Thought for the Day, 1 June 2006

The Rev. Joel Edwards

It's one of the most celebrated works of Shakespeare. In the famous scene the senate close in on the doomed Emperor. The drawn daggers plunge deep into the Emperor's body. And then the most painful deathblow of all; Brutus, Caesar's most loyal disciple makes his contribution. If you know nothing else about Julius Caesar you know this line: "Et tu Brute?"

There's something quite brutish about knife crime. A gun can kill a faceless person a mile away; an arrow takes a life at a distance. But whether it's Julius Caesar, Thomas a Beckett or a murdered student on a train from Cumbria, there's something chilling about the intimacy in which a knife punctures the soul of another person.

So yesterday, the news that a 29 year old father of three was stabbed in Bristol left me suspended between anger and anguish. Anger because once again a mindless act has terminated someone's life and shattered a constellation of relationships. Anguish because this is the sixth 'knife incident' in our newspapers within a fortnight.

And outrageous anguish that this small cyclone of killings should escalate during a knife amnesty.

Amnesties must be a step in the right direction, but on their own they will never be sufficient for the need. And neither, I suspect, will renewed assertive language about being tough on the causes of crime - or indeed important debates about the restructuring of our police services.

All of these are crucial. None of them will be decisive.

Something more fundamental needs to happen inside of us. For political responses are important but in the battle to recover lost ground our ideas about ourselves may yet prove to be far more powerful than our policies.

In our search for Respect, this battle of ideas cannot be overestimated and somehow the idea that we are important because of who we are rather than what we have is critical.

In the Bible we are introduced to an extraordinary idea. It is that all of us - men and woman - are made in God's image and likeness. And that God was so committed to this idea that Jesus came to identify in it with us. This is a great idea!

And this Biblical view of our shared humanity - available to all peoples of all cultures and creeds - examines our relationships from this perspective and asks 'How can I possibly abuse another person as God-like as myself?'

It's an idea from which to fund our imagination as we think about Respect.