For whom the Bell tolls

  Unity is a word which – in church circles at least – should come with a health warning. It’s a word that has been weaponised, that has been used to silence the oppressed, that has been rather grandly – rather grandiosely, perhaps – been adopted by many bishops as the centre piece of their ministry. Unity has been wheeled out as the ultimate answer to disagreement – as a smokescreen, something which, when all is said and done, trumps truth, trumps honesty in disagreement, trumps listening to the marginalised and those who face the systematic oppression of church and society. Because unity is the will of God for God’s church – that they may all be one, ut unum sint, as St John’s Gospel says.   The idea of – and the desire for – unity is something which we must surely draw our attention to this Sunday morning, for at least two reasons. We find ourselves, today, slap bang in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a week that comes around year by year,