Remembrance Sunday

Remembrance Sunday  2012

Remembrance is a word that has come to be used with very particular significance on this Sunday in each year. It invites us to bring to mind the sacrifices made on our behalf in two world wars and more recently, in other conflicts around the world in which our armed forces have been involved.

What I want to focus on is our recollection of the stated purpose underlying the sacrifice from which we benefit. It is said that people gave their lives so that we might remain a free people. They went to war for a freedom worth fighting to preserve and it is a freedom which remains with us to this day.

The question I want to pose in the face of this is “what are we doing with that freedom?” or to put it another way “how jealously are we guarding it.?” A supplementary question is this “what is our response today, as a society, to the sacrifice of previous generations?”

Perhaps before I go on to address these questions it might be helpful to recall that the year after next will be the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. A year later, in 2015, we will see a situation where no one under the age of 70 years will have been alive while a world war was in progress.

What all this means in practice is that World War I is now a remote memory for all but a tiny handful. Furthermore, soon, the Second World War will follow suit. So how will future generations regard what we celebrate today? What will they make of the Cenotaph, British Legion poppies and the town and village war memorials which populate our land? How will the symbols of remembrance be viewed?

Well, I did some very cursory research by asking a few folk in their forties the simple question “what does Remembrance Sunday mean to you?”

The immediate off-the-cuff responses were, to say the least of it, discouraging.

They were as follows:-

“What I have seen on television is boring.”

“It all seems to glorify war and to be too triumphalist.”

“When it comes to later conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan we were just plain wrong to get involved.”.

I could not of course leave it there. So, I asked a different question, namely:-

“Do you value the freedom this country enjoys?” - And the overwhelming response was positive.

So what you find here is a complete fracture disconnecting one generation’s understanding of what Remembrance Sunday is about and what the next generation perceives it as calling to mind. Where some see sacrifice, others see triumphalism, and the glorification of, or justification for, war. However, both groups say that they value their freedom and so we come back to the question, - “What have we done with the freedom that has been bequeathed to us by those who gave their lives?”

There is not enough time to explore that fully so I want to dwell on just one aspect of it and it is this. Our ancestors went into two world wars on behalf of a nation which was unequivocally Christian in the way in which it saw itself.

It played host to small groups from other faiths and of other ethnic heritages which, like Jewish community which had been here for centuries, learned our language and respected our laws. They had accepted hospitality, chosen to make their homes and live their lives here and so they settled down to blend in and raise their families. In other words they integrated with their fellow citizens.

We may reasonably conclude that those who came here, among other things, did so in order to enjoy our status as an independent nation, as well as our hard-won and democratically-based freedom. They also came here knowing that we were a Christian country whose whole history, laws, constitution and way of life had Christianity as its basis and at its heart.

Sadly, our established Anglican church has not done nearly enough to remind our fellow citizens of the value of the history, heritage and freedom of which Christianity has been at the centre for over 1500 years. Nor has it worked nearly hard enough to be sure that our fellow citizens are aware of how Christianity in this country has moved and evolved with the national life that has continued to evolve around it.

It is especially sad, in my view, that our leadership has failed to stress the huge differences between the evolution of Christianity, not just in this country but throughout the world, when contrasted with the refusal of Islam to face the need to reform itself. I only have time here to mention a couple examples.

The Bible has emerged since its origins through many languages. In this country, after a long struggle against a reluctant clergy, it has been authorised to be read by English men and women in their own language for over four hundred years. Contrast this with the Koran which can only be read authoritatively in Arabic.

We might also reasonably ask whether it is right in this country for a call to prayer to be broadcast in a foreign language rather than English? Isn’t that both discourteous and divisive?

Furthermore, why are children in our schools taught, regardless of their own chosen faith or ethnic background, to say the words ‘peace be upon him’ if the name of the leader of the Muslim faith is mentioned, while Christian symbols are banned in case they ‘cause offence’.

It is time now for our freedom to be protected by all of us. We need to find a way to rise above our cultural, religious and ethnic differences in order to recognize that respect is a two-way street. Muslims who have accepted our hospitality must come to respect the implications of their own actions. Our language, our history and the Christian basis for our laws and traditions preserve freedom for all of us. However, that freedom is in danger if those Muslims who come here continue to harbour the view that they need to fight against our values and way of life.

They need to decide whether they are Medina Muslims or Mecca Muslims. In other words, do they follow the Prophet who was prepared to live in peace and harmony with those of other ethnic origins and faith traditions or do they believe in the Prophet who was a warlord and told his followers not to befriend Christians or Jews.  Muslims also need to be free to read and pray in the language of the country they have decided to live in. The freedom and hospitality they have accepted requires that reciprocation.

So how can our Anglican church help? Well, we are ideally placed to do just that. After all, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of a church with representation around the globe. This carries with it, experience in many different countries, cultures and languages.

Thus we can offer help, guidance and encouragement to Muslims in this country who wish to undertake the sort of ‘Reformation’ that Christianity went through 600 years ago. Incidentally for Islam that coincides chronologically with the Reformation of Catholicism itself.

We Anglicans have plenty of experienced both in terms of lay folk and theologians to help in this process. The objective would be to make the ideas of Islam accessible to all and to remove the natural fear and suspicion which arises when a call to prayer and sermons are proclaimed in a foreign language on one’s own soil. This is quite apart from the fact that the text of the Koran itself and Islam’s other sources of authority cannot at the present time be read authoritatively in English

So as we remember our freedom of religion in this country, we have an ideal opportunity to extend a hand of friendship as churches to go alongside the hospitality we already extend as a nation.

We will be saying to Muslims in this country “come with us and learn how we have arrived where we are. Open up your holy books to us so that we can read them in our language just as people around the world read the Bible in their own tongues. Let us hear your call to prayer you prayers themselves and your sermons in a language we can understand”

There are many other areas where we can be of help but I’m sure that these will find their way onto the list once the process starts. However on this day of remembrance I would like this to see that the call to remember the price of freedom sits well with a call to enter into meaningful discussion with Islam.

I am sure that there are many devout, serious and peaceful Muslims in this country who would like to see their faith emerge from the shadows of suspicion and distrust. We Anglicans are ideally to help them with this process. If we can succeed, then the freedom we enjoy will stand far more chance of becoming a freedom fully shared.

We all need to be able to hear, in a language we share, what a Remembrance Sunday is about. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our church were to declare this clearly and very openly and without the fear of hostility from either state or citizen.

Now there’s a task for our new Archbishop!!