Invisible Divides Excerpt #2
In the second of our excerpts from new Jubilee+ book, 'Invisible Divides', Paul Brown challenges the easy-to-slip-into assumption that middle-class values are synonymous with Christian values, and calls us to reach for a greater vision of diversity and unity in the church:
Rather than reinforcing this divisive and negative ‘them and us’ view, we must make every effort to understand and value the diversity of life experience in the UK and not assume that any way is the best way. The danger in any church where there is a majority culture is that we assume that that culture’s habits and traditions and ways of doing things are ‘right’ and others are ‘wrong’. So if most of our churches are predominantly middle class, the chances are that we will very easily slip into believing (subconsciously, at least) that middle-class values are synonymous with Christian values.
The problem is that the existing structures are heavily biased towards middle-class values.
Some of you reading this may feel offended at this point. That is not the intention of this book. We’re not trying to make the middle classes feel bad, nor are we saying that working class is better! Rather, what is intended is for us all to understand that the dominant culture in so many churches in the UK is middle class and that middle-class values have become confused with biblical values. We’d like to challenge that. We all need to learn to appreciate the richness and diversity of life expressed by each class. And learn to
reject the notions that say, ‘My way is the best or only way.’
If this isn’t an issue that you have personally encountered, you may be asking if we are making things worse by highlighting differences between the classes. You might think we are making too big a deal of class, and that we would be better off ignoring the subject for the sake of harmony. However, Jesus didn’t pray for us to have harmony. He prayed for his followers to have unity:
"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in
me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17.20–23)
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Natalie Williams & Paul Brown, Invisible Divides: Class, Culture & Barriers to Belonging, (SPCK, 2022), p. 12
'Invisible Divides' will be released on 22nd April, 2022 and is available to pre-order now.
