Photo: Church Times
'This is why it is such a schoolboy error for bishops and retired bishops and archbishops to expend so much of their energy on complaining that Christianity is being marginalised.'

Stop whingeing and preach the good news, says Giles Fraser

One of the most depressing things about Christians’ complaining publicly that we are being marginalised is that this all seems such small beer in the grand scheme of things.

At a time when we ought to be proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are trivialising our message by speaking as though we were some sort of club afraid of losing its status.

The Church is the community of the baptised. And baptism is not some weird initiation ceremony into a club that meets on Sundays. Baptism is how we undergo the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We drown the sinful Adam, and are born again into a new life.

That old and much-derided idea of extra ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church there is no salvation — is not a way of saying that only members of some holy club can be saved (that is rubbish), but rather that only those who participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus can be saved.

Exemplified

Salvation necessarily involves the dying to self that is re­created in baptism and fully exemplified by the death of Jesus.

This is why it is such a schoolboy error for bishops and retired bishops and archbishops to expend so much of their energy on complaining that Christianity is being marginalised. The Kingdom will not be brought any closer by disgruntled letters in The Telegraph or wherever.

Surely the best proof of the resurrection is that it transformed a bunch of self-absorbed cowards into passionate advocates for the saving power of God.

In this way it also transformed a small Jewish splinter movement into a worldwide Church. The resurrection is the engine-room of our ecclesiology.

Matter

In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter if Christians are being discriminated against. And it does no good to complain about it, as if we had some necessary entitlement to respect or power.

There is nothing wrong with using the public stage to try to spread the message of the Kingdom.

But to use it endlessly to moan about the fact that people are not listening to or respecting us makes the Church look like a bunch of grumpy old men, upset that they are no longer at the centre of the governing class.

No, our message ought to be the power of the risen Christ. If we live in that power, why should we worry? How can we ever lose?

• The Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and Director of the St Paul's Institute.

• This column was first published in, and appears courtesy of, The Church Times

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