Bishop’s Letter: Ignorance of the law is no excuse….


Posted on by

In this month’s Bishop’s Letter, Bishop Mike asks who should be teaching children right from wrong, what they should be teaching, and what part people of faith have to play.

I recognise that somewhere within me is an anti-nomian.  Someone, who deep down is a bit ambivalent in my attitude to the law. I tick the box on websites that says,  “I accept the terms and conditions”, but the truth is that I have never read them, probably never will and then I am furious when something goes wrong and someone, somewhere in a call-centre tells me that if I had read them I would realise that I don’t have a leg to stand on!  Pleading ignorance won’t work.

There is a long-standing principle of English law, which goes like this “ignorantia juris non excusat”.  Simply put it means, “ignorance of the law does not excuse.”  This shouldn’t surprise us, because very quickly we can see that if this principle didn’t exist, law and order would quickly fall apart. “I didn’t know that robbing/beating/slandering/ this man was wrong, m’lud”.  The defence, “I didn’t know” just won’t work.

In other words, the law has to assume that people know the difference between right and wrong.  Theologians of the past have argued as to whether the knowledge of right and wrong is innate within us, or whether it has to be taught. Interestingly, in Deuteronomy Chapter 6, the imperative in the law of Moses requires the Jew, then and now, to “teach it [the law] to your children.”  So who takes responsibility for teaching our children what is right and what is wrong? What informs such teaching?

One of the changes that I have observed in my lifetime has been a change in the way we understand both the idea of family and what a family needs to take responsibility for. The first ten years of my life saw the effective end of the extended family. The next thirty years saw the rise and fall of the nuclear family and the last twenty have seen a more ‘light touch’ and ad hoc definition of family. The reasons for this are complex, but it kind of crept up on us.

Thirty years ago, I think if you had asked the question, “Who is responsible for teaching children right from wrong?” you would have probably been told “the family”. Thirty years on and it’s not quite clear who claims to take this responsibility. Is it school? Is it the Government? Is it parents? Is it the media? Is it all four in varying degrees?

Of course, that raises the key question of WHAT is taught. Fifty years ago our culture obviously drew heavily on its Judaeo-Christian heritage. Today’s culture is less reliant on such a source. What do we think and why do we think it? It’s hard for children to tell right from wrong if parents are less clear.

Here are just a few examples from our culture.

  • Do we think that watching porn is OK? Acceptable if you like that kind of thing?
  • Do we think that websites set up for people who are looking for a bit of extra marital action to make “contact” are OK? If not then why do they attract so much interest?
  • Do we think that television programmes that set out to humiliate are a harmless form of entertainment?
  • Do we think that our children will understand love if, instead of giving them time, we simply give them things?

 

The list of questions could go on and on… What is clear is that the way we behave will communicate as much, if not more, than what we say. If our culture, when addressing these questions, can only create confusion, then what of the outcomes for our children? Passing on a list of “don’t knows,” be that at home or at school or on telly is just unfair, and will lead to disordered community rather than healthy community.

“Teach it to your children”. The questions for us today are WHO teaches and who teaches WHAT? There needs to be more public debate about this and, believe it or not, people of faith have something to contribute.

 

+Mike

June 2012









3 thoughts on “Bishop’s Letter: Ignorance of the law is no excuse….”

  1. Who determines what is right and what is wrong ? It seems to me that unless society is underpinned by a higher authority (and I don’t mean the government) anything goes, if you can get away with it. That is the situation we are faced with nowadays in a largely pagan/secular society.

    And that surely is precisely where our Christian Faith is relevant. For at its heart is God telling us why he made us and how we are to live.
    For me the ideal has to be mum and dad instructing their children, and I see no reason why such an approach is not applicable in a single parent situation. Both need to be backed up by church, school, and yes at times the community.

    Also, loving ones children doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be disciplined as and when it is necessary. That is all part of the learning process about right and wrong and growing up. Discipline seems to be a dirty word nowadays but the Bible tells us that we adults can expect to be disciplined by God when He thinks it is necessary.

    Which brings us to self control and the gifts of the Spirit. Back you Bishop.

  2. Thank you – both Bishop Mike and Sally for asking us to chew over what are crucial questions for all our mutual futures.
    The withdrawal, of some benefits for working and non working parents is creating more pressure on family life and the fear of not making ends meet is the cloud under which many exist.
    These are hard times for family life and with the standards driven and academy agenda focussed school life means that focussing on the real wellbeing of invividual children is often sacrificed in yet another climate of tension.
    Yet despite all these pressures many parents, teachers, headteachers and other supportive adults manage to live under the law of love and serve with such sacrificial care and joy, that it is inspiring how good they are.
    I am convinced that we all teach our children less through words and explicitly expressed expectations than through the modelling of our relationships and living ourselves in the experience and love of God …and if we teach the former without the later we are hypocritical shams and this will serve to perpetuate a culure of superficial double standards.

  3. It strikes me that if we are all called to take responsibility for Child Protection and Safeguarding then equally we should all take responsibility for the raising of the nation’s children who are tomorrow’s future. This would be in keeping with the old African saying that it takes a village to raise a child.

    However, this can be very diffiult for parents and schools who are working against a backdrop of double standards. It seems a big part of our society is feeding off celebrity culture and individualism that does not produce a set of shared norms and values.