As I write, a whole bunch of 4 year olds and their parents and teachers are protesting in Parliament Square, London. Three of the children eventually made their way to 10 Downing Street to knock on the famous black door and hand over a petition with 65,000 signatures.
The petition is against a new testing system being trialled by the UK government in the autumn. The "baseline assessment" is a 20 minute process in which children in their first year of primary school (4 or 5 year olds) will give answers across maths, language and literacy by pointing, moving objects or speaking, while teachers note their responses on an iPad.
The campaigners say the tests are indicative of a system "obsessed with league tables and turning children into data points as soon as they start school." The department of education say they "will simply provide a vital starting point to measure how well primary schools are doing to make sure all children reach their potential."
As the father of a 5 year old who started school just 9 months ago, the thought of him having to balance the emotion of entering school, leaving his parents, meeting 29 new children, a bunch of new adults, getting around a brand new building and all the other things he was navigating last September, and then being faced, in those first days or weeks with a test, I find myself uncomfortable.
It's why this quote from the Department of Education struck me: "Carried out in the right way, children should not even be aware an assessment is taking place."
What an interesting thought. A test you don't know you're sitting. An assessment you don't know you're being assessed in.
It got me thinking about something I noticed over this weekend just past.
It followed the heartbreaking news that Rachel Held Evans is in a medically induced coma. If you don't know who Rachel is, she is the brilliant author of books like A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Searching for Sunday and Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. The news of her condition was immediately met with an outpouring of love and a GoFundMe page that currently stands at over $95,000 for medical bills and associated expenses for her family. On social media the hashtag #prayforRHE has been used to connect people all over the world in solidarity and unity as we pray for healing and restoration...well that's what it was intended for.
The Kansas based @Pastor_Gabe took a somewhat different approach to many of the thousands of others expressing their sympathies and pledging their prayerful support:
"I will also #PrayforRHE. I will pray for her recovery and her repentance. You who follow her, please understand: you, like she, value what God hates, especially sexual perversion which you call "love." Psalm 66:18 says the Lord does not listen to those who cherish sin. Repent."
Holly aka Mama Spurgeon concluded her #prayforrhe response with the words "I do hope she repents and comes to saving faith. She is not a sister in Christ."
And @pulpitpenblog continued the theme with "Let's pray for her recovery, but most importantly, her repentance and faith in Christ. #PrayForRHE"
These kind of responses are the sort of thing one might have been able to avoid 10 years ago. Unless you happened to have a particularly tricky uncle who cornered you at family gatherings or you somehow found yourself trapped in an unfortunate middle seat on a plane journey, and even then you could always lock yourself in the toilet for the duration. It's almost impossible to avoid them now. I discovered the first one while searching the hashtag for some words to help me pray for RHE while I struggled to find my own, unsure of what to pray in what feels so desperately unfair for her and her family right now.
These kind of responses are also not fully indicative. The hashtag is, in the main, a beautiful collection of people from all walks of life sharing their memories of Rachel, offering messages and prayers for her.
There was another type of response that caught my eye though. Like that of self-described conservative journalist Rod Dreher who tweeted this:
"I've scrapped intensely with the progressive Christian writer Rachel Held Evans, but I'm grieved to hear that she is in the hospital in grave condition this Easter weekend. Please pray for her, and her family!"
Or others who tweeted:
"There are few things on which @rachelheldevans and I agree beyond the Grace of God in Jesus we've both received. Regardless, I urge every brother and sister to #PrayForRHE and her family in this difficult time."
"I may not always agree with her but I am praying for @rachelheldevans. #PrayforRHE"
These examples weren't isolated. People finding themselves wanting to join in the chorus of prayers for Rachel and her family, but somehow feeling like they needed to first preface it with a positional statement. The heart behind these offered prayers is clearly indicative of people who are deeply concerned and only want the best outcome. So I'm left wondering what motivates the need to start each with a caveat.
Maybe it's personal. A felt need to remind themselves that even though they disagree with Rachel's theology, they still need to pray for her. That would make sense and be a worthwhile endeavour if it were private, but the public nature of these declarations points to an alternative.
I wonder if it's about their audience. A need to ensure that those who follow them don't "get the wrong idea". The sense that somehow their prayers for healing, comfort or peace could be mistaken for an endorsement of the person they're praying for.
It would be easy from my particular theological leaning to try and grab some high ground here. I admire Rachel greatly, she is someone I read and quote regularly. I wonder if I'd struggle to hashtag a prayer for someone I don't align with. Would a #prayforMD or #prayforFG cause me to need to get a well-worded prelude about my "disagreement" with them in their hour of need?
Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we're all afraid we're sitting a test we don't know we're sitting.
Like the 4 years olds moving objects around or pointing at things while a teacher taps an iPad, we're terrified that every move we make, every word we utter leads to someone else making a note or an assumption. That if we're not crystal clear about where we stand, sit or position ourselves on some "key indicators" of orthodoxy, then somehow we'll fail the test and find ourselves in the "wrong set" or without anyone to sit with at lunchtime.
Maybe our faith "system" has become "obsessed with league tables" and "scoring points".
Richard C. Halverson once said: "Intercession is truly universal work for the Christian. No place is closed to intercede our prayer: no continent, no nation, no organisation, no city, no office. There is no power on earth that can keep intercession out." Powerful words that remind us of the powerful work of prayer.
Maybe that's why, in the face of a brilliant thinker, writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, mentor, encourager and sister in Christ, we should feel free to offer our love and prayers without first making sure we score the right points.
Matt White is a Northern Irish TV producer living in Essex and working in London. Follow him on Twitter @mattgwhite
