If, as David Cameron says
"we are a Christian country"
why are Christians forced to choose between work and faith for not working on Sundays, despite having told their employer beforehand they couldn't do so, and then having their shifts changed? A decision then backed by our court system?
At what point does this sort of rhetoric simply become meaningless (left-leaning readers will probably respond 'as soon as Cameron says it')..?
Cameron's position IS left - the Conservative Party is cultural Marxist, like the C of E.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a mistake in your post, and also a slightly misleading point.
ReplyDeleteThe mistake seems to be that you say she was sacked, whereas the BBC says she resigned. (The Independent says she "lost her job".)
What's rather misleading is that you say she told them beforehand that she wasn't prepared to work Sundays, but there's no mention (presumably because we don't know) of what their response to this was. My guess is that the council said they'd do what they could but that it wasn't written into her contract.
With these two points in mind, the situation looks rather different I think.
WWJD? He showed that it's not necessary to keep the Sabbath if there is good work to be done. The claim is that she was forced to choose between her job and her faith. One could argue that there's no better example of faith than giving up your Sunday to care for the weakest in society. It's a lot more than I do.
Dan - thankyou, that is a mistake, I've corrected it.
ReplyDeleteYour last paragraph is an important challenge. There are two issues here: can a society moving towards 24/7 work patterns accommodate Christians (for many of us, being a regular part of a church worshipping on Sunday is both an important expression of our faith, and a vital support). Should the accommodation all be on one side, because Christians are supposed be like that anyway?
The other challenge is for the church and individual Christians - if our society is going to be like this, how far do we try to keep some form of protection, or do we adapt our patterns of life, worship etc. to fit the new reality? The early church met before or after the working day, which especially for slaves meant some very antisocial hours, and Sunday wasn't a day of rest for the first 300 years.
There's a wider principle here about employment rights - I worry that the balance of power has shifted too far towards employers, both public and private sector, so that everything - faith, family, health, social life, job security - is deemed worthy of sacrifice on the altar of economic progress and 'hard work'.
On your final point - Mr Cameron has had 3.5 years to introduce a law to rebalance employment law to be more fair between workers and their employers. In fact he's passed two laws that made it better for employers by increasing the amount of time before an employee gets most employment rights and introducing fees that an employee must pay to try and enforce what rights they still have. Your faith in Mr Cameron's words is touching but I would suggest that he's not in the slightest bit interested in improving the lot of any worker.
ReplyDeleteOn the specific case, what would David (Keen) do? Imagine you're Ms.Mba's boss, you need to cover Sundays, none of your existing Sunday staff want to increase the number of Sundays they work, employing someone just for the Sunday isn't feasible. Two years ago there was an agreement with Ms Mba that she wouldn't work Sundays, though that isn't in her written contract of employment. What would you do to fix the problem?
A few points:
ReplyDelete1 - David highlights that Cameron continually gives the line that this is a Christian country, which is true. Admittedly it is often only done in situations that serve his agenda, but he still does it.
2 - Equal opportunities law includes religious observance. Some idiots/judges have claimed that there is nothing in Christianity that defines when they should worship, but that shows a complete lack of understanding of Christianity, as the call is to serve your local community through the Church. This means joining a local church, i.e. one you live near to. Given that most churches meet on Sundays, and mornings are more likely than evenings (I know of very few churches in my area that have an evening service), and the Christian life is to be lived in community with other Christians (e.g. Church) then there is an obligation on every Christian to go to church when their chosen church has a service on.
3 - Merton Council are part of the national government set up. They may be local, but they are still a part of the system. That means that they should be held to a higher standard than unaffiliated organisations, because they are a part of the system that created the equalities law in the first place. If they can't keep to it then they should pass up that information and seek to redefine the law so that they can discriminate Christians legally, rather than seeking to hide the fact through spouted rubbish about how they were acting in the interests of the children they work with!
4 - WWJD? Jesus would say that whilst it is good to do the Father's work on the Sabbath, Merton Council are not the Father. And, at the end of the day, worshipping God comes before ALL else!!!