The controversy over the continuing display of statues of men, once lauded, who have since been revealed as toxic racists has received a boost with the recent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s not just the obvious offenders, like Angus Macmillan, explorer, pastoralist and mass murderer of Indigenous Australians. Even Winston Churchill, widely known as the doughty, unglamorous cornerstone of the struggle against Hitler, publicly stated that American ‘Red Indians’ and ‘Australian Aborigines’ belonged to an inferior race.
The views of these once-heroes are repugnant to us. No doubt future generations will be appalled in turn by what we are blind to.
We are products of our times. Cruelty should always be abhorrent, but many attitudes arise from simple ignorance. The question of whether or not it is valid to judge others in history is fascinating and fraught.
It’s a question that makes me, a Christian, even more astonished by the life of Jesus of Nazareth. As a first century Jewish man, he lived, moved and had his being in a deeply patriarchal culture. We would expect that he would reflect the tribal and racial prejudices of his time.
If the stories are to be believed, he didn’t. Jesus criticised the rich and powerful, preferring the company of people on the margins of a society that was as judgemental and exclusionary as Victorian England.
Jesus touched - actually touched - lepers, a feared and marginalised group of the time. He befriended a criminal as he was dying. He never shunned the mentally ill, and berated his followers for forbidding children (unimportant creatures back then) to clamber all over him. He engaged with despised foreigners, taking their questions seriously. He visited the home of a collaborator with the hated Roman occupiers. Most striking of all, was Jesus’ acceptance of woman as people, to be respected, taken seriously, included.
There is a plethora stories of Jesus and women. Jesus engaging in theological discussion with Mary, impressed by Martha’s spiritual insight, healing a bleeding woman (breaking more taboos than you could poke a stick at), having his mind changed by a feisty Syrophoenician female who challenged his primary focus on Jews, and having a deep, healing conversation with a Samaritan divorcee, at a time when Jews and Samaritans did not mix.
That the Church has often and spectacularly not followed his example is a cause for shame. Christ’s followers, far from perpetuating exclusionary practices, are called to be catalysts of justice and respect for all.
This was published in the July edition of The Melbourne Anglican