Proclaimer Blog
The pastor: a man for all the people
I always enjoy reading obituaries, but I've particularly enjoyed reading the warm appreciations written for UK politician Tony Benn who died last week. He was a true socialist, what we call a conviction politician. I don't share all his convictions (though I share some of them), but he was a man who was warm and likeable, even with those with whom he disagreed. But one characteristic intrigues me. Tony was posh. Socialist posh, I mean. In fact he was titled. Originally Viscount Stansgate, he gave up his title in order to serve as an MP. True, his heritage was Liberal and Labour through and through and the peerage had come to the family because of its early 20th Century political service; nevertheless, his education (Westminster and Oxford) cemented his privileged place in society. You knew this just by listening to him speak. But here's the thing. Working class people loved him. I don't think he was ever claimed as 'one of our own'. But he was a class-crosser. This morning I heard a report on the radio from a black organisation saying they loved him too! He was a race-crosser. All of this despite the fact he never stopped being himself. Today, pastors convince themselves that they can only serve the same kind of people they are. Whether this is made explicit or not, the end result is that churches tend to homogenise. So what Tony showed is that it is not impossible to connect effectively with people from different backgrounds, class and race. The fact that some of us cannot is not a reflection on the difficult nature of the task, but rather a sober reflection of our own characters.
The pastor, whatever his background, can indeed be a man for all the people.