The state rules
by George Jonas
National Post
May 5, 2010
To the surprise of the faithful, last month in Britain the Archbishop of Canterbury defended Christianity. Who would have thought? Rowan Williams was quoted as chastising a hospital's "wooden-headed bureaucratic silliness" for not letting a Christian nurse wear her crucifix necklace any longer.
The estimable successor of Thomas Becket stood firmly on the side of his flabbergasted flock. He did so in his Easter sermon, no less. "Well, I never!" one member of the congregation is said to have commented, while another suggested that anyone could have knocked her down with a feather.
"And here I was thinking he's a namby-pamby. Well! Did you hear him say that nixing this nurse's crucifix was 'One more small but significant mark of what many Christians feel is a sustained effort to discriminate against them and render their faith invisible and impotent in the public sphere?' "
"Come on. Our Archbishop said this? Not Williams."
"I'm telling you. Bold as brass. I never thought I'd see the day."
Well, many of us never thought we'd see many a day, but see them we did, and we haven't seen everything yet. The nurse in question, Shirley Chaplin, 54, probably never thought she'd see the day when a crucifix necklace she received as a confirmation gift in 1971 would be ruled a hazard by a medical authority in Britain.
But one day the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS (National Health Service) Trust Hospital informed the veteran nurse that her crucifix was a health and safety hazard. My bet is at first she thought that she had misheard.
"Safety what?"
"Hazard. Patients could grab it."
"Grab my crucifix? In 30 years they never did."
"Yes, well, there's always a first time."
I don't know if there was such a dialogue between the parties, but there must have been something close to it because by the time the case got to an employment tribunal, the chairman, John Hollow, concluded the hospital had offered Mrs. Chaplin a reasonable compromise. The administrators would have let her hide her crucifix under her uniform, pinned or taped to her bra.
Though no one said so specifically, I expect the hospital would also have let Mrs. Chaplin swallow her crucifix, or shove it up the orifice of her choice -- anything, as long as she didn't display it. After all, the officials had nothing against crucifixes as such, only against people wearing them.
Amazingly, the NHS bureaucrats seemed to view their offers as sensible and sensitive compromises. "Sensible and sensitive solutions were offered to Mrs. Chaplin," the hospital's actual statement read.
Hello! Officials! Telling people they're free to hide what they wish to show is mockery, not compromise. When display is the whole point of a symbol, religious or secular, it's no accommodation to tell someone to shove it down her bra. Can hospital administrators and employment tribunals be obtuse enough not to see this? Or is it simply that they don't give a damn?
The answer is yes to both questions. Bureaucrats are famous for their obtuseness as well as for their insolence. Officialdoms are rhinoceriats, seeing little and caring less. They rely on weight, not sight.
In addition, regulatory agency cadres and administrative tribunal types are arrogant enough to think everyone else is obtuse -- so obtuse as not to see that the statist agenda includes stomping out any vestiges of what used to be Christendom.
But Christians do see it. By now, even the Archbishop of Canterbury does.
He may not see it the way his predecessor the turbulent priest saw the power grab of a predatory king, but reincarnation isn't a Christian doctrine. Thomas Becket had a martyr's soul; Rowan Williams has a poet's. The current Archbishop sees things with a bit of a sigh.
"With a bit of a sigh, we read about yet another legal wrangle over the right to wear a cross in public while engaged in professional duties," Williams said last month in his Easter sermon. No outrage; just the Anglican Church finding statism a little tedious, which it undoubtedly is.
Under statism employment tribunals issue theological findings. "There is no mandatory requirement of the Christian faith that a Christian should wear a crucifix," duty commissar John Hollow determines. If a Christian nurse insists on bearing witness by wearing a cross, she's reassigned to a desk job. A Muslim doctor can wear a headscarf because it fits tight.
Hijabs fit, crucifixes don't, the state rules. Murder in the cathedral is still available. Archbishops apply within.