Thought for the Week: Humility or Arrogance

The recent Assisted Dying debate showcased the House of Commons at its abnormal best. And one of the interesting themes was the inter-action of faith and politics, which was also exemplified by the weekly TODAY podcast on Thursdays at 2300 hours – a really good programme, when presenters Nick Robinson and Amal Rajan have time to focus on a particular issue more thoroughly than can be done in TODAY’s usual three-minute interview. The guests were two Sikh Labour MPs – Ms Preet Kaur Gill and Mr Warinder Juss. They agreed that their faith prohibited assisted dying. For Ms Gill, that was the end of the matter. Not so for Mr Juss. He said that it was wrong for him to impose his religious principles on citizens who didn’t share them. This took me back to a time when I was the Liberal, then LibDem, Parliamentary Candidate in three General Elections. On the Sunday before Polling Day, Churches Together in Woking used to organise a hustings for the candidates. I irreverently called it “Sunday afternoon at the Woking Colosseum”, with the candidates appearing as the early Christians before an audience of multi-denominational lions! Up popped a Christian priest passionately opposed to abortion. It was “murder”, he shouted. It should be a criminal offence in all circumstances. I told him he was absolutely entitled to hold his views, and to live his life accordingly. But he was NOT, I said firmly, entitled to impose those views on others. I then asked the reporters present to put their pens down, and went personal. This is what I said. “My wife and I have a son who has profound disabilities. Suppose this had become apparent during her pregnancy (which it didn’t). What would we have done? Well. we would have considered the options carefully. We would have taken professional advice. We would have consulted our consciences. We would have agonised. And I genuinely don’t know what decision we would have taken. But that dreadfully difficult decision – to opt for a termination or to carry on – would have been taken ethically and honourably. Why do you say – or, without being discourteous, who are you to say – that we should be criminalised for that thoughtful decision?” Not everybody in the audience agreed with me. But they appreciated my honesty. So this is a crucial point about faith. A faith should not be proclaimed by its adherents as “THE truth”. In the faith worlds, there are multiple perceptions of truth. They all have validity. The watchword for faith leaders has to be humility rather than arrogance.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK