Apologetics, like comedy, requires that we are able to challenge points of view, express unusual opinions and think outside of the box. Apologetics, also like comedy, is not to the taste of the easily offended.
In February 2021 Merseyside Police had to issue an apology over a poster campaign which had claimed ‘Being Offensive is an Offence’. The force had released an unfortunate media picture of a police van bearing the false claim and including four menacing police offers, one holding what could be interpreted as a cane. In the wake of widespread criticism it was withdrawn and the apology issued. According to the Crown Prosecution Service finding something offensive does not mean you are a victim of a crime and causing someone offence does not mean you have committed a crime.
All this sounds like common sense, which leads one to wonder what educated, well-paid public servant ever thought it right to create a poster bearing the statement ‘Being Offensive is an Offence’ in the first place? To answer that we need to pay attention to shifts in the climate of academia where there can be a reluctance to think out loud or express contrary views.
Safe spaces
Some people have identified this as part of the move to create safe spaces in universities. The idea of a ‘safe space’ began in America and was quickly picked up in the UK. The original idea was that minority groups who might feel threatened could have safe spaces to meet without fear of threat or harassment.
But good intentions can have unexpected consequences. In some places of higher education the creation of so-called safe spaces has promoted a toxic culture that shuts down free speech, honest enquiry and reasonable debate.
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt have described the rise of this distortion in their book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018). They point out that somewhere along the line the need for a ‘physical’ safe space became the need for an ‘emotional’ safe space and as a result some American universities became more concerned with protecting their students from ideas than challenging them to critical thinking. Notice how descriptions of ‘safe spaces’ often include ambitions like protecting students from feeling uncomfortable.
Daring to think differently
Over claims of holding ‘transphobic’ views, universities have seen speakers no-platformed (cancelled), such as Germaine Greer and Peter Tatchell – hardly defenders of traditional moral values. But among more radical voices even those thinkers don’t go far enough. And these radical voices prefer to cancel their opponents than debate them.
This trajectory of banning those who think differently has reached an extraordinary point with the resignation of Professor Kathleen Stock from the University of Sussex. The lesbian, feminist, philosophy professor had published work questioning aspects of the trans agenda, Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (2021). The result has been a campaign of quite vitriolic opposition to her position at the university. Feeling that she lacked even the support of the university she resigned from her post. As a founder of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance one might have expected her views to at least gain a hearing, but instead her voice was drowned out. Ironically, in the name of protecting students from ‘unsafe ideas’, Stock herself was subjected to some of the nastiest, physical threats to her safety.
Responding to the claim that her ideas made some students feel unsafe, she told BBC Radio’s Woman’s Hour: ‘Whether you feel unsafe and whether you are unsafe are two different things. As philosophers we constantly distinguish between appearances and reality.’
The unsafe gospel
Jesus Christ never came to make people safe. The New Testament call to discipleship is not a call to safety. And conversion is often a crisis where old ideas are found to have failed and a new birth accompanies a change of mind. It is easy to be pessimistic at the direction of travel in our society but at least the Merseyside Police Force were called out and had to retract. And there are now many in Higher Education belatedly coming to Kathleen Stock’s defence. Christians are not the only ones supporting the shared aim of creating a society where people can be safe from harassment or bullying, but resisting the blurring of this aim with the censoring of alternative ideas and the right to free speech.
