Inclusion or Exclusion? Embracing Difference
Love your neighbour as yourself”
Luke 10:27
Dear Students, Parents and Carers
Yale Professor Miroslav Volf, in his book Exclusion and Embrace, deals with the difficulty of how we might respond to “the other”. He is well able to speak into this space. During the Balkan Wars, following the collapse of Yugoslavia into separate and hostile states, he was tortured. After processing this for some time, his argument is that a Christian response is to embrace difference. This is consistent with the well-known parable from the Gospels, the Good Samaritan. Without having the cultural background, we can easily miss the force of this account by Jesus. The injured man’s own people, including those from the religious hierarchy, shunned him. The person who came to his aid was one of the despised enemy. The point of the story is that everyone is our neighbour. Jesus’ interpretive remark of this narrative was “love your neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10:27). This is reflected, in a general kind of way, in our modern concept that we all owe to other people a duty of care. Jesus’ concept was more radical: he made a habit of associating with and assisting the outcasts, the poor, the vulnerable, the “little people”, including lepers, who were outcasts in society.
Most people respect the notion of assisting the underprivileged. Indeed, this is fundamental to our Service Learning programmes at Shore. However, on a deeper level, much of society broadcasts a different message. Many popular TV programmes focus on the exclusion of someone who is targeted or somehow has lost, such that they are “off the island”, excluded, rejected, banished. Increasingly in our society, those who do not conform are likely to be “cancelled”.
A fundamental principle underlying our Christian position is that, however refracted any of us may be in a world that features so much brokenness, we are all made in the image of God (“Imago Dei”) and are, therefore, infinitely valuable. This proposition lies behind distinctive Shore programmes to provide loving services to any with intellectual, physical or emotional challenges. This mindset also sits within the biblical frame of extending hospitality, a major shaping concept in Semitic cultures, from which crucible the Scriptures emerged. Current educational research highlights the notion of the classroom as a hospitable space which welcomes students, creating a mindframe where, feeling valued, they are comfortable and motivated to learn.
Somewhat unconsciously, modern Australia sits on the bedrock of these biblical principles. It has been said that the Australian experience over the last 50 years indicates the most successful move in history from a mono to multicultural society. Our national record further back in our past was much more chequered. Chinese miners who arrived in Australia to seek their fortune during the Gold Rushes of the 1850-1870s found instead that they were victims of racial vilification. Going into the 20th century, the “White Australia Policy” attempted to buttress Australia as an outpost of Anglo-Saxon racial purity. In the middle of the century, politicians made political capital from warning the electorate of the “yellow peril” to our north. The sad history of the treatment of Indigenous people over the past 240 years of our nation is well known. Few modern Australians are proud of these shameful policies and attitudes of the past.
There are always likely to be issues when differing cultural norms bump into one another, like tectonic plates. Shore is committed to respecting difference, whether ethnic, racial, religious, intellectual, physical or social, and, indeed, building for the future on this basis. Although we cannot offer a “blank cheque” by way of restoration of issues, within the budgetary framework of the School (which, of course, does have limits), we seek to be driven by Jesus’ basic principle of love for each other. The concept is not a “starry eyed”, romantic notion, but rather one which considers practical means of serving the interests of others. Great schools are founded on such a principle.
Dr John Collier
Headmaster