BA and the Cross... why has this discussion become necessary?

On Friday the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said: "If BA [British Airways] is really saying or implying that the wearing of a cross in public is a source of offence, then I regard that as deeply offensive."

Perhaps it is time for us to open a dialogue about why such taking of "offence" at public displays of Christian faith has become normative in our society.

The ABC would do well to recognize a broader pattern in these tussles. The public face of Christianity is increasingly suffering. Western societies are increasingly struggling to secularize culture... in the workplace, in civic life, in politics. There is good reason.

As a devout Christian, I lament this turn of events and I understand it at once. The rejection of public symbols of religious faith is the rejection discord and an attempt to limit the possibility of offending.

Why should companies such as BA reject the cross? Why should it be seen as an offence? Because the church and her symbols are seen increasingly as complicit in discord around the world. While the Church is called to be a reconciling agent in the world, it is increasingly complicit in sowing division and strife. The Church cannot get her own affairs in order, cannot unite herself against her own internal divisions... how can the Church then be seen as uniting a divided world?

The public face of the Christian faith is one that is dour indeed. Fundamentalism is increasingly the loudest and most visible face of the faith today. In our own Anglican/Episcopal Church, the rise of fundamentalism in some quarters, the increase in rigid sectarianism, the exclusion of those who disagree through the attempts to break communion all point to the Church being an increasing part of the PROBLEM that ails society rather than the solution.

I am not surprised that any company seeks to limit public expressions of a faith that increasingly represents intolerance and an intractable rejectionism of non-believers... that leads to division among peoples.

The ABC and leaders of Christian denominations the world over need to ask themselves why the public expression of faith through the wearing of Christian symbols should cause a problem at all. +Rowan should be looking at his own complicity is these matters. With the moderates among us trying so hard to redeem the name of the faith and live out the gospel of God's redeeming LOVE, we need to accept responsibility for our public silence while radicals on the right and the left sow division in the world through a personal and corporate triumphalism and rejection of those with whom they disagree. Rather than helping in this matter, Rowan through his own waffling and poor leadership, has complicated the matter greatly.

The cross in secular society has, sadly, become not a symbol of Christ's redeeming love, but instead a symbol of a faith that still rejects the other; rails against science and reason; spends more time discussing personal matters of sex than issues of poverty, the environment, and hunger; retreats into sectarianism to avoid the complexities of a global society; and represents a personal badge of salvation that excludes the unbeliever rather than a corporate invitation to a salvation freely offered to all lived out faithfully among believers confident in God's ability to unite us all in love for the world. Even in our own Anglican tradition... love and a reasoned consideration of faith lived out in diversity have taken a back seat to a fundamentalism that is not a part of our heritage. Rowan allows the issues that divide us at the table (and the Table) to take precedence over those which unite us in common mission to feed a starving world. We cannot find our unity as a faith and as a Church by sacrificing the "other;" by excluding or threatening to exclude those with whom we disagree. The world will find no example to follow in this regard, will find no inspiration. Hence, the world and its agencies, for purely practical purposes, will reject the public display of a faith that has proven incapable of behaving itself in a manner that is not troublesome to others, particularly those outside its embrace. The rejection of visible expressions of the faith through these symbols should be seen in this light.

Christianity was meant to be troublesome to the world, but not in this way. It was meant to put lie to the divisions that keep us away from the love of God and love of one another. It was founded by outcasts and sinners around faith in a man who embodied love and compassion, as healing for a broken world and as an antidote for that which divides us.

I am a religious brother who wears a cross every day... to work, church, social gatherings. It is a heavy burden to carry in today's world because I experience first hand what the cross says to SO many I encounter. It is intimidating, not comforting to others because we as Christians have failed to fully live out its meaning. I understand BA's decision AND I am glad they are rethinking it at the request of the Bishop of London and the ABC. But +Rowan and other Christian leaders need to accept their own responsibility for why it has become an issue at all.

There is no humility in Rowan's quote that opens this article. His being deeply offended is naive and arrogant. He should not wonder, while his own house crumbles around him, why Christianity is no longer seen in secular society as a gift that inspires but an increasingly bitter cup that is largely responsible for much of what ails us.

by Br. Karekin M Yarian, BSG