Message from Tim

What’s in a slogan?

What was your reaction to the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol last week? Priti Patel condemned it as ‘sheer vandalism’ which was ‘utterly disgraceful’. Yet Bristol’s multi-cultural community have long been affronted by the statue of someone whose beneficence to the city was funded by profits from the slave trade: he was deputy governor of the Royal African Company, which trafficked up to 100 000 black men, women and children to the Americas. As many as 20 000 of them died on board the ships into which they had been crammed, and their bodies were dumped into the sea.

The slogan taken up by those who have protested around the world in response to the callous murder of George Floyd is ‘Black Lives Matter’. It’s a powerful statement, which counters and condemns Floyd’s murder and the institutional racism and injustice behind his death and the deaths of so many others. It’s a slogan that brought people out onto UK streets in tens of thousands, in utter disregard for the government’s directive banning outdoor gatherings of more than six people because of the coronavirus. It’s a mandate for action: if ‘Black Lives Matter’, then for the protestors in Bristol a statue honouring Edward Colston as ‘one of the most virtuous and wise sons of [the] city’ could no longer remain in place. If ‘Black Lives Matter’, then it is inexcusable that references to structural racism were edited out of a government report detailing why a disproportionate number of people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups died from Covid-19. If Black Lives Matter (and they certainly do!) then things need to change.

The power of the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ led me to reflect on the equally powerful slogan coined by the first Christians: ‘Jesus is Lord.’ Again, this is a slogan which changed everything. If Jesus is Lord, those responsible for the travesty of justice which resulted in his execution would have to bow the knee before him. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not. If Jesus is Lord, then he is in some sense God. If Jesus is Lord, then death is not the end. If Jesus is Lord, then his kingdom impacts on all society, every nation and the whole created order. If Jesus is Lord, I am called to live my life for him, and to lay my life down for him, if need be.

The first Christians knew that saying ‘Jesus is Lord’ and living that truth out in practice was dynamite. Over time, they changed the world. For ourselves today, it may well be that we have lost sight of how radical that claim is: we have turned a powerful slogan into a worship song and have found it much easier and more comfortable to settle for that.

But if Jesus really is Lord, what needs to change for you? Are there idols that need to be pulled off their plinths in your life? What part is he calling you to play in setting right what is wrong in this world? How does Jesus being Lord impact on your life and the lives of those around you? If Jesus is Lord of our polluted and damaged eco-systems, what difference will that make to how you live? How does Jesus being Lord affect your response to the death of George Floyd, or any other cases of injustice? No one who says ‘Jesus is Lord’ can shrug their shoulders and say, ‘So what?’ If Jesus is Lord, these things matter. If Jesus is Lord, everything has to be different.