The north wind and the sun – Non-violent resistance to Franklin Graham’s UK tour
The North Wind and the Sun - The sun strips the traveler of his cloak From The Æsop for Children, by Æsop, illustrated by Milo Winter
AS CONTROVERSIAL US preacher Franklin Graham continued his UK tour last weekend, Revd Rose Hill, a priest in the Church In Wales, reflects on the impact of the peaceful, prayerful response she and friends offered.
As a child I loved Aesop’s Fables. I can remember having a rather large (or at least it seemed large to my little hands) picture book. The illustrations were beautiful and at the bottom of each page was a moral for each story.
One of my favourite stories was The Northwind and the Sun. For those of you who are not familiar with it, one day the sun and the north wind take a bet on who can get the coat off a man the quickest.
The wind blows and blows but the man just pulls the coat tighter and tighter to keep warm. The sun just gently radiates heat down on the man and eventually he becomes too warm, and he takes the coat off. Although, the north wind seemed the most likely to do it the quickest because the wind is powerful, it was the sun, taking its time, that eventually won the bet.
This old fable popped into my mind and took root as I reflected on the time I spent outside the ICC Wales arena in Newport on Saturday 21st May, as people gathered for controversial US Evangelist Franklin Graham’s visit to the city on his God Loves You tour of the UK.
As an openly out member of the LGBTQIA+ community and an Anglican priest, people often assume that I’m an ‘angry lesbian’ and an activist turning tables at every opportunity. Now don’t get me wrong, there are times when we have needed and do need activism, and I am perfectly capable of trying to turn tables when I need to. However, at the moment, I am more of an advocate. That is not to say that either way is right or wrong, or that they are mutually exclusive, but sometimes we are called to be the wind, and sometimes we are called to be the sun. Saturday night outside the ICC was a night for the sun to gently warm.
Revd Rose (centre) and friends at ICC Wales as Franklin Graham’s tour came to Newport
I stood with two friends and a Pride flag as people entered the ICC. We decided that we were not going to protest. We were not going to shout. We were not going to be angry. For me, as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, walking into the ICC on Saturday felt like I was putting my hand in a wasp’s nest, but I didn’t want my fear to define me like it defines and governs the actions of those who would pray against me. So, we stood in silence. We stood and gently smiled, and we prayed.
It was interesting to see the reaction of the Franklin Graham tour marshals and security who didn’t quite know what to do with us. They took lots of photos of us and stared a great deal, and then a gentleman in a very expensive looking suit walked towards us.
He started to talk to us about how Revd Graham would not be preaching any hatred but would be preaching Bible truths. My friend responded very clearly and simply that those truths are an interpretation. The man then offered us a personal audience with Rev Graham, which we declined.
Finally, we prayed for each other, and I asked him to take my hands, because it is incredibly hard for someone to ‘other’ and dehumanise somebody when they can feel the warmth of your skin and your humanity physically in their hands.
We prayed for him, for his ministry and for all attending that evening. Our words and his were ambiguous in many ways and probably each meaning very different things when we prayed them, but they were prayed nonetheless, and I wonder what went through people’s minds when they saw him with his hands resting in mine over a Pride flag in prayer.
We stood there for around an hour, and in that time tour chaplains came up to see us, and we shared sweets and smiled together about stories about our children, and they prayed for our families and we theirs.
A journalist also came over to talk to us but lost interest very quickly when he realised that we had no intention of making a scene in the auditorium but instead were simply going to go home once the show started.
Did we change anything huge that Saturday night? Probably not.
Did any of the people we prayed with and for on Saturday have a Damascus moment and suddenly become affirming? Probably not.
Maybe one of the men (for they were all men) that we prayed with and for went home with the beginnings of a question in their mind - Who knows?
But we were there, and we were a visible sign that actually God does love us, and loves us as we are and where we are, not despite of who we are but because of who we are.
To hold hands with these people that might so easily pray against me and for them to see my humanity and I theirs’ as we prayed for each other was incredibly emotional and a real feeling that this was what Jesus meant by turning the other cheek.
For a moment in time their prejudice (and my own) was challenged. Sharing of a bag of sweets was like breaking bread together.