BBC Radio 4 2016-06-03

BBC Radio 4 2016-06-03

Good morning. Employers should be free to ban Muslim women from wearing headscarves at work if they have a general policy barring all religious and political symbols. That was the opinion of the advocate general this week at the European Court of Justice. This is not the end of the matter for a final ruling will be given by the highest court later this year but it is a significant indicator to what might happen.

I know from my own experience the effect wearing a religious symbol can have on other people for I usually wear a clerical collar, purple shirt and cross. This is not a neutral form of address. It arouses reactions, positive, hostile or amusing. I have been stopped by a young couple and asked for a prayer and blessing. On another occasion taking a youth group to France an old lady pushed her fist in my face with an expletive and told me to get back to England. And I like the story of a former archbishop who jumped onto the platform of one of those old fashioned double decker buses to be shouted at by the conductor “Oi, you robin redbreast, get upstairs”

So when we see a cross, a Sikh Turban or a Jewish Kippur, or a Muslim headscarf we do not see them neutrally. They will bring out a particular set of assumptions and feelings. These will depend partly on the stereotypes we have imbibed from our own culture and partly from our own experience of that religion, whether it has been a positive or negative one. It is certainly the experience of Christian clergy that people project on to them all kinds of assumptions so that they are seen as much better than they really are or far worse.

We cannot avoid having some pre-formed view or feelings that come to mind when we see a religious symbol. What we can do is try to be aware of them. Then ask ourselves where they come from, whether they are rational and then remind ourselves quite simply that we are seeing someone with similar fears and hopes to our own. Jesus stressed the crucial importance of how we see other people. “The lamp of your body is the eye” he said. (Luke 11, 34) - and elsewhere “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. Only in purity of heart do we see not only God but others as they should be seen. “Cleanse the doors of perception”, said the poet William Blake.

Personally I am very glad we have a much more relaxed attitude to religious dress in this country compared to France. But whatever the European Court finally decides the law does not get to the heart of the matter. That is how we see others and how far we are prepared to flush out all false associations, that we may see people as fellow humans, and, from a Christian point of view, as bearing the divine image.