Drought-stricken Britain €“ where respect is in short supply

Following the recent brawl between boxers Dereck Chisora and David Haye, the General Secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, Robert Smith, made an insightful comment in a radio interview. He said, “They are professional sportsmen… they should treat people with respect. Unfortunately this could be a society problem. There doesn’t seem to be any respect with anybody at the present time.”

Good observation, Mr Smith. Drought-stricken Britain is currently suffering not only a rainfall deficit, but a respect deficit. This is, of course, very much a characteristic of a society that has become increasingly secularised. Just as the much touted virtue of tolerance seems to be conditional on agreeing with the absolute premise that there are no absolutes, so the virtue of showing respect seems to be conditional on sharing the same opinions and beliefs as the person or institution in question. The possibility of respecting anybody or anything that has a fundamentally different perspective to one’s own has become almost a thing of the past.

Not agreeing with someone is no reason to treat them disrespectfully. The argument put forward is that “respect is earned”, but it is difficult to believe that, for example, Christians or Christian beliefs are ever likely to ‘earn’ the respect of the National Secular Society, who recently helped obtain a court ruling that Bideford Town Council cannot begin their meetings with prayer.

Some Christians, of course, are equally lacking in respect in the way that they express their disagreement with atheists like Richard Dawkins. We are, sadly, often guilty of adopting the behavioural standards of the world. Perhaps it is because even we can be amongst those who, to use Baroness Warsi’s words, find it difficult accepting that a person of another faith isn’t a threat to our own.

The temptation for churches and for Christians, in the face of militant secularisation, is to pull up the drawbridge and hide away to protect ourselves, so that churches become ghettos. In so doing, we will actually promote the more rapid expansion of this secularist trend in society, because we cease to be the salt of the earth. Indeed, whilst the Church may wring its metaphorical hands and bemoan the way society is going, it is the Church’s very failure to be the salt of which Jesus speaks, that has contributed to the rising tide of secularism and the moral collapse of society in the last generation. One of my earlier memories as a Christian was hearing the renowned ‘God’s Smuggler’, Brother Andrew, speaking in Africa. Forty years later I can still hear him saying one memorable statement: “If the Church in Russia had been Christian prior to 1917, there would have been no Russian Revolution”. As goes the Church, so goes society.

Some fifty or more years ago, mainline Christian denominations in Britain began to depart from biblical truth, and society has followed suit. Like Israel in the Old Testament, we have accommodated our faith to other religions and worldviews, and welcomed their practices and liberal morality within our own faith.

In one sense, the biggest challenge now facing the Church in Britain a generation later is not secularism and the banning of Council prayers, or the sacking of Christians who happen to demonstrate their faith in the workplace; the biggest challenge is the apathy with which such occurrences is met by the Christian church. My chief concern, looking at the Church in Britain today, is not marginalisation, but accommodation. When the Church goes the same way as the world, it does not attract the world.

The disappearance of respect in society that Robert Smith refers to reflects a failure of the Church to hold unswervingly to biblical truth. After all, the essence of the Ten Commandments is all about respect – respecting God, respecting His Name, respecting His day, respecting our neighbour, his wife, his property. All of that is in very short supply today, even sometimes in the Church. But 1 Peter 2:17 states clearly “Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honour the King”.

Lack of respect and hostility to the gospel is nothing new, and the Bible tells us to expect it. However, neither apathy or accommodation, nor anger should be the Church’s response. Rather, let’s look within, and recognise that the Church itself must begin to live, practise and teach what was sacrificed on the altar of expediency and tolerance a generation ago. Then maybe the drought will end.

Tony Ward is a Bible teacher and evangelist who was ordained in Zimbabwe. He currently lives and ministers in Bristol