The intolerance towards Christians in the public sector is an affront -and a sign of the growing gap between the governing and the governed.
 

By

John Sentamu
Last updated at 10:12 AM on 13th February 2009

Wherever I am in the world, my day begins with prayer. It was Dom Helder Camara, after Martin Luther, who said: 'I find these days that I am so busy I have to spend at least four hours each morning in prayer.'
 

While I cannot claim to have the discipline of Camara, I understand what he means.
 

Prayer is important. At its best, it ushers us into the very presence of God. We come before him in our frail humanity with our worries, hopes and fears as well as our requests.
 

Sometimes our prayer is silence, perhaps awed by the majestic and mystical nature of God, or perhaps because we have been silenced by the incomprehensible suffering of the innocent and we no longer know how or what to say.
 

In recent days, prayer has found its way into the headlines for other reasons altogether. Last week, community nurse Caroline Petrie was suspended as a result of offering to pray for a patient's recovery.
 

Yesterday, Jennie Cain, a primary school receptionist, was facing disciplinary action as a consequence of sending out an email asking friends to pray for her daughter.
 

The facts of the cases differ in their contexts and circumstances, but at their heart is a seeming intolerance and illiberality about faith in God which is being reflected in the higher echelons of our public services.
 

 

 

In neither case was the woman in question seeking to convince others of the rightness or doctrinal purity of her religion. They were not waving placards or burning books.
 

In their actions, they were as far away as it is possible to be from the caricature of a proselytising fundamentalism that seems to lie behind the views of those seeking to discipline them.
 

However, the suspension of one of these women and the continued disciplinary action faced by the other leads us to questions about how it is that those who share or express a trust in God  -  or more precisely, in these cases, in the Christian faith  -  are deemed worthy of discipline.
 

I am grateful that in Caroline Petrie's case her employer has seen sense and has reinstated her, and that the North Somerset Primary Care Trust said that it recognised she had been acting in the 'best interests of her patients' and that nurses did not have to 'set aside their faith' in the workplace.
 

I am hoping that Jennie Cain's employers may take a similarly enlightened view.
 

Asking someone to leave their belief in God at the door of their workplace is akin to asking them to remove their skin colour before coming into the office. Faith in God is not an add-on or optional extra.
 

For me, my trust in God is part of my DNA; it is central to who I am and defines my place in the world. It informs my whole life, not just a weekly service on a Sunday.
 

It is the failure to grasp this basic understanding of what it is to be a follower of Jesus Christ that lies at the heart of the problem of which these two cases are just symptoms.
 

There is a deep irony at work here, and not simply because the first free schools and hospitals operating in this nation were run by the churches in our land.
 

Those who display intolerance and ignorance, and would relegate the Christian faith to just another disposable lifestyle choice, argue that they operate in pursuit of policies based on the twin aims of 'diversity and equality'.
 

Yet in the minds of those charged with implementing such policies, 'diversity' apparently means every colour and creed except Christianity, the nominal religion of the white majority; and 'equality' seemingly excludes anyone, black or white, with a Christian belief in God.
 

This was strikingly illustrated in the recent case of the dedicated foster mother who had cared for foster children for more than 20 years, but who was recently struck off by her local council. What was her crime? Did she harm or allow harm to be caused to her ward?
 

No. Rather because her 16-year-old foster daughter decided  -  of her own volition  -  to convert from Islam to Christianity, the local authority struck the foster mother from its list of approved carers.
 

Punished for faith: Nurse Caroline Petrie (L) was suspended for offering to pray for a patient while primary school receptionist Jennie Cain faces disciplinary action after sending and email asking friends to pray for her daughter
 

Of course, as a modern, forward-looking nation, we should be able to work and live together, black and white, male and female, without fear of harassment or indignity based on gender, ethnicity or disability.
 

However, such policies also rightly point to the fact that neither should a person's religion be the basis upon which they are subjected to any prejudice.
 

Why then, while our children are encouraged to celebrate the religious festivals of all the major faiths, are there those in public office who seem to be ignorant of how this country's established religion gave birth to this nation?
 

In the 8th century, the Venerable Bede, the father of English history, wrote not only of how the English were converted to Christianity, but how the Gospel played a major social and civilising role in this country by uniting a group of warring tribes and conferring English nationhood upon them.
 

The opening clause of Magna Carta in 1215 acknowledged the importance of the Church and its right to propagate its views.
 

Christianity has been at the heart of the history of this nation. British history, customs and ethos have been gradually shaped by Christianity.
 

A recent correspondent suggested that, like it or not, Britishness is rooted in the Christian religion.
 

Consider our national anthem beginning with the word 'God'; consider the English flag: designed using the Christian cross. Its red colour symbolising the blood of Christ shows it is not simply a cruciform by chance.
 

Go back a century or more and the church will be found at the centre of English village life. The definition of a city was that it had a cathedral. People were born, married and buried in a Christian setting.
 

Then there are the British architects, artists, explorers and scientists whose faith gave them a basis.
 

Christianity is the tapestry upon which our country's heritage was woven. All of this is lost to those who would deny Christianity any place in our nation today.
 

Those employed as public servants and charged with running our local services, be they schools, hospitals or councils, receive their public authority only under a system of governance which is constitutionally established from the 'Queen in Parliament under God'.
 

For public servants to use their authority to deny the legitimacy of the Christian faith, when they receive such authority only through the operation of that same faith, is not only unacceptable but an affront.
 

For the millions of people in this country who profess a trust in God, these recent stories represent not only an insult to their common sensibility but also a sign of a growing gap between the mindset of the governing and the governed.
 

The requirement of common consent that underpins any operation of the democratic contract is being placed under strain by those who, with the best of motives, are making the worst of mistakes.
 

My challenge, then, to the 72 per cent of this nation who marked themselves as 'Christian' in response to the census of 2001 is that if they wish to safeguard that same Christian tradition, they must renew their faith and become actively involved in their local church.
 

For those who despair at the treatment meted out to these Christian women, the message is clear: wake up, Christian England!

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FEBRUARY-2009

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