Listening

Some days I talk too much but today I have been listening, and it wasn't always easy. In fact it has left me arguing with myself.

Most of the day was spent with Nigerian colleagues who are staying in my house and then joined me in the office for the day. Titus leads the Church of Nigeria Missionary Society, an indigenous Anglican Nigerian mission movement. Listening to him talk about their work in West Africa was inspirational - especially as he spoke about their new work in Togo, Chad and elsewhere. The picture here is of a new church planted quite recently in Togo. The challenge came later.

In the evening we fell to talking about politics in Nigeria and predictably the role of Islam in that country was soon a hot topic. Living in leafy Oxford with Muslim friends along the road and a Muslim security guard at work who comes to pray with me, it is really quite painful to listen to Nigerian Christians talking about Muslims. Their context is so different. Half of me wants to understand but the other half wants to stop listening and go one living with the illusion that we really can work out our differences as friends walking together along the Isis (the river at the end of my road).

Tonight my internet friend from Romania wrote to me again. His mission is to persuade me that I am wrong to regard many of my Orthodox friends as Christian. I wanted to hit the 'delete' key but somehow I know that was dishonest. I need to listen even though it hurts me to have my Orthodox friends described that way. My 'friend' has a view. It is not my view. It offends me at times. God give me grace to listen. That delete key is so tempting.

Pricing Archbishops

We got the good news this morning that Archbishop Peter Imasuem of Benin Diocese in Nigeria had been released. If you hadn't heard, he was abducted at gunpoint outside his home after morning service in his cathedral last week. As far as I have heard he was released unharmed but what we don't know, and may never know, is whether the US$100,000 ransom demanded by his captors was actually paid or not.

Paying ransom money is controversal everywhere. The mission I used to work for always refused to pay ransom money (not because they lacked the cash - although that was also true!) but because paying out once only invites bandits to collect a few more hostages and increase their business turnover. But, try explaining that to the family! If my brother was taken hostage of course I would want to pay the ransom, as soon as possible, but is that just selfish? What about the next family to be effected, and the next?

Hostage taking has become a real industry in the seas off Somalia and there is a risk it will become so in the oil fiends of Nigeria. So was an archbishop worth just £63,000? Sounds rather cheap to me. So how much would a shop assistant or a motor mechanic be worth? Surely the answer is that we cannot put a monetary value on any life and we must do all we can to stamp out hostage taking - and every other form of trading in human lives.