Rector's letter March 2009

Last Updated (Saturday, 14 March 2009 21:14)

It was a well-intentioned gesture when Caroline Petrie, a nurse, offered to pray for one of her patients. But it landed her in a lot of bother with her bosses who took the decision to suspend her from her work. Happily she was later reinstated although, it seems, she's going to have to be a lot more careful in the future. A statement issued at the time of her reinstatement by North Somerset Primary Care Trust states "It is acceptable to offer spiritual support as part of care when the patient asks for it. But for nurses, whose principal role is giving nursing care, the initiative lies with the patient and not with the nurse."

So what are Christians to make of this? What are Christians to make of Caroline Petrie's case or, indeed, a recently published NHS document which warns that attempts by doctors or nurses to preach to other staff or patients will be treated as harassment or intimidation under disciplinary procedures?

Perhaps I might suggest two responses?

The first is to acknowledge the increasing pressure that is on Christians in our culture to be lamps hidden under a bowl, as compared with Jesus' teaching that we should be lights put on a stand (Matthew 5:15). Those with a secularist agenda, in particular, are on the warpath, and with their unsubstantiated claims that people are offended by every mention of God, Jesus, Christmas and biblical morality, they are determined that Christians should keep their opinions to themselves.

This, I suggest, is a pressure firmly to be resisted. For not only is our faith meant to make a difference to every aspect of our lives, we also need to challenge the secularist notion that there is such a thing as a value-free person who brings no perspective to bear. We are all products of something, our upbringing most certainly, but also our wider experiences and convictions. So everyone in the workplace has a worldview of some description, even if they don't acknowledge it either to themselves or others. Christians, therefore, are not alone. Yes, their beliefs may spill out when in the workplace, but so do those of the secularist, athiest, hedonist, pacifist, and every other kind of 'ist' you might care to think of. Let's not pretend otherwise.

But if that's my first response, my second is to recognise that we Christians want to get this matter of faith-sharing right. Happily, Scripture contains within it plenty of guidance.

I think, for example, of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22 - 23) which include among them gentleness. We Christians are called to be gentle. It is therefore a contradiction in terms to go round ramming our faith down the throats of those who do not want to hear and generally making ourselves obnoxious. Better we shake the dust off our feet (Matthew 10:14) and move on to someone who does want to hear.

I think, too, of Jesus' teaching that we should give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. I take this to mean that while in the workplace we need to take care and not overstep the mark of what is properly a right use of company time. We're paid to do a particular job, and so we shouldn't be spending time evangelising the office when we're paid instead to do the filing.

Most significantly, perhaps, I think of Peter's teaching in his letter that we should always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have (1 Peter 3:15). The most effective evangelism will invariably be the kind where we have made such a good impact by the kind of people we are (!) that people can't help but ask what makes us tick. So while I would certainly not want to suggest that there is never a right time for taking the initiative in talking about Christian faith, I do at the same time recognise that what I am is probably going to make as much of an impact as what I say.

In Christian Love,

Alan Jenkins