Opinion Column
Is the New Jerusalem just a dream?
Andy Bryant laments the fact that global tensions seem to have pervaded our society, and yearns for a time when we can live and flourish peacefully together.
It is rare that a social media post stays long in my mind, but a recent post from the Muslim Council of Britain still haunts me. The post was advice on how to stay safe if visiting your local mosque. How have we come to a place in our society where safety advice is needed for people visiting their place of worship? Sadly, this is of course not new, as synagogues now routinely employ security teams. And do not be foolish enough to think that the time will not come when Christians too may not feel safe going to church in Britain.
Britain is a wonderfully diverse society which has deeply enriched the life of our nation. But, tragically, we have allowed the wider tensions in the world to infect our community relations in this country. The bitterness engulfing other parts of our world is having an impact here, and we need to have the courage to take a stand against this. Nobody should be afraid going to their place of worship.
A day later I found myself reading at a service the sixty-fifth chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah: God about to create a new heaven and a new earth and Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight – a place where the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain says the Lord”. Yet Jerusalem today has come to reflect the worst divisions of our world.
The three great Abrahamic faiths all embrace Jerusalem as a sacred city. This should mean that it is a place of peace, a place where the best of religion is visible for all to see, where the three faiths only outdo one another in love and service to one another. Religion, which should be a great healing force for our world, becomes instead toxic. Jerusalem today is far from all that God longed for it.
William Blake in his much-loved hymn “Jerusalem” asks “and was Jerusalem builded here among these dark satanic mills?” Could we here in this multi-cultural nation make the legacy of the often-challenging heritage of the British Empire an inspiration for us creating a new Jerusalem, a place where all people find a welcome, where differences are for enriching, not for division, where tolerance and respect are our hallmarks, not bitterness and division? Could we dare to be a nation where the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, a place where Isaiah’s prophecy begins to find fulfilment?
Must our nation forever just be an echo-chamber for all the dispute, divisions and rivalries that beset our world, or can we dare to say that here we will strive to create a different community, one that offers the world a different way of being, a beacon of hope?
No doubt many will want to say to me that I am a dreamer, that this is just so much pie-in-the-sky. But if the idea of this being a Christian country, if we are a nation with an established church, is to have any meaning, is it not to say we want to be different and not just like the other nations? At the Reformation, England elected to follow its own path, to seek its own distinctive response to the swirling tensions of the age, to hold to a church which would be both catholic and reformed – a middle way was the uniquely English response.
As a Christian I stand in solidarity with my Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters, affirming their right to live lives free of prejudice and discrimination and able to worship without fear. For me a sign of the kingdom of God in this land would be that together we can create a society where all can flourish, wolf, lamb, lion, and ox. He who stepped out of his own culture to befriend both Roman and Samaritan would expect nothing less.
However far away the vision may be, however hard it may be to achieve, with William Blake I will not cease til we have built Jerusalem, in England’s green and pleasant land. A dream perhaps, unobtainable in my lifetime most likely, but is it not a dream worth striving for? And besides, can you offer me a better dream than seeking Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight?
Image by Rich Angelotti on Pixabay.
The Revd Andrew Bryant is the Canon for Mission and Pastoral Care at Norwich Cathedral. He was previously Team Rector of Portishead, Bristol, in the Diocese of Bath and Wells, and has served in parishes in the Guildford and Lichfield Dioceses, as well as working for twelve years with Kaleidoscope Theatre, a charity promoting integration through theatre for young adults with Down’s Syndrome.
You can read Andrew's latest blog entry here and can follow him via his Twitter account @AndyBry3.
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