Invisible Divides Excerpt #3
In the third of our excerpts from new Jubilee+ book, Invisible Divides, co-author Paul Brown explores how trust can be earned by ensuring that as churches we are not allying ourselves with the powerful:
"If we want to be effective in reaching into working-class communities, we, as Christians, need to work hard to earn the trust of those communities. I (Paul) believe it’s to our advantage as the church that we’re not seen as part of ‘them’ – without being disrespectful to authority, we need to show that we’re not the same as ‘them’, by which I mean we are not giving preferential treatment to the powerful. If the church is seen as the opposition, as ‘them’, it’s likely we won’t be trusted.
Ultimately, the church should not be ‘us’ or ‘them’ – we want to break down the barriers between the powerful and the powerless. One of the most moving demonstrations of the gospel’s effectiveness to break down invisible divides I (Natalie) have seen is when a convicted burglar who had been in and out of prison was baptized at the same time as one of the police officers who had previously arrested him. Both had recently encountered Jesus and become Christians.
Before, they had been ‘enemies’; now they were brothers in Christ, cheering each other on as they were, one after the other, fully immersed in the baptism pool. This is what should happen time and time again in church life – ‘us’ and ‘them’ side by side, worshipping
together, breaking bread together, sharing our lives with each other."
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Natalie Williams & Paul Brown, Invisible Divides: Class, Culture & Barriers to Belonging, (SPCK, 2022), p. 99
'Invisible Divides' will be released on 21st April, 2022 and is available to pre-order now.
