Silver Ring Controversy
BBC is reporting 16 year old Lydia Playfoot taking her school to the high court for stopping her wearing a "purity ring". It's a "silver ring thing" ring!
Lydia's own site and info on the case can be found here.
According to the BBC:
"She alleges discrimination because the school allows Sikh and Muslim pupils to wear bracelets and headscarves"
And so the key issue seems to be is the ring a valid and integral expression of Christian faith.
It's an interesting issue - part of me admires a 16year old's strength in wanting to fight, but I'm not sure what I think. Is this really worth it? Surely there are more important things to be spending time and money on?
And it's interesting that Lydia's family appear to be part of the UK Silver Ring thing set up!
BBC is reporting 16 year old Lydia Playfoot taking her school to the high court for stopping her wearing a "purity ring". It's a "silver ring thing" ring!
Lydia's own site and info on the case can be found here.
According to the BBC:
"She alleges discrimination because the school allows Sikh and Muslim pupils to wear bracelets and headscarves"
And so the key issue seems to be is the ring a valid and integral expression of Christian faith.
It's an interesting issue - part of me admires a 16year old's strength in wanting to fight, but I'm not sure what I think. Is this really worth it? Surely there are more important things to be spending time and money on?
And it's interesting that Lydia's family appear to be part of the UK Silver Ring thing set up!
Labels: Silver Ring Thing, Youth Ministry
3 Comments:
yeah - I think I agree there are far more important things.
I don't like the anti-other religion stance that is being given to this either. It does not seem to be discrimination, rather allowing freedom - whearas Sikh and Muslim holy writings stipulate certain things should be work as part of faith, Christianity makes no suxch instruction ... I think it's something about grace that seems to be lacking in this case.
Your detective skills at showing her parents involved in the Ring thing cause suspicions to come to mind.
Hello, please read my post on this as I know the people involved personally. If you put aside all the hype, media frenzy and plain ignorant views of some folks that seem to be commenting on this you'll find the whole thing is actually quite simple.
She has signed up to the Silver Ring Thing and chosen to wear the ring ,that is simply a ring nothing more, as an expression of her desire to remain chaste until marriage. She feels her school was unfair in its demand that she remove the ring when they allow exceptions for other expression of different faiths. That is the crux of the matter!
She has not been pushed into this, she is not naive and this is her choice to follow this to its conclusion, whatever that may be.
Whatever you may personally believe about it she should be applauded for actually standing up and being counted for something she believes in and making a stand against this liberal PC society in which we live.
Thanks for the comments! Interesting...I've just got hold of a book "Faith and Politics after Christendom". Seems this is the wider picture for me - how do we stand up for what we believe in a post-Christian society? Andrew describes it as "liberal" - but is that such a bad thing?
As I said a 16year old willing to take a stand for what she believes is good. But I've been struck recently by the need to be sure we are standing for the Kingdom of God, not some mythical ideal of a Christain nation that has long since past. If it's genuinely an issue of religious liberty then lets get worked up about it. If not then let it go...
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