Tim Jones: When a question of faith becomes a matter of judgement

Personally, I blame William Wilberforce. I don’t like blaming him: he’s a fellow Yorkshireman, so we’re already a couple of notches closer to heaven than the rest of the world, but he was a bit of a Christian snob. In 1797, Wilberforce published a long essay which argued that just because people go to church and read their Bible and say their prayers, that doesn’t mean that they are really Christians. Wilberforce set the bar a great deal higher than that!

The anti-slavery campaigner wanted people to be significantly more like himself before he will accept that they are truly Christian. Just knowing your Bible and going to church twice on Sunday didn’t count. He argued that Christianity also had to involve something of a strong sense of personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the evidence for which would be a selfless life of public service. Annoyingly, nor is Wilberforce completely wrong either.

The problem with any elitest definition of “Christian” is that it requires someone to decide where the boundary is set. It requires a judgment. When it comes to faith boundaries – who is accepted and who is excluded – one of the key insights of Christianity is that we need to be very careful not to judge each other – pass or fail – on our faith.

It’s altogether arrogant, and Jesus makes it quite clear that God doesn’t like it. Dawkins and Wilberforce are each impressive, but neither should get to judge the sufficiency of our faith without deserving a bit of a slap down.

Of course, I wish that people knew their Bible better and went to church more, but if someone tells me that they’re Christian, and that they don’t go to church much, or read their Bible much, or know much about Christian doctrine, all that shows is that they, like me and you, have not attained the heady heights of spiritual perfection.

I agree with whole concept of physical fitness. I have, occasionally, even taken out gym membership. With my Body Mass Index, I’m not much of an advert for any Physical Fitness campaign. But my ignorance and inadequacy does not disqualify me from advocating for good physical education and biology lessons in schools. If anything, my physical inadequacy heightens, rather than discounts, my appreciation of the need for physical fitness provision.

I suspect that many if not most of us who self identify as Christians, but don’t satisfy the criteria set by William Wilberforce or Richard Dawkins, have something of a similar experience when it comes to faith.

I should know how to change an electric plug, but don’t. That doesn’t disqualify me from using electricity. It does, though, prevent me from having much of a voice in arguments about electrical matters.

There are big issues under public discussion today that affect every single one of us: the sanctity of life, sexual desire and behaviour, gender equalities and differences. In so far as any of us are unfamiliar with our theological and philosophical heritage, then we have few tools to engage with any such matters, major or minor, other than those provided by, for example, Rupert Murdoch or John Humphrys.

The major faiths – certainly Christianity – have much distilled wisdom from serious thinkers over the last three or four thousand years, to bring to bear on all of that. Reading your Bible, and discussing it, helps. Going to church helps. Watching EastEnders and listening to the Today programme also help, but maybe they don’t go quite as deep. Of course, we should be more involved in our faith, and equip ourselves better to participate in life in all its fullness. Dawkins has a point.

In the Bible there is a key teaching about how we’re judged. Jesus paints a scene of the afterlife, in which we all come before God for judgment. We are divided into “sheep” and “goats”, the accepted and the condemned. The criteria for acceptance turn out not to be unspecified levels of liturgical activity, but of whether we have cared for those in need, for the despised, for the abandoned. Everyone, it seems, ends up surprised about how they have been judged. And then, having taught this, Jesus allowed himself to be tortured and crucified, for the sake of all those who would otherwise be condemned, because God loves them utterly. He rose from the dead (impossible, we gasp!) to seal this good news. That, at least, is Christian doctrine.

But I’m – honestly – not at all sure that I, with my various qualifications in theology, really understand. Let’s hope Mr Dawkins isn’t my judge.