional and personal lives. It also provides a means through which Christian dentists can support mission organisations that combine dentistry with Christian ministry. The Fellowship provides opportunities for asking and discussing difficult ethical questions that arise in the profession of dentistry and some members feel it should also be a group that voices these concerns to the relevant professional bodies. A large number of participants agreed that CDF should actively promote their official views but a significant number could not say whether they agreed or disagreed. This could be due to the fact that CDF does not currently have any “official views”!
Speaking as the Secretary of the Librarians' Christian Fellowship I have a great deal of sympathy with the frustration felt by the leaders of Christian Nurses and Midwives and other groups at the “deafening silence” that is often encountered when members are asked to give their comments on current issues. There has often been a similar reluctance to contribute to debates within the membership of our own Fellowship. For example, when members were invited, a few years back, to submit their views on the display of religious posters in public libraries, only one member outside the executive committee managed to reply. Despite this, however, we have been able to produce discussion papers on a number of topics – such as children's books, library management and Sunday opening – and these have been circulated to the librarianship and religious press as a means of promoting further debate. The “discussion paper” approach has the advantage that it communicates Christian concerns to a wider audience without implying that every member of the Fellowship agrees with every last word of the documents circulated.
If Christian professional groups do decide to place a greater emphasis on their role as campaigning organisations they may have to endure criticism from other Christians, not least from those outside the evangelical movement. When the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship campaigned against proposed legislative changes, a few years ago, their stance came under fire from Church Times columnist Giles Fraser, who wrote: “We may be entering a new age of Christian legalism, as an organisation called the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship has begun the task of interpreting the Scriptures for the rest of us and pursuing its theological vision through the courts. It is spearheading resistance to the anti-discrimination legislation now passing through Parliament. Like many I want to cry out: “Not in my name”. .... I find the prospect of Christian lawyers pursuing their definition of Christian interests an unappealing one. As a parish priest I can think of few things better designed to sabotage evangelism in this country than a high-profile campaign defending Christian values led by smooth Christian lawyers. Perhaps their intentions are entirely honourable, but they need to be told what a sinister impression they give.“
In my approach to the various professional groups I suggested that it might also be helpful to explore the question of how far Christians are justified in feeling under pressure or persecuted in the workplace today. Most readers of this article will be familiar with recent cases in which Christians have been dismissed or disciplined for wearing or displaying crosses, offering to pray for patients or clients, or advising clients to put their faith in God. At the time of writing, one of the most recent cases to be reported in the press has concerned Adrian Smith, an employee of the Trafford Housing Trust, who has been demoted, and his salary reduced, as a result of speaking out against the church weddings of gay couples on his private Facebook page.
The case in question certainly raises important questions about religious liberty and freedom of expression. However, according to press reports, Mr. Smith did identify himself as an employee of the Housing Trust on his Facebook page, although presumably without implying that his views on gay marriage represented the official views of his employers. I think that there is a grey area here which needs further discussion and clarification.
I must admit that I sometimes read these press reports of alleged discrimination or persecution in the workplace with mixed feelings. Certainly I have sympathy for fellow Christians who feel that they are being victimised or marginalised for expressing their faith within the working environment. On the other hand I sometimes suspect that newspaper reports are sensationalising these cases and failing to mention relevant factors. There is a parallel with a number of past cases in which newspapers have published reports of the alleged refusal of some public libraries to display posters advertising religious events. Closer investigation has usually revealed that there are other relevant considerations not mentioned by the newspapers.
I also wonder whether the alleged victims of some of these cases have been too eager to pursue their cases through the law courts. For example, wearing a cross or other Christian symbol is certainly a legitimate way of expressing one's faith, but no Christian church or denomination insists on this as a condition of membership, and there are other ways of expressing faith in Christ in the workplace.
Past LCF speaker Jonathan Bartley, of the Christian think tank Ekklesia, tells me that his organisation have been monitoring the development of these cases over the last few years, and have spoken to the participants on both sides of the disputes. Jonathan predicted that disputes of this kind would increase in his book Faith and Politics After Christendom. His experience is that, in most of the cases, mediation is not explored, and the situation has quickly become polarised. He believes that readers should also be aware that the groups behind many of these cases – such as Christian Concern – have a clear agenda which may not be shared by all Christians.
Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has recently acknowledged that many Christians feel “under siege” in contemporary Britain, but suggested that some evangelical Christians are using these disputes as a means of lobbying for political power.
In response, Dr. Don Horrocks, head of public affairs at the Evangelical Alliance, has argued, “Christians have been at the forefront of defending religious liberty and freedom of speech and conscience against the encroachment of a largely secular agenda that has been forcibly seeking to impose a 'one size fits all' blunt instrument of equalities legislation on everyone. Such an approach ignorantly assumes that faith adherents can simply suspend their convictions and consciences in public life and keep them private”.
There was a balanced discussion of some of these issues in the BBC1 programme Are Christians Being Persecuted? which was broadcast on Easter Sunday in 2010. The presenter, Nicky Campbell, concluded that many of the current problems stem from the failure of equalities legislation to face up to the problem of what should happen if the various “human rights” enshrined in the law conflict with each other. What rights should take precedence, for example, if the equal rights of gay couples conflict with the rights of religious believers to live and speak in accordance with their beliefs?
These are all on-going discussions and I will be pleased to receive the views of members of our own Fellowship as well as from the leaders of other Christian professional groups. Let's have a constructive debate on these matters and banish the “deafening silence” once and for all. To Be Continued (I hope).
Graham Hedges, Hon. FCLIP, MCLIP, is the Secretary of the Librarians' Christian Fellowship and worked until recently for the public library service in the London Borough of Wandsworth.
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