Un-Integrated Christianity

Graham Martin asks if integration is really what we want

Photo: pro.corbis.com

Perhaps its just me. Perhaps I’ve been on too many anti-war demonstrations, where many of those around me feel they themselves are under attack, not just the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps being a student in Bradford has made me feel sympathetic to the cause of Muslims trying to practice their faith in this country. Or maybe I just dislike Blair so much I’m bound to take offence every time he opens his mouth. Since the attacks of July 7th, Blair has been saying many things which have infuriated me. No changes there then. But one thing has filled me with anger more than any other. ‘Integration’.

We are being told that Muslims must integrate or face tough sanctions. I feel angry, angry that the government should be interfering in other people’s right to practice their religion. I feel guilty, too. I feel guilty that the church isn’t doing more. And I feel guilty because I, like so many other Christians, am integrated.

In a way, I’ve always admired Muslims for their ability to stick to their principles. I hear sermon after sermon on holiness, being set apart to serve God. I get told by other Christians (sometimes in an attempt to ‘convert’ me away from activism and my left wing views) that I should be in the world but not of it. I’m a Child of God, a free person, no longer tied to the self obsessed ways of this world. I have a future home in heaven, and a command to spread the freedom through word and action.

Yet we as a church are silent on so many issues, rarely prepared to stick our necks out and risk trouble, always sticking to our personal salvation agenda, turning to mass-marketing methods to promote our faith. Where’s the holiness, the set-apart-ness, the un-integrated-ness? Why isn’t Blair complaining at us because we won’t bow to the values of ‘modern Britain’, of war, injustice, greed, consumerism?

I’ve met a few Christians who’ve really been prepared to take up their cross and follow God regardless of the consequences. Some risked death bible smuggling in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Some have done time in jail for opposing government policy in practical and prophetic ways even I have yet to attempt. Most of the latter type are ignored by the evangelical church, perhaps out of embarrassment that they, the guardians of ‘uncompromising faith’ overlook anything in the bible which might cause them to do something illegal.

As Muslims increasingly felt the heat before the war broke out, perhaps half a million or more of them set out for central London on February 15th. When God’s holy day was under attack, where was the Christian response? Where were the hundreds of thousands prepared to march on London to protest when the power of consumerism pushed its way into Sunday?

I have this little compromise which I don’t mind doing with God. I don’t buy anything on Sunday which isn’t for immediate consumption. Seems reasonable. Still, if you look at my bank statement, you’d never be able to guess that for me, Sunday is the most important day of the week, a holy day, set apart to spend time with my maker.

There’s another thing I’m a bit embarrassed about. It’s actually coming up this term. The annual festival of anti-consumerism, known as ‘buy nothing day’. ‘Wonderful’, I think, ‘my cheapest day of the year’. Then I remember that once upon a time, our lives weren’t ruled by an obsession with shopping and ‘retail therapy’. We didn’t buy things on Sunday. Now it falls to a largely antireligious bunch of hippies and commies to remind us Christians that we can set a day aside to focus on the things which really matter.

So when you next hear Blair calling for greater integration of Muslims, I challenge you to think about the ways in which you have become integrated into Britain’s culture. Remember the times when you have looked on this nation’s flag with passive compliance, instead of turning your head to Christ, who transcends nationality and dines with those who are the victims of the state. And seek to live un-integrated lives, filled with God’s goodness.

Graham Martin