At a modern slavery awareness-raising event, Bishop Alastair Redfern, Chair of The Clewer Initiative, spoke about his vision for 10 commandments to combat modern slavery.  We thank Bishop Alastair for allowing us to share these with you.

1. Build Resilient Communities

We need to resource the communities in which our churches are set to know about this issue, to be able to notice, respond and reach out.  The gospel emerges out of our learning to love our neighbour as ourselves – by taking appropriate action.

2. Broaden Christian Mission Priorities

We are in danger of focusing mission on the need to recruit more members and stabilise our finances.  The core of the gospel is to notice the unnoticed and make a difference.  Modern slavery is the most pressing moral issue of our time – present in every community – and the church needs to make a witness that we find Christ in those whose vulnerability results in suffering and social silencing.

3. Be Always On The Way

Discipleship happens on the road from Jerusalem, the place of worship, to Jericho.  As we go out – to love and serve the lord – like the good Samaritan, we are challenged to look, notice, act, create partnerships with others, like the innkeeper, and vow to come back and do whatever it takes for full restoration and justice.

4. Break The Silence About Sexuality

We live in a world where a sexuality is taken to mean my choice about what might bring me pleasure.  Christian teaching is clear that sexuality is a gift to be pursued within committed relationships – not a free for all.  The illustration from the police that in Guildford on any one day there are 1500 adverts for sexual services is a measure of the challenge and the necessity.

5. Break The Silence About Children

There used to be a moral stop about children – to be protected and given space to grow at their own pace.  The increasing sexual exploitation of children, and their use in forced labour, is a sign of an alarming lack of respect for the preciousness of childhood.  There is an urgent need for Christian witness that children are to be protected and cherished – not exploited and corrupted.

6. Break The Silence About Sin

We all have motes in our own eyes and need to live by the discipline of confession and forgiveness.  However, our liberal culture seems keen to affirm any individual choice of lifestyle, behaviour, and values.  Jesus begins the gospel with the word ‘Repent’ – and our society desperately needs the good news of the call to own failings, and to seek forgiveness.  Such a message is based on the reality that we do things that are wrong – and this must be acknowledged with humility.  Then people can gather around prevention and rescue, with humility and confidence.

7. Be Convening Spaces For Goodness

Many trust the church to be on the side of goodness.  This presents opportunities to develop partnerships with statutory and voluntary groups who are trying to help us tackle the evils of modern slavery.  We need to be proactive in looking out for others, offer appropriate support, increase the capacity to challenge exploitation, and bring good news to victims and survivors.

8. Be Charitable

The word Caritas means to love the other for their own sake, and not for our own.  As Love has been reduced to a notion of what any person likes, we need to make a strong witness to the love that goes the extra mile, carries the cross and pays the price – all for the sake of those who need this focused and effective witness.

9. Be Bold In New Ways

Saint Paul is bold in challenging Philemon to think differently about Onesimus, who had been his slave.  We need to be proactive in inviting people not just to think differently, but to act differently.  We have enormous power as consumers to ask questions about cheap goods and services: a good example, would be the safe car wash app.  Many of us have freedoms as citizens to ask questions of political and statutory policies and systems.  Change will come more quickly through a boldness that is driven by concern for the suffering, rather than seeking to tweak certain ideals.

10. Be A Voice For The Voiceless

We need to learn from those who have suffered, and raise our voices in prayer, in speaking to those in power, in our contributions to work with statutory and voluntary agencies, and in sharing the challenges with all who will listen.  We are called to be joined in the Body of Christ, informed by His concern to set the oppressed free, so as to create new life for all – through a radical love of others.  Playing our part in the Word made flesh as Good News which can let the oppressed go free.