Acts 4: 1-12
The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4 But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.
5 The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is
“‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
John 10: 11 - 18
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
Are you proud to be English?
I ask because it is St George's Day on Tuesday.
I grew up in the Brethren church, a strict Evangelical non-Conformist denomination, that taught loyalty to Christ came before loyalty to country.
The Brethren rejected the idea that being English meant you were a Christian as they held your culture could not make you a Christian, only your conscience, by the Grace of God, could make you a Christian. Ticking the C of E box just because you were born in England was to place your feet firmly on a highway to hell. This meant the Brethren welcomed any aspects of national culture that were genuinely Christian, and firmly rejected any aspects of national culture they judged not to be Christian. The clearest indicator of this was that the Brethren church was pacifist, so if if the nation called you to arms, you were instead to obey Christ's command to 'put away your sword.' That's what my father did in World War II, he could not fight for God and country because he believed his country did not speak for God.
Thus I grew up in an age when to be English was seen to be Christian, yet saw my primary identity as Christian, not English. Indeed, I was taught to be very cautious about nationalism. The measure of right and wrong was Christ, not nation.
So when God called me to the Anglican Church I had some thinking to do. Here was a denomination that strongly identified nation and faith together, and had good historical reason for doing so; indeed it could be argued that the idea of a fully independent English identity decisively came about when Henry VIII rejected the authority of the Bishop of Rome, and asserted English political and religious freedom – all under his tyrannical rule, of course.
The Anglican Church has strongly influenced English culture. The words of the King James bible, and the Book of Common Prayer, are threaded into our language, and our literature. The Established Church is threaded into our national institutions, our Monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and Bishops sit in the House of Lords. The Anglican church has also helped shape our national consciousness, for instance, the concept of toleration, and freedom of religion, which won out in the troubled history of the Anglican church, has been passed on to wider society.
Yet during the years I have been a part of the Church of England that link between Englishness and Christianity has been broken, mainly by increased secularism, but also by immigration. In a way, the Brethren were right, being English was never enough to make you Christian, and that has just become clear as the numbers on the census have shifted through the years.
So am I proud to be English?
Yes, I am, and here is why.
For a start, the composers, Henry Purcell, Charles Hubert Parry, Edward Elgar, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. I think Vaughan William's Tallis Fantasia alone is sufficient for me to feel national pride.
Then there's English writers, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austin, George Elliot, the Brontes, Laurence Sterne, William Makepeace Thackery. Sterne's 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy' is alone sufficient for me to feel national pride.
Poets too, we've had some great poets, William Blake, Gerald Manly Hopkins, George Herbert, John Keats, John Donne, Geoffrey Chaucer, Percy Shelley, and world class scientists, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Alexander Fleming, Stephen Hawking, and great engineers like Isambard Kingdom Brunel and George Stephenson. England can make a strong case to be called the birth place of the industrial revolution, a technological and economic revolution that is still transforming our world.
My apologies, by the way, if I am missing your favourites off these lists, this is a personal choice of English men and women to be proud of. There are, of course, areas where I have little expertise, like Pop music, but even I know of the achievements of the Beatles, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd. English Popular music has had a massive global influence.
There are also sports stars who cause me to feel national pride, for me mainly cricketers, but Ian Botham, Fred Truman, Stuart Broad, Freddy Flintoff, Ben Stokes, Michael Vaughan, Monty Panesar, basically anyone who has clouted an Aussie for six, or taken out their middle stump, is an English hero in my book.
What about our martial history? Despite my Brethren upbringing, I am not a pacifist. I certainly believe war should always be a last resort, and that passive resistance can achieve much, but while there are armed evil men in the world I think we have to be willing to defend ourselves, and defend the weak and vulnerable, and defend the values we stand for. I thank God I have never been called upon to fight, but if I had, I pray I would have given a good account of myself.
I am aware there is much in our martial history to be ashamed of, times when brutality has gotten the better of our sense of decency, and times when conquest and profit have motivated our policy at the expense of moral principle. However, there are times when when we have, alongside the other nations of the United Kingdom, stood against tyranny. Think of Queen Elizabeth I, before the repulsion of the Spanish Armada, declaring “I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.” Or of Nelson's call to arms at Trafalgar, "England expects that every man will do his duty." And alone after the fall of France, resolutely against Nazism, Churchill warning, “The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."”
Even in cases where the morality was less clear, as in World War I, I still admire the fortitude and courage of British soldiers. I shiver with pride and emotion each Remembrance Day as I read out the names of the men from our villages who were killed in the Great War. They were braver, and more principled than I.
So to another controversial subject in which I think we can take pride, our politics. England, in partnership with Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, has contributed to the global development of Parliamentary democracy, and the idea and practice of the Rule of Law. On our own shores we have seen the creation of the Welfare State, and of the NHS. From the Great Reform Act of 1832, to the 1928 Representation of the People Act, which extended the vote to women, we have sought to make just our political life, and in Equalities legislation since the 1970's we have sought to make just our social and economic life. That is not to say the work on any of these matters is complete, but we should be proud of our progress. In Benjamin Disraeli we had our first Ethnic minority Prime Minister, that was in 1868, now we have a Hindu Prime Minister, and we have had three female Prime Ministers, all of them Conservative – I can't help thinking the Labour Party has some catching up to do on this. People love to moan about politics, and bemoan our political system, but we have been at the forefront of social, economic, and political progress for hundreds of years.
I think the English are at their best when we embrace our cosmopolitan nature. Tea from India. Fish and chips, introduced to these shores by Italian immigrants. Christianity, a middle Eastern religion. Think of Edward Elgar, that most English of composers, whose music was influenced by Richard Strauss, Johannes Brahms, and Antonin Dvorak. However, we seem to have become willing to celebrate other cultures, but not our own. It is not racist, or right wing, or colonialist, to celebrate the good in English culture – and we have much to be proud of.
It is good and healthy to celebrate the good that we see in each other, Philippians 4:8 says, “...brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
National identity encourages us to look beyond our own self interest to that of our fellow countrymen. That is the beginnings of a Christian principle. Celebrating our own national identity should also give us the confidence to celebrate our neighbour's identity, both our neighbours at home and abroad. Respect for our own culture should engender respect for others, else we betray our better selves.
I have learnt to be a proud Englishman, the Brethren church encouraged me to value the church community over my national community, and to regard our culture with suspicion, but over time I have found that Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, is present beyond the walls of the church. Where ever I find the way, the truth, and the life, I find the presence of Jesus and His Kingdom. The resurrection means I must expect to meet with Jesus, even if at first I don't recognise him, like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, or the disciples who gathered on the shore as a man they began to recognise cooked them fish.
What I am saying is this, that any nation that has produced Spike Milligan (Irish), Morecambe and Wise, Monty Python, Dad's Army, and Blackadder, can't be all bad.
Amen.
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