蜜芽传媒

This month, I attended a reunion of students who worked on my university newspaper 20 years ago. Reconnecting with people I鈥檇 not seen for many years was like stepping into a time machine. The sense of nostalgia was joyous.
University was one of the few sustained periods in my life in which I鈥檝e lived and worked - and danced - alongside people whose views and backgrounds were totally different to my own.

This week, Dr Arif Ahmed, director for free speech at the Office of Students, said students should 鈥渆xpect to face views鈥� they 鈥渕ight find shocking or offensive鈥�. It鈥檚 part of the process of education, he said. His organisation can sanction universities with fines potentially running into the millions of pounds if they are found not to have upheld free speech.

This is, of course, a thorny issue. The differences I encountered at university did not put me in any physical danger, nor did they express hatred towards me. Some speech does do that, and walking the tightrope between upholding these freedoms and protecting people 鈥� especially from marginalised groups 鈥� is one of the biggest challenges of our pluralistic society.

I was shaped by difference at university 鈥� my views sometimes abandoned, sometimes sharpened by being presented with other points of view. I saw this in action during the parliamentary debate on assisted dying yesterday .

Demographic studies show we as a society are now far less likely to come into sustained physical contact with people unlike ourselves.
Parliament 鈥� like university - is one of those places that does hold together difference in one physical space.
I鈥檒l admit the institutional Church has not been a shining example of doing this well. We too are fractured. But the earliest church communities, in which people came together from different backgrounds and religions and political positions to form a new community, were. Here, we read in Ephesians, the 鈥渄ividing wall of hostility鈥� was broken down.

For me, the beauty of being part of a church community; worshipping and communing and hearing about each other鈥檚 lives, is that it is a weekly moment in which I am part of a body that holds together difference, even when it is uncomfortable. And even when we are confronted with views opposed to our own. Christian ritual confronts us with this call for unity despite difference in inviting us to share the peace with each other and to take communion together.
We gather in spite of our difference, but around something 鈥� or someone 鈥� else entirely.

On a Sunday morning, when the early Church lived together and shared everything they had, just as during those years at university, it is the intensity of shared space that perhaps makes it so unique.
Perhaps, as philosopher Martin Buber once said: 鈥淎ll living is meeting.鈥�

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