Reflecting on the Sins of Yesteryear

Farage has equivocated in defending himself, at times saying the stories are lies and a media witch hunt, but in a BBC interview stating that he has “said things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being banter in a playground, that you can interpret in the modern light of day in ‘some sort of way’.” He added that “I’ve never directly racially abused anybody.”

On the other side of the argument, I personally find it hard to believe that Farage’s peers would simply make such stories up, given the abuse and social media ‘pile on’ that they expose themselves to from speaking out. I would also add, as someone who experienced bullying myself from the ages of 11 to 14, that the ability to remember expressions and mannerisms rings true. This stuff gets deep inside you.

At one level, this is a story about just one man, albeit a highly relevant one. However, given how serious a contender for the role of Prime Minister Farage could be by the time of the next general election, and just how horrible the alleged abuse was, the behaviour, if true, reflects shamefully on his character.

But at another level it could be about all of us. Because most of us, at some level, can be on either or both sides of the coin in this story. Almost all of us have had things done to us in childhood that we would like to forget, but almost all of us did some things that we would prefer not to be remembered.

Jesus said that to enter the kingdom of God, we should all become as little children – curious, imaginative, innocent and trusting. But for many of us, to be a child may also be to be cruel, at some level, at some point or another. To be a child is to be jealous, to tell tales, to tease, or bully and exclude.

It may be all too easy to try to tell ourselves, ‘That wasn’t me, it was some other person’, but – let us be honest – ‘it was me’ when I am wounded and still carry the scars, so it must also have been me when the wounds were inflicted on another person.

Among the main characters in the book of Genesis is Joseph, who was aged just 17 – the same age as Farage and some of his accusers at the time of his reported bullying – when his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. Around 22 years after those devasting events, Joseph had risen to be Prime Minister of Egypt, but the depth of his pain is exposed, when he sees his brothers again. Genesis records him weeping several times.

He wept in chapter 42v24, after overhearing Reuben rebuke his other brothers for harming him decades earlier. He weeps in chapter 43v30 when he first sees Benjamin and in chapter 45v14 when he is reunited with Benjamin and his other brothers. He weeps ‘for a long time’ we are told when reunited with Jacob in chapter 46v29 and when his father dies in chapter 50v1. He weeps a second time in chapter 50v17 when his brothers ask for forgiveness.

David is the only person who cries more than Joseph in the Bible, and whilst David’s tears are spread across several events and many years, all Joseph’s crying flows from one event in his life.

And – in his woundedness – Joseph lashes out. Before he shows his hand and reveals himself to his brothers, he pretends to be a stranger, speaks harshly to his brothers, and accuses them of spying. He intimidates them and seemingly enjoys himself in the process. He can later say that they meant what happened for harm, but God meant it for good, but that does not lessen the pain or blunt the temptation for vengefulness.

The absolute and most accurate recollection of what happened at Dulwich School 40 to 50 years ago – and also of what Contemporary Christianity PS readers may have done or had done to them in childhood – resides in the dwelling place of God the Lord. Sanctification is a slow and tender work that in the gentle wisdom of God is designed to take a lifetime to realise its fullness, and as holiness matures in our later years, it may be only then that full clarity emerges about how we were victims or offenders in our earliest years. But whatever our memories might recall from decades ago, we can find hope today in God’s continued and loving ability to both forgive our waywardness and redeem our suffering, however long ago it was.