On Tuesday, I spent 2 hours at Heriot-Watt University, and on Friday, another hour and a half. The University is looking for a new chaplain and as part of the Chaplaincy Council, I have a place in the group given the task of considering the applications and then, later, conducting the interviews. A lot of people applied for the job! It took a while to sift through these applications. I came to that task, as anyone would, with a notion of what I think the chaplain should look like, but there were all sorts of applications that challenged these preconceived ideas and made me question whether these preconceived ideas were more than that. Was I prejudiced in favour of certain kinds of people or against others? I can't tell you what these were in detail because the process is still on going, but suffice so say there were questions about gender, nationality, and religious affiliation.
Then along came the debate about Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand. Now, I admit a prejudice - I find it very hard to be in the presence of arrogant people! They make me feel as if I'm small and don't count and I find that hard to take. I have been 'in conversation' with people who are looking round the room to see who else they can talk to; who might be more important for them to speak to and their eyes are not on me, but their attention is elsewhere. To me that smacks of arrogance. I might be well out of order, but Ross and Brand strike me as being arrogant men, who think that they are untouchable and who, for that moment at least, thought they could get away with the most outrageous abuse of a young woman. Part of me smiles, because they have been humbled!
Prejudices are attitudes that make us treat certain kinds of people differently just because they are a certain kind of person. Women have been on the receiving end of so much prejudice and we like to think that it has gone, but has it really? There are still places where women are treated as second-class citizens. There are still people who subscribe to the 'children should be seen and not heard' school of thought; there are people who say that 'we want children to be part of Church, but we don't want the disruption they bring with them!'
At the Kirk Session conference at the beginning of October, we discussed the 7 marks of the healthy Church, as described by Robert Warren. One of these marks is 'makes room for all', an inclusive Church. One group of elders, discussing this, made a very perceptive comment: 'although we are good at welcoming people, we need to learn how to accept people who are different.'
Prejudices are shaped by all kinds of forces: by our upbringing, by our circumstances and so on. Yet, every person you will ever meet, no matter who that person is, no matter what that person is, has been created by God, equally and without distinction, having the same dignity, in the same image of God. The Bible challenges us to treat every person that we meet in exactly the same way, with the same love and acceptance. (James 2:1-13)
A man sat under a tree. His name was Nathaniel. He said to Philip: "Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?" Some people say the same today about the Church of Scotland, or about people aged 12-16, or about old people, or about Glasgow!
What are your prejudices? How will you change?
