Belief, or bigotry?

Jesus said, 'They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so, they are offering worship to God' John 16:2 Later this month, on October 16th, the Calendar invites us to remember Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, 'bishops, martyrs'. Those of us who live or work in and around Oxford are constantly reminded of them by the massive 'Martyrs' Memorial in
 St Giles. They were burnt in 1554 for their adherence to the beliefs of the Reformation, the pyre actually being stoked on the Broad - the spot now marked by a cross inset into
 the road surface.

These words from John's 'upper room' discourse remind us that the borderline between deep conviction and culpable bigotry is a narrow one. It was in danger of disappearing altogether in the first couple of centuries of the Christian Church, as the split from Judaism became ever more vitriolic (on both sides, it has to be said). These words probably allude to that dispute, which left seeds of mistrust and misunderstanding which grew into malignant plants in the middle ages and indeed in some ways into modern times. The Reformation and counter-Reformation period also saw the same flowering of hatred and physical persecution, allegedly 'in the name of God'.

 The problem for many of us, perhaps, lies at the other extreme. We are so afraid of bigotry that we struggle to hold our own Christian convictions. Yet the difference between the two things is fundamental. Jesus often spoke of the 'kingdom' response to persecution - to 'rejoice' at it, to be 'glad' (Matthew 5:12). Sadly, the most normal reaction is to fight back, to wreak on others the pain and distress they have caused to us. Yet Jesus was also clear that his disciples, 'carrying the cross', should not be ashamed of their strongly held beliefs (Mark 8:34-38).

Latimer and Ridley, and the gentle Cranmer, who suffered the same fate in Oxford two years later, were not themselves, of course, violent bigots, any more than the Catholic martyrs who were to die in the same period of history. They believed, passionately, firmly, and were - if it came to it - prepared to die for those beliefs. In that sense they rebuke our weak faith and faltering convictions. The bigotry - then and now - lies in a failure to respect beliefs we do not share and to confront them not with reason but with irrational fear or even hatred.

David Winter