Is benign tolerance killing the church? Why Auntie Edna and the Imam might hold the key to Christmas

As I write this, St Mary of Bethany Church has just hosted an international carol service where the Bible was spoken in over 14 languages, from Urdu to French, Cantonese to Ukrainian. We heard Christian songs in Tamil, Hungarian and Yoruba, all from people living here in Woking. Guests included our local Imam and the Hindu Chaplain to the University of Surrey. Around 120 people attended, shared food and fellowship afterwards.  

As a proud north Londoner, one of the things I value most about Woking is its diversity; we are famously the most culturally diverse town in Surrey (which admittedly is not saying much!). Sitting in our service, I reflected on the decades of effort made by Christian clergy and leaders of other faiths to build good relationships and promote community cohesion in our town. Our friendships cross cultural boundaries and have sometimes come at a cost. At our service on Saturday, a church leader noted that his Muslim colleague gets criticised from within his community whenever he does something with other faiths. In Christian ministry, sometimes people ask questions about why a leader would spend time with leaders from other faiths, at the expense of their own congregation.  

What unites us as faith leaders is the conviction that good community relations start with personal relationships between leaders. We live in an age where our culture pressurises us to fear or hate the ‘other’ – by implication a group of people we do not know, who pose a threat to our way of life or even our personal safety. Among young British people who are investigating the Christian faith are some who are influenced by antisemitism or Christian nationalism. Some express this as simply wanting to put Christian values back into our public life, or putting Christ back into Christmas, both things which churches (and indeed many from other faiths) would agree with heartily. In interfaith work we talk about ‘people of peace’ – we recognise that the major faiths share a whole set of beliefs around morality, family and society. Church schools are often a magnet for those of other faiths, who share many of the same ethical values as Christians without buying into our theology. It is all too easy to hate or fear a whole group of people when you do not know any of them individually. Social media can accentuate and amplify these feelings.

Over the last few years, the Church of England has engaged with the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. The LLF course got the Church listening to people whose experiences of gender and sexuality are very different from their own. This happened with often positive, and sometimes mixed, results. Almost everyone who took part in the course heard from people whose voices they had not heard before: evangelicals listened to LGBTQ+ people who had been excluded from church; those favouring maximum inclusion for LGBTQ+ people heard from traditionalist same-sex-attracted Christians who feel called to lifelong celibacy rather than gay partnership. Having spent my formative Christian years in a church with conservative evangelical leadership, I sometimes reflected on whether I would invite a gay couple to join me, as I was not convinced they would receive as warm a welcome as, say, a straight couple who were living together. At theological college I was struck by the number of church ministers in training who seemed never to have met a LGBTQ+ person. It stands to reason that your language and way of being may be inappropriate, or face misunderstanding, if you have never met someone from a group about whom you have something to say. You cannot always anticipate how you will be received. For some queer Christians, certain language from churchgoers has left them feeling physically unsafe, which is not something any worshipper should experience.

I do not have to know local people from other faiths to say that it is unacceptable in a free society that people should be afraid to attend an act of worship. I find it profoundly unsettling that British mosques and synagogues have to employ security guards. After the deadly synagogue attack in Manchester a few weeks ago, a Jewish friend posted on social media their view that our society has normalised antisemitism since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. The relationship between the state of Israel and the worldwide Jewish diaspora is complicated; it should be possible to criticise the actions of the state without victimising Jews, but all too often the two things become conflated. It is much harder to comment on these issues if you do not know personally any Jewish people or Palestinians. In Britain our history and culture plays into the situation to add many layers of complexity. We were the colonial power who overpromised to both sides and we have many well-established communities of both Jews and Muslims, including here in Woking with the UK’s oldest mosque.

Now we have seen the atrocious attack on a Jewish gathering on Bondi Beach in Australia. Once again both Jewish and Muslim friends are likely to feel even more vulnerable as they gather over the next few weeks. Amid the horror of the multiple murders, numerous stories of extraordinary heroism are emerging. Those who might rush to blame foreigners or Muslims might consider Ahmed al Ahmed, the Syrian-born Australian who was shot while wrestling a gun from one of the attackers, and saved many lives. His parents needed an interpreter to be interviewed for the news. It took a tragedy for him to risk his life in serving others. Boris and Sofia Gurman were both shot dead trying to wrestle a gun from one of the attackers. These acts were entirely selfless and self-sacrificial, committed at the ultimate cost. Sometimes the greatest acts of humanity happen in the face of the worst acts of inhumanity. The hard truth is that these great deeds might never be released but for the corresponding horrors.

This festive season many of us will find ourselves in lively conversation with family members whose politics we do not share, or even whose views we find offensive. A bit of benign tolerance goes a long way, especially after a few glasses of Prosecco. Human beings can rub along quite happily with people with whom we have little in common, under the right circumstances. The key is to connect with the actual person in front of you and realise that you like them. You may not like Auntie Edna’s views on politics, but she still makes you smile when she shares a Christmas cracker joke, a family story or tries to fleece you at Monopoly.

The hard truth about true heroism is that it may never be released but for moments of horror and tragedy. One of the great truths about the incarnation of Jesus Christ at the first Christmas is that he is Immanuel, God with us. Under God there is no us and them; there is only us.