Inclusion matters
The Very Rev Dr John Chalmers reflects on the importance of welcome and inclusiveness.
WITHIN its Faith Action Programme the Church of Scotland has formed an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. Its task is to help us address areas of our life where prejudice, discrimination and bias still exist.
We do try to be people who are welcoming, understanding and without prejudice, but we don’t always get it right.
We also like to think that, if there is any kind of prejudice or discrimination in our ranks, it must have crept in from outside, but history reveals a different story. The reality is that as long as human beings have been on the earth they have found ways of sticking to their own kind and excluding those who are different. Evidence of this is even found in the scriptures which underpin our Christian faith.