The Bishop of Stafford has launched an attack on the ‘little-England’ mentality typified by the racist British National Party (BNP) and compared it with the ‘admirable patriotism’ of inspirational Great War serviceman Harry Patch who requested representatives of the British, French, Belgium and German military to be represented at his funeral.
As the BNP are forced to abandon its ‘whites only’ membership party, the Rt Revd Gordon Mursell has used a pastoral letter published in parish magazines across the Church of England’s Diocese of Lichfield to ask ‘What it means to be British?’; and he says: ‘Britain will never be great again if all we have to offer is xenophobia and dreams of a lost empire. But it can indeed be great again if it signs up to the values of Jesus’ kingdom - a place where people are judged by where they’re going, not where they come from; a place where what matters is not borders but compassion and courage and commitment and dedication, a place where a rich diversity of people live under the lordship of a God in whom “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”’
In his letter, he portrays the collective attitude of Britons, saying: ‘We sniff disapprovingly when a Pole or a Latvian is found guilty of a crime in this country; but we haven’t much to say when the British are, for the third year running, voted the worst foreign tourists in Europe, when drunken louts on Greek islands start groping locals, or the Barmy Army at test matches here at home scream abuse at the Australian captain. We are tempted to sympathize with the BNP when they call for the repatriation of all or most foreigners. But it doesn’t occur to us that, if Britain took that line, other countries probably would as well - and so the migrants who come here seeking work would simply be replaced with all the Brits who couldn’t bear living here any longer and sought a better life abroad.
‘There is nothing wrong with being patriotic, although it isn’t always straightforward to decide what that means: if you’re half-English and half-Scottish like me, you never know which team to root for in a rugby match. And yet there is something illogical and dangerous about a patriotism that is taken to extremes: so, for example, we have no problems with an economic migrant moving from Glasgow to Birmingham, or Los Angeles to New York - but we mind very much if another economic migrant wants to move from Kiev to Manchester. Why? Because there’s a border in between.’
He added: ‘In an increasingly global world, we have become more and more little-England-like. We spend billions on border controls, and yet even a fraction of all that money could be used to support investment by British companies in Somalia or Ukraine or wherever most migrants come from. That investment would provide jobs for British workers and, by improving the economy of the foreign nation, would enable would-be migrants to stay at home and get jobs there.
‘Harry Patch, the inspirational Great War serviceman who died recently, asked that at his funeral there should be representatives from the military not only of the UK but also of Germany, France and Belgium - none of them with weapons. That surely is the kind of patriotism to admire.’
He contrasted this approach with the ministry of Jesus Christ, saying: ‘Nothing is more striking, in the ministry of Jesus, than the fact that he took almost no interest in where people come from - whether they were Jews, or Samaritans, or hated Roman soldiers, scarcely bothered him at all - but a very great interest in where they were going, in what their future might be, and in what potential they had if they were willing to travel with him.
‘In his kingdom, what mattered was not ethnicity or geography but the values you sought to live by, and the God you sought to worship.’
ENDS
The full text of the Bishop of Stafford’s pastoral letter for September’s parish magazines:
What it means to be British
We Brits are a funny lot. We like going abroad, but we tend not to like foreigners. We expect (rightly in my view) that people who come to live here from overseas should learn English; but millions of British people emigrate to Spain or France and make little or no effort to learn the local language. We sniff disapprovingly when a Pole or a Latvian is found guilty of a crime in this country (again, rightly so); but we haven’t much to say when the British are, for the third year running, voted the worst foreign tourists in Europe, when drunken louts on Greek islands start groping locals, or the Barmy Army at test matches here at home scream abuse at the Australian captain. We are tempted to sympathize with the BNP when they call for the repatriation of all or most foreigners. But it doesn’t occur to us that, if Britain took that line, other countries probably would as well - and so the migrants who come here seeking work would simply be replaced with all the Brits who couldn’t bear living here any longer and sought a better life abroad.
There is nothing wrong with being patriotic, although it isn’t always straightforward to decide what that means: if you’re half-English and half-Scottish like me, you never know which team to root for in a rugby match. And yet there is something illogical and dangerous about a patriotism that is taken to extremes: so, for example, we have no problems with an economic migrant (in other words, someone looking for work and a better life for their family) moving from Glasgow to Birmingham, or Los Angeles to New York - but we mind very much if another economic migrant wants to move from Kiev to Manchester. Why? Because there’s a border in between.
In an increasingly global world, we have become more and more little-England-like. We spend billions on border controls, and yet even a fraction of all that money could be used to support investment by British companies in Somalia or Ukraine or wherever most migrants come from. That investment would provide jobs for British workers and, by improving the economy of the foreign nation, would enable would-be migrants to stay at home and get jobs there.
Harry Patch, the inspirational Great War serviceman who died recently, asked that at his funeral there should be representatives from the military not only of the UK but also of Germany, France and Belgium - none of them with weapons. That surely is the kind of patriotism to admire.
Nothing is more striking, in the ministry of Jesus, than the fact that he took almost no interest in where people come from - whether they were Jews, or Samaritans, or hated Roman soldiers, scarcely bothered him at all - but a very great interest in where they were going, in what their future might be, and in what potential they had if they were willing to travel with him.
“You don’t have to fish for fish,” he would say: “you could fish for people.” Or: “today you will be with me in paradise” - and this to a crucified thief with only minutes left to live.
In his kingdom, what mattered was not ethnicity or geography but the values you sought to live by, and the God you sought to worship. Britain will never be great again if all we have to offer is xenophobia and dreams of a lost empire. But it can indeed be great again if it signs up to the values of Jesus’ kingdom - a place where people are judged by where they’re going, not where they come from; a place where what matters is not borders but compassion and courage and commitment and dedication, a place where a rich diversity of people live under the lordship of a God in whom “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal.3:28).
That, and that alone, would be a country to be proud of.
Gordon Mursell
September 2009