Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: March 2006

f comes to church

Fear, foment, fanaticism, failure, fury, factions, fiddle, frown, fray, falsehoods, ferment, ferocity, fiends, fracture, fists, frauds, fouls, fights, foibles, force, foist, fracas, flaunt, fragment, fuss, flout, fright.

If it is true that every picture is worth 1000 words, then 27000 words are coming to Teddington Baptist Church for the f-word exhibition. In a country where our frustration with each other, the authorities and with life in general is boiling over into increasingly abusive language, it is tempting to ask why any church would willingly host an exhibition entitled 'the f-word'!

There are three reasons which predominate. The first is the longing for a way ahead which breaks the cycle of violence, anger and payback that is the currency of human relations in so many parts of the world. Anita Roddick, Patron of the Forgiveness Project behind the exhibition says the following: Tit-for-Tat killings and pay-back politics are all we hear about these days. That's why I think it's so terribly important to give a platform to those who have gone the other way - people who have turned revenge on its head and tried to forgive. In a world dominated by the angry 'f's' , this exhibition offers an alternative.

The second reason is to celebrate those attempts which have been made - either corporately or individually, to bridge the divides created by past wrongdoing. Whilst many may be sceptical about grand gestures of forgiveness towards the Australian Aborigines or the Middle-European Jews or other groups - they nonetheless reflect a desire to make amends.

Thirdly, the exhibition tells the stories of those who have gone beyond the desire to forgive, and have actually managed to do it. Here we meet a woman who has forgiven her father's killer, another who has forgiven her husband's brutal murderer, and a Catholic Priest who would like to forgive the letter-bomber who took two of his hands and one of his eyes. This is the power of forgiveness at work.

Christianity's founder is an innocent man who prayed for his killers even as they murdered him. For us the key f-word is faith - faith in a God who can forgive the wrongs of the past and offer a truly hopeful future.